Tonal Practice

Hamidreza Ardalan,                                             Tehran Experimental Orchestra
Total Time 72:48

Shahram Tavakoli : Violin
Bahram Jamali : Setar
Golnaz Jamshidi : Santur
Bita Razavi : Setar, Shourangiz
Nazanin Rousta : Bass Tar
Mehdi Oloumi : Kamancheh
Milad Omranlou : Percussion
Babak Modaress : Ney
Gelareh Naseri : Piano

Being founded and conducted by Hamidreza Ardalan, the Tehran Experimental Orchestra is trying to build up new interpretations on the rich treasure of the Traditional and Folklore musical repertoire in Iran. Using Persian musical textures and instrumentations in a kind of experimental composition, Tonal Practice tries to merge the borders of traditional and modern music.
In recent experiences the relation of music with work is emphasized and therefore some of the pieces on this album come under the heading "Work and Music".

LUBBERLAND

Based on Peter Schumann’s type - melodies Hamidreza Ardalan, Tehran Experimental Orchestra

Peter Schumann : Fiddle sermon
Shahram Tavakoli : Violin
Bahram Jamali : Setar
Golnaz Jamshidi : Santur
Bita Razavi: Setar, Shourangiz
Nazanin Rousta: Bass Tar
Mehdi Oloumi: Kamancheh
Milad Omranlou: Percussion
Babak Modaressi: Ney
Gelareh Naseri: Piano

The Tehran Experimental Orchestra’ s many experiences since 2003 include concerts such as the one in association with the tambur-players Kerend (Western Iran), a concert with Peter Schumann (founder of Bread and Puppet), a concert in Rudaki Hall (Tehran ).The Kurdish Music Festival in Soleimaniyeh (Iraq),and...

Moori 1

Alef Orcestra                                                          Over some eastern music ideas from             Hamid-Reza Ardalan                               

Blue Moori
One can hear, here, the mental combination of the elements of regional music of Iran with the intervals and forms of modern musical sounds. The experience of the Muri is an escape from the self into a necessary space which then expresses a grieving of being in a strange land and questioning of the past:
Despite the original goal of the Muri coming into being, prejudice is involved in the combination of sounds.
Use has been made of the intervals in abstract, and the repetition of rhythms and melodies in the various variations belonging to the chant-like (zekr) tendencies of iranian music, alongside the creation of various material spaces of occidental lands.

Moori 2

Modern Duet                                                             Over some eastern music ideas from            Hamid-Reza Ardalan                                      Piano Mohsen Kouhestani -Hamid-reza Ardalan 

This is a collection of abstract melodies which are adopted from moori songs.
In some of the moori renditions an attempt to express again the abstract adopted melodies has been made, and in fusion with the musicians' intuitions this becomes a singular musical piece. The way of approaching the subject of deletion of the intervals and increasing or decreasing these intervals, yielded passages based upon musical phrases of ancients moori melodies in variations which either remind one of the original melodies, or with similar repetitious rhythms they become similar to chants. In some of the mental structures of the pieces, the protectors of the Ahl-Haq melodies interpret within a time-space atmosphere in a two-fold manner, which is a comparative method used in ancient times depending on permanence and impermanence in time and bearing a relation to the unity of sounds.

Moori 3

Modern Duet                                                          Over some eastern music ideas from             Hamid-Reza Ardalan                                      Piano Mohsen Kouhestani                                   Violin Hamidreza Ardalan                                     

Experimental Orchestra
Blue Muri was an experimental practice for graduates in composition and performance of the Tehran Art University, for them to become familiar with the instrument as an unending acoustic source while getting to know different instruments, performance and composite sounds within an intuitional and rational cycle through the forced performance of some motifs and sound colonies, allowing the performers to express mental images of their own in terms of continually wandering sounds. In this way during the process of performance an invisible harmonising agreement between the planner of the melodies and the producers (musician performers) comes into being.

Jen Engendering in Metaphysics

Hamid-Reza Ardalan                                    Tehran Experimental Orchestra                             

Jen Engendering within Metaphysics
The bases of modern art took shape within modern man himself, the plurality of data caused the production of new sound products, and the whole world consumes these goods on different levels. The essence of this mode is metaphysical and non-communal. When humans ask about beings, and do not consider other understanding and questioning necessary, sounds tend to gather in a collage kind of way into separate units. All the while the collage-sounds are essentially enhancing forgetfulness and abstractionism. "Jen Engendering in Metaphysics" is a study of sounds of different origins (the musicians themselves ) however in the dialectical pathway through time and space they are seeking a unifying synthesis. Drawing on rational bases and definitions of the intervals, the length of the notes and metre etc.…. the musicians are guided towards questions regarding the essence of the notes and reasons for their coming into expression. In the creative process of these pieces, the written guidelines for the group came into being and gradually were changed by each musician. Here the origin of the sounds are the whole group, so that perhaps the original goal might be realized. The title "Jen Engendering in Metaphysics" and its musical counterpart, is the most important abstraction that is thrown into the musicians' minds.

The Homeless / Streetpeople

Hamid-Reza Ardalan                                     Tehran Experimental Orchestra                            

Subjectivism is not only an event in language. In sounds, designs, bodies and…it appears. The probability of humans exiting from subjectivism and from attributing central importance to the self always exists. The adjective belongs to the modern cycles after the loss of the human communal sphere. In contraposition to the increasing darkness and impotence of language in expressing meaning, (this influencing the manifestation of subjective sounds), the ways of exiting this sphere can be provided for through roots of language. The dreams of the homeless change into questions about the division between humans and the flagrant conceptualism of the present modern age. Before dying of famine, in the cold chill of time and space, lacking any companion or friend in need, s/he gathers all human strength to create homogeneity out of the plurality of dissonants sounds produced in a city in some part of her/his being. However, in the method of performance, each of the musicians have practiced the technique of the piece alone, and at the moment of the group performance they had no inkling of the preparations of the others……freedom in the choice of motifs, adaptation and repetition of others' melodies, allowing the increase or decrease of the tones chromatically or sometimes to the extent of a whole tone, deliberate silences and… these were some of the rational rules followed.