3,4,5 of Segah, Chahargah, Rast Panjgah?

Quote: Originally posted by Chris-Stephens

Rast used to be called Yegah in Turkish music? Interesting. And what was Dugah? Bayati? In Persian Tar playing, Rast is a downstroke with the mezrab, as opposed to an upstroke - Chap. But it does make sense that Yegah would be the lowest (first) note on the instrument.

Dastgah also means "system" or "machine". Dast + gah: Hand+position; position of hands, or system of positioning hands (on a fingerboard).

So when you think of the term Dastgah-e Segah for example, you can derive that this means a system based on the third position (or third degree in western music). As it literally can be interpreted as "System of Third position".

When you look at the formulation of the Radif and when you musically see all the inner connections that exist in Dastgah-e Segah, it is clearly an elaborate system.

So I speculate that way back in antiquity, a system of 7 notes was discovered and delineated. Each note had a position on the fingerboard, and similar to Greek modes, you could derive different modes depending on which note you chose as the tonal centre. Then as music developed and gave rise to different tonalities, different intervals were introduced and became conventional but these new modes with different intervals had starting positions directly related to the hand positions which may have became note names as they are in Turkish and Arabic music. So you now have some modes which are named Segah, Dogah etc but have evolved differently.

(Side anecdote: I don't think it's a coincidence that there are also 7 main Dastgah in the Persian system, 6 maqams in Uighur music, 7 heavens (originating in middle eastern mystic/philosophical schools), 7 chakras, 7 valleys (Al-Ghazzali sufism. It's the devil's work if you ask me ) I think these musical discoveries influenced philosophy and vice versa.

Remnants of this exist today in the relationship between Maqam Rast and Maqam Segah, and Dastgah-e Shur and Bayat-e Tork (previously known as Bayat-e Zand until the Turk Qajars came into power).

Shur:
G Aqb Bb C Dqb/D Eb F G
Bayat-e Tork:
Bb C D Eb F G Aqb Bb

Bayat-e Tork is a modulation to the tonal centre on Bb. That's why it's derived from Shur, even though it sounds completely different.

As mentioned in other comments, I think things evolved and changed, became lost, names stayed the same, but reality changed.

There is virtually no continuity in modal music when you look at the modern conventions still used, but there seems to be some inkling of some kind of elaborate system that was used in the past and spread, and evolved, or was discovered simultaneously in different cultures.

Thanks Navid, I suppose that's the best answer I could hope for! I'm still curious about what those positions would have been, and on what instrument but I guess we'll never know

And yes 7 is considered to have many divine properties, 7 deadly sins, 7 colors in the rainbow, 7 seas, 7 days a week, 7 wonders of the world, 7 sages, the list is very long!