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Thanks to those percussion websites that my descriptive articles on frame drums, particularly on daf and ghaval have been
published; frame drums of Persia (Iran) have been promoted, say, a little bit more than that time that I was offline.
Peyman on Daf
Some European members of the frame drummer group -- a discussion forum powered by Yahoo and established and started by
Dell Taylor, a student of Layne Redmond - have decided to organize a European meeting for having concerts and workshops on
frame drums. These international meetings and visits will definitely help us to understand our cultures more and more and
hopefully will help to the promotion of peace, love and respect. The following note that is really small can be a background
for further researches, I hope.
There are various kinds of drums in Persia (Iran). These drums have traveled from Persia to some other countries and vice
versa. Lots of documents are necessary to find and trace these trips! Today that Internet is connecting people to each other
and every single day more people are becoming online, then the journey of drums is becoming easier and easier.
For example, when I became online and invited by Eric Stuer to join FDG, I found that some people were discussing about
"pandeiro". Then I wondered! What kind of frame drum is this? What is this "deiro" that constitutes a
part of the name of this wonderful frame drum? Is this "deiro" related to the "doira", a dialect of "dayereh"
that means circle and is the name of Persian medium-sized frame drum?
Again, when Juanjo Fernández wrote me about "adufe", then without any doubt I noticed that there must have been
a relationship between this frame drum and "daf", the Persian frame drum.
In present Persian music - I mean classical and regional music of Iran - small-sized frame drums are not used, though
they were used in the past according to ancient Persian paintings (miniatures). Even in classical music of Iran, dayereh is
not used. Only there was a dayereh player, the late maestro Mahmoud Farnam who was used to accompany the very famous tar (Persian
long-necked lute) player, the late maestro Gholam Hossein Bigchekhani, both of them from Tabriz city, the center of East Azerbaijan
province of Iran. I guess this is because of the use of dayereh in Azerbaijani classical and folk music.
Dayereh in Azerbaijan is called ghaval, the name that some American frame drummers such as Glen Velez, Layne Redmond and
N. Scott Robinson and some Western drum companies such as Cooperman use.
In Europe, we have a great drum maker, Eckermann that makes natural skinned ghavals. Thanks to all these great frame drummers
and drum makers, ghaval has been promoted in the Western world, though their style is not as traditional as Persian/Azeri
style. Only I have known Eliana Gilad who plays daira (Uzbek frame drum, very similar to Azeri ghaval) with traditional Uzbek
style.
The interests to ghaval are going to be increased more and more. Some of my articles have been translated into French,
Norwegian and recently Russian. Thank you all!
It is so strange that though ghaval is not used in Persian classical music, it is promoted in the West broadly, while
daf (I mean Persian/Kurdish style not Arabic one) that has been promoted in Iran very broadly and has been used in Persian
classical music more than ever, it is more or less unknown in the West.
Many famous poets of Persia, particularly those ones who were Sufi or interested in Sufism, have been mentioned to the
daf, this spiritual frame drum, for many times. Therefore it is known as a Sufi frame drum played in khanghah (temple of Persian
Sufis).
Thanks to many Iranian musicians, daf has been used in all genres of music in Iran. But more promotion in the Western
world is necessary!
Date of publication: Thursday, 02 December 2004.
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