Mike's Oud Forums

Armenian Oud with Quarter Tones

yavaran - 3-28-2017 at 10:13 AM

Hi Everyone,

Thanks to a great file transfer from John Erlich and some purchases in California, I am now swimming in great Armenian sheet music.

However, I am finding that many written arrangements these days do not use quarter tones, even when I have sense that the original piece was in some sort of maqam.

Does anyone have a good resource of sheet music, or even audio recordings, where Armenian music is played with micro tones and quarter tones? I understand the musicological implications of Armenian preserved music after Komitas, but still I figured it is worth asking.

Thanks!

John Erlich - 3-28-2017 at 02:14 PM

Quote: Originally posted by yavaran  
Hi Everyone,

Thanks to a great file transfer from John Erlich and some purchases in California, I am now swimming in great Armenian sheet music.

However, I am finding that many written arrangements these days do not use quarter tones, even when I have sense that the original piece was in some sort of maqam.

Does anyone have a good resource of sheet music, or even audio recordings, where Armenian music is played with micro tones and quarter tones? I understand the musicological implications of Armenian preserved music after Komitas, but still I figured it is worth asking.

Thanks!


My favorite Armenian oud player, especially for use of makam and microtones, is Richard Hagopian: https://www.amazon.com/Richard-Hagopian/e/B000APZ2U8/ref=dp_byline_c...

John Erlich - 3-28-2017 at 02:15 PM

I also like this one recording by Garo Petrosyan: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/oud-taksim/id699669401

hartun - 4-4-2017 at 08:34 AM

There is no location to find sheet music for Armenian music using microtones/quartertones. Every Armenian oud player that uses microtones plays from ear, essentially. Some of them might use sheet music for some Turkish songs. Of course as you may know most Armenian oud players are steeped in the Turkish repertoire, especially pieces written by Armenians.

I think John Bilezikjian was working on a book to remedy this problem but he passed away before it could be completed.

Adam Good transcribed a Laz Bar entitled Hai Aghchig Char Aghchig that M. Douzjian recorded in the 1920s. The makam was ussak. I supplied the lyrics. Other than that, I haven't seen anything.

Not only is there no Armenian sheet music with quartertones, there's almost no notation of Western/Ottoman Armenian folk music period whether or not they included the quartertones.

As for audio recordings, look for Richard Hagopian, John Berberian, John Bilezikjian, George Mgrdichian, Chick Ganimian, and of course Udi Hrant. They all use microtones. You might try to find some recordings by Mal Barsamian as well.

There's also Marko Melkon but his repertoire is almost entirely Turkish, language and all. You can also look for the older 78 rpm artists but almost all of them tuned their ouds to A flat.

The best place to start is with Richard Hagopian, in my opinion. Try "Best of Armenian Folk Music" and "Armenian Music Through the Ages" in addition to the "Kef Time Band" albums.

Harry

hartun - 4-4-2017 at 08:38 AM

By the way I should say that typically Armenians playing kef music tuned to EABead but played on high A (second string) When they do a solo oud CD like the two by Hagopian that I mentioned they play out of E as in Turkish classical music.

Hagopian's later live videos and bootleg recordings that are out there, he is tuned down into Arabic tuning but he's still playing on the second string so he's playing out of G. He and several other oudists did this because they couldn't sing high enough to play out of A anymore.

yavaran - 4-5-2017 at 10:26 AM

Thank you so much for the info Hartun! Again, another sad reminder of how much more John Bilezikjian had to contribute to the community.

Thank you for clarifying about the existence/lack of Western Armenian notation. Quite a shame because similarly the eastern music that is written down is in a similar situation--all with western intonation, requiring performers to just intuit the quarter tones.

Do you have the pdf of hye aghchig char aghchig with quarter tones? If so it would be great to see and share with friends.

sanoud - 4-7-2017 at 03:13 AM

Forgive me if this link has been posted before:

https://issuu.com/theschoolofarmenianoud/docs/i_girq__lriv

Three parts in all. Exercises early on but then a lot of sheet music after that, looks like full scores with the melodies transcribed for oud by the instructor/author. Most of the text is in Armenian, so there might be mention of quarter tones, but the time signatures don't seem to suggest any. Some folk songs and dances, though.

hartun - 4-18-2017 at 04:42 AM

"School of Armenian Oud' does not include quarter tones as far as I know. It comes out of the style of oud played in Soviet Armenia.

From what I understand in Soviet Armenia they tried to rid the oud playing of quarter tones, and the kanun playing as well. They would build Turkish style kanun's and only have a few mandals on them, only allowing for western tones. This continued after independence from the Soviet Union. It wasn't really a Soviet influence, it was an Armenian nationalist influence that merely became predominant during the Soviet Era as Armenia was a semi-autonomous republic within the USSR.

Therefore most of the Eastern Armenian music is without quarter tones, today.

The only time I think quarter tones come in is in the playing of duduk when they bend certain notes to stay within the Caucasian mughams. The same would go for the playing of tar. These instruments are played according to traditional style in Armenia today. (It seems to me, but of this even I am not sure. Certainly they don't write the music down according to quartertones notation.)

But oud and kanun are not native to Eastern Armenia. They were brought there from Western Armenia and Turkey after the Genocide. Then Armenians tried to "cleanse" them of "Turkish influence" by getting rid of quartertones in their playing.

A loss to music and culture for the Armenians, whose intelligentsia constantly wanted us to be "western."

In the oral tradition of Western Armenian folk music, mainly in the US, and in the oral tradition of Armenian church music, mainly in Istanbul, Armenians have kept the eastern intonations. However these are oral and not written traditions, for the most part. To some extent the church music has been written down occasionally with quartertones but even such books are very very hard to find. As for the folk music, it hasn't been written. Only for Turkish songs will you find such music, which occasionally have the same melodies as Armenian songs. Even when Western Armenian folk music was written down, it was by classically Western trained musicians who didn't understand makams. Even that sheet music is very rare, and as I understand it, has many inaccuracies. The only way to learn Western Armenian folk music is by ear, I'm sorry to say.