What? Iranian traditional music!

About five years ago, when I was still living in the UK, a good friend of mine – a really pretty Brazilian girl – asked me, what make you happy of being an Iranian? Although it might sound like an easy question, but I didn’t know what to answer. Sadly, for many reasons there is not much that you can feel happy and proud of being Iranian Nowadays. I thought about this question thoroughly and finally found out that there are two things that make me feel really privileged being Iranian, Persian language, which let us nourish from an exceptional archive of amazing classical literature and Iranian traditional/folk music.

Interestingly after I told her this I found out that she was familiar with some of the old Persian poets such as Hafiz and Rumi, but she look bewildered to hear that there is also a really sophisticated musical tradition in the Iranian culture. She knew many traditional instruments that been using in Indian or Chinese traditional music, but she didn’t know many facts about Iranian traditional music and folk music, for example that Tanbur is arguably the oldest string instrument in the recorded human culture. Talking with many foreigners I always get the same feeling that we have not been successful in introducing one of the main part of our cultural identity to the world. This is exactly why, what Rhythmitica doing is simply amazing, which is to provide real possibility for people living outside of Iran not only to hear about Iranian traditional music but also to start learning and experiencing one of the instruments. Personally, as some one who is interested in traditional/folk Iranian music, I will try to help my friends in Rhythmitica to make this blog a place for interesting conversations about the most marvelous invention of human being that is music.