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Persian Traditional Music

Attention please: Currently, all Easy Persian lessons and CDs are available only on Easypersian.com. Do not purchase the Easy Persian lessons or the CDs from other sites or agents. I’ll appreciate your reports should you face any.

“When words end, music starts”

I have a very close friend. We grew up together. We shared our thoughts, difficulties, experiences, and we enjoyed our life together. As schoolboys, we lived in Persian poetry together and we never got tired of it. Most of the poems I remember today are what I learned during that period. Once in high school, we wrote a long poem together (more than 35 couplets) in which we had mentioned all of our 39 classmates’ and our literature teacher’s name. I still remember the day when I read that poem in the class. For the rest of the day, the students were earnestly busy writing that poem somewhere in their notebooks. We had changed a science course into a literary one!

Recently, I sent him a message and talked to him about the Easy Persian website. I expected to find him happy. You know what happened? He wrote me back and said: “I saw your site. You are a traitor! (Some friendly insulting words here!), you have introduced such and such pop singer on your site but I did not find a single word about the masters of Persian music such as Shajarian on your pages. Ferdowsi spent thirty years of his best life to keep the Persian language alive. But you have not spent a couple of days on our music. Are you happy that you have a website?”

Well, I felt sorry for myself and that is one of the main reasons why I am here before the due time! Poor Hassan!

Persian traditional music has a very deep root in our history. Poets of old days had very touching voice as well to sing their poems aloud so that everybody could enjoy it. One of our very old musical instruments is called Chang /chæng/, which was used widely by the people of those days. Usually, the poets would write their poems, play Chang and sing in such a way that crowds of people would gather to listen and enjoy. Can you imagine how beautiful their voice must have been that, without using any kind of these modern sound systems, they could attract the entire country?

From among such poets, there appeared a man who stood at the top forever. He never wrote his own poems with his own hands. He did not think of what he was going to sing. Like a pregnant woman, whenever he felt pain he jumped and spun around to give birth to an everlasting child and that child was his poem. He would lose his control and, like a mad person, he would dance, he would turn around, he would shout, and he would give birth to what we know as his poem. There were a couple of his students around him, who tried to write his words as much as possible. It was a live performance and the students had only one chance to hear what their master was saying. Great students!! This man was Rumi.

Today, there are great people who have done their very best to let us experience those spinnig-around dances of centuries ago while sitting in our sofas, busy working, or driving our cars. These great people are our musicians whom we owe a lot.

Now, I am introducing the works of such great people. I know that it is not an easy job. The more I introduce and translate such works, the more I am convinced that no translations can fully replace the original message. I deeply hope and pray to see the day when all of you are enjoying such masterpieces of Persia by yourself without the help of any kind of translations.

To end my words, I would like to offer my especial thanks to Paul Hackett for his wonderful advice on the translation of these poems.

Deepest love to all of you.

Your servant,

Hassan H. (Wednesday, February 11, 2004)

About this collection:

  1. This ‘Persian Traditional Music Collection’ includes 13 well-selected songs (about 61 minutes).
  2. Each song is written in Persian font line by line with English phonetics to make reading easy.
  3. The English translation of each song is provided line by line next to each Persian sentence.
  4. Nearly all words in each song are provided separately with their meaning, as well as the necessary explanation, when needed.
  5. The translation of each song and the meaning of the words are provided in PDF format.

Note:

When you order this collection of Persian Love Songs, you will have quick access to all files (both the MP3 and the written files) – mostly on the same day. I usually check my mailbox a couple of times a day. As soon as I receive your order, I will send you a link to the music page where you can have access to the songs and their translation – online.

Thank you.

Price: USD 14 Only

Please, please, please!

After you place the order, please send me, at least, a very short message to let me know about it. By doing this, both you and me will make sure that the order will not be missed for any possible reasons. Thanks a million!

Feel free to visit the sample pages below before you decide to order this collection.

Please note that the sound quality of these songs are ‘as is’ – more or less the same as the samples.

More than 72 Minutes of Persian classical Music

Other CDs Available from Easy Persian