Iranian Classical Music: The Discourses and Practice of Creativity by Laudan Nooshin (review)

Abstract

Iranian Classical Music: The Discourses and Practice of Creativity. By Laudan Nooshin. (SOAS Musicology Series.) Surrey, Eng.: Ashgate, 2015. [xiv, 242 p. ISBN 9780754607038. $119.95.) CD, music examples, appendices, bibliography, index. Within last few years there have been a number of compelling books published on subject of Iranian classical music (e.g., Rob Simms and Amir Koushkani, The Art of Avaz and Mohammad Reza Shajarian: Foundations and Contexts [Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2012]; and Owen Wright, Touraj Kiaras and Persian Classical Music: An Analytical Perspective [Farnham, Surrey, Eng.: Ashgate, 2009]). Laudan Nooshin's Iranian Classical Music: The Discourses and Practice of Creativity joins these books as it investigates creative practices in Iranian music from a unique point of view. Combining both analytical and ethnographic methodologies, Nooshin questions improvisational nature of Iranian music, which for decades has been regarded as one of its most fundamental characteristics. This book draws upon over two decades of Nooshin's research, observations, and reflections on issue. Aware of its colonial roots, she goes beyond improvisation/composition binary and focuses on a wider concept that unifies two: the creative impulse that makes us human (p. 177). In first chapter, Nooshin introduces and criticizes discourses through which concept of musical creativity has been approached by folk music scholars, musicologists, and ethnomusicologists. Although chapter rarely refers to Iranian classical music, it provides a solid foundation for discussions that follow. Her focus on issues of difference and power at beginning of chapter demonstrates how musical creativity has been used as a marker of difference. While composition has been associated with West, and its (male) composers have been regarded as loci of creative agency, non-Western musics have been described as improvisational and its performers (arguably) unable to creatively compose. By concentrating on improvisation/composition binary, she investigates discursive fundamentals that created these two concepts and assumed them to be essentially different. Nooshin argues that difference, perpetuated by both Western and non-Western musicians and scholars, has been reified through composition/improvisation binary. She argues, this reification of 'improvisation' as a category separate from other forms of creative practice needs to be rethought (p. 21). The chapter closes with book's central question: What would an approach to creative practice in Iranian classical music that went beyond arguably unhelpful improvisation/composition paradigm look like? (p. 27) Chapter 2 focuses on how creative practice has been approached by musicians and scholars of Iranian classical music. Nooshin opens chapter with a relatively brief but highly useful summary of important sociohistorical events and trends that helped shape both practice and scholarship of Iranian classical music. Nooshin discusses fact that although Iranian musicians, according to tradition, are supposed to be creative and not repeat themselves, they are also expected to stay within tradition's boundaries as indicated by canonic repertoire, radif. She shows that for majority of Iranian classical musicians, especially older generations, ability to improvise and be creative is mosdy associated with a musician's talent, and is not something that can be learned. That Godgiven gift, however, can only be trained and nurtured through learning radif. As Nooshin demonstrates, relationship between creative practice and canonic repertoire, or how closely a performance should stay within or stray from radif, has been one of most important issues discussed by musicians and scholars of Iranian classical music. The author puts radif at heart of chapter 3, providing reader with a comprehensive discussion of its history, roles, functions, and symbolic meaning within tradition of Iranian classical music. …