aghzar

zarb is persian too. by the way if you respond to this i am not going to respond back i dont have time to think about this anymore. i have said what i have to say and perhaps you have also. i do not mean any offense to you since i do not even know you. in any case, hagop may be able to answer this better than me. after all he says so called turkish culture was all invented by armenians anyways. why do you think the turks killed us? its because they couldnt stand the fact that they were not a real nation but one that got everything by stealing it from us.

I agree with Hagop the death of our music is the "nintendo keyboard players" who somehow our other friend has appreciated more than the greek band however out of tune they may be. Also in reference to Arpa's comment that she sees noone dancing "shourch bar" at Armenian parties, i must say that at every Armenian party i have ever been to there is an awful lot of line dancing going on. In fact it tends to be the main form of dancing. Maybe it is because i am in fact "Armenian American of Sepastia ancestry", which she also refers to. Although the shourch bar is better, it is not entirely true that the "freestyle" dance is non-Armenian. First of all where i come from we refer to freestyle dance as "tek bar" which comes from turkish word "tek" meaning solo. But recently i discovered in "Hnutiunk Agna" which is a compendium of the various folklore and customs of Agn (written in 1895 by a man who grew up in Agn in the 1850s), there is an extended explanation by the author of this type of dancing, which the author refers to as "tevkhagh". Of course, in actuality tevkhagh is a better name than "tek" bar because the dance is not solo but is done across from a partner, and the arm movements are key. in fact gomidas transcribed some "tevkhaghner" in his collection of agn folk songs. Still, where i come from let it be noted that line/circle dancing is considered the "real" dancing and is associated with the music of bands playing actual instruments (oud clarinet dumbeg kanun etc) as in this clip : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX6eZx9u4KQ (this video is in fresno but i am not from there. the video is richard hagopian and his band at khaghoghorhnek in fresno. the people are dancing the shourch bar tamzara as you can see. the music is the Kghi variation of tamzara) while the music of "nintendo keyboard players" is associated with "tek bar" and generally with Armenians who have newly immigrated to this country. a common complaint among 2nd, 3rd gen. armenian americans about armenian pop music is "you cant dance to it, you can only tak bar to it". It is a singular fact that while the "old line" armenian american community has lost the armenian language we have managed to preserve this musical and dancing culture more than most other groups. not to disparage others of course, since the genocide every region of the diaspora seems to have strongly preserved that which they felt was important or that which they loved in our culture. or, that which it was feasible to preserve in the countries they were living in. as to the comments on gomidas i was just joking around. yes i know gomidas did not compose (in general) he collected. i was joking around and pointing out that some seem to hold a purist view of armenian music that it was given down by God to gomidas as the alphabet was given to mesrop, on a tablet like the ten commandments however i do understand the value of getting to the basic melody of the song and im sorry if it seemed rude. actually, the one mr. frounjian is playing on his keyboard is pretty close although somehow the keyboard makes it sound a little arabic, but he leaves out the section which in american music terminology we would call the "bridge". if you look at frounjian, and at these two you will get an idea, all three are attempting to play basically the same version of tamzara. actually the greek musicians in "mezzo mezzo" begin by playing the "bridge" of this version, then they segueway into another version. hagop's version is a good one too. his version is also available on CD by mr. tom bozigian. however, out of all recordings which i own, the most common tamzara and the one on the oldest recordings seems to be the one i have given examples of. of course, this is coming from the armenian american community and more likely than not mine is simply the kharpert tamzara, due to kharpertsi dominance in the foundation of the armenian american community everything from kharpert becomes "standard". in the "tamuz ara" video they say the song is from yerznga but i think they mean the dance steps, not the melody. i dont know anything about tamzara in "eastern" armenia but perhaps they play hagop's version. i do think that tamzara in fact originates in yerznga. hagop you seem to be doing good stuff for our music and i applaud your efforts. i didnt mean to seem critical by saying "saxophone players" after all i was responding not to you but to zartonk. vartan i also wish you luck even if you play keyboard its ok music is still music its all about the spirit

there's no "official" sheet music to the tamzara....it's called a "folk song" buddy...its not like gomidas himself sat down one day and composed it on a sheet of paper lol......i mean it was passed down by oral tradition and every village or region has its own version, some of which dont even sound like the others. offhand i can think of the kghi tamzara, kharpert tamzara, yerznga tamzara, which are all different melodies. im sure there are many others. the one in this telethon video sounds like the version tom bozigian has on his cd...lyrics go "akhchig ndsadz ge garer siroon kouynavor khali", not sure where that one comes from. the "standard" one as far as i am concerned is played here, this is the one played most often that i have noticed, also used on the oldest recordings i own (1920s). although this band needs some work, clarinet players not very good... heres the kghi tamzara, played by some real masters, richard and khachig: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX6eZx9u4KQ tom bozigian's version (music should play when site is opened): http://www.bozigian.com/index.html try going up and down the scale of A minor, its not too hard to figure out. ---------------- ok i found some sheet music, but i tried to play this on my clarinet and its seems like someone transcribed it the way someone else played it, with all the embellishements, etc, so its not very good for getting the simple melody... http://folkloretanznoten.de/armenian.html i dont know how trustworthy this website is but you can always test this sheet music by seeing if it sounds like other recordings. zartonk how do you know the "barahantes oud bands" decreased the tempo? maybe these saxophone and electric guitar guys in the video increased it (no offense to them)...maybe its like every other armenian song, you keep getting faster and faster as you play....as far as i know so called barahantes oud bands are the main proponents of the tamzara anyways.

Actually hyeyemyes, i agree with you, and part of what you are saying is the exact point i was trying to make. If you read the rest of my post, especially the part in reference to the old style turkish (or as Gamavor says ottoman!!) armenian music you will see that i'm not against listening to music thats influenced by "oriental" style. I was actually trying to argue against Gamavor, since he was angry that Paul B. was on Armenian TV (since he's arabic influenced) but he apparently approves of Gor Mkhitarian being on Armenian TV (even though Gor is american influenced). Basically i was trying to point out where Gamavors statements didnt make sense - in other words if one is against odar influence, be against odar influence, but instead Gamavor and others with that mentatlity are only against "oriental" music and don't mind odar influence as long as its western. I don't dislike Paul Baghdadlian because he sings in an oriental style, i dislike him bc i think his music sucks. But I also think american pop music sucks (britney spears etc). However these are my personal opinions and im not trying to push them on all armenians. Instead of crap middle eastern i should have said "middle eastern music which happens to be crappy" - there can be crappy middle eastern music and good middle eastern music, just as there can be good and bad of all styles of music. As to Gamavor, like i said i dont have much to say about Armenian public tv since there is no such thing where i live.

Fascinating, i knew that transfiguration became one of the main armenian church feast days to replace the pagan vartavar but i did not know we were the first ones to have transfiguration as a feast day at all...

1. Armenian pop music has not been "recently taken over" by the likes of Paul, Andy, etc, rather its been ruled by those types of singers from the beginning. Actually i should reveal my bias and say i really dislike Armenian pop music no matter how "armenian" it is, with the possible exception of Harout P. on a good day. The rest of them are just crappy middle eastern pop music (Paul etc.) although sometimes, but this is more from the 70s and 80s, they used to copy continental european pop music, or what in America we would call "lounge music" (Adiss Harmandian). To sum up: If you were expecting only Armenian purity from Armenian pop singers, you are expecting too much. If you were expecting quality music at all from the Armenian pop singers, your out of your mind.... 2. Gor Mkhitarian is no more "Armenian" music than those other guys are. He just happens to have better taste and copies American folk-rock instead of crap middle eastern pop music. So i dont understand how that is better from the nationalist perspective you seem to be taking. If Armenian tv should only show Armenian music, how "armenian" does it have to be? In reality i dont care that much bc im not in LA and there is no such thing as Armenian TV where i live. 2. Sdel, why should Armenians like Arabic music more than Turkish just because we supposedly love Arabs because they "saved us from the genocide". It just so happens that the death marches sent us into Arab lands, so when the locals came to rescue the Armenians, those locals happened to be Arabs. That has nothing to do with listening to Arabic music over Turkish. Actually, Turkish music is closer to Armenian than Arabic is. You know why? Because number one, Armenians lived under Turkish rule for centuries and many as you mentioned only spoke Turkish, thus they began singing certain Armenian folk songs in Turkish because they forgot their Armenian language. 2. Turks took a lot of music and other cultural aspects from the local peoples of Anatolia, such as Armenians and nowadays claim it as their own music. 3. Armenians as well as Greeks were instrumental in developing Turkish classical music. None of this is to say that Turkish music is all Armenian, but its much more similar to Armenian than Arabic music is. Arabic music has none of the connections with Armenian music that Turkish music has. Even by listening to it, one can immediately tell the difference which sets Arabic music apart. Mainly it is the use of much more divergent "quartertones". 3. I think most of the people on this forum are from L.A. and have no idea what Sdel is talking about in regard to the "turkish armenian" oud and dumbeg bands. I dont think Gamavor was defending those guys, or referring to them at all. However I myself as a good east coast Armenian will defend those bands by saying this, that although their music is heavily influenced by Turkish gypsy music those bands were the perpetuation Armenian folk music and dance in the Armenian American community for the whole 20th century. In fact still to this day. The only other source of Armenian folk music was to have it directly come from Hayastan, but although that was maybe more purified, it had little to do with what the Armenian Americans had known in the old country. The classical folk music from Armenian State Song and Dance Ensemble and the like was collected mostly in Eastern Armenia, and any western Armenian songs were mainly from Daron or Vaspouragan while Armenian Americans of that generation came more from Kharpert province and other areas of western Armenia, almost none from eastern Armenia. These Armenians who came from Turkey (my great grandparents) brought the music they had known in the old country with them, much of it being authentic Armenian folk songs and dances (for example Tamzara), but just like the Beirutsi Armenians who spend their time nowadays listening to Amr Diab, they had their pop songs of the day (well, the turn of the century equivalent of pop songs) which they liked to hear and since they were from Turkey those songs were Turkish. Since there was no CDs back then, and you can't really dance to a dj playing phonographs, they are too soft, of course those bands had to actually play (on REAL instruments by the way, not this electronic synthesizer crap), they had to play the turkish songs themselves if they wanted to hear them and because of that the turkish music was also perpetuated alongside the Armenian. Although actually, nowadays those groups will rarely play Turkish songs, although i guess it depends on which area you live in. Anyways, they maybe have played both Turkish and Armenian but at least they preserved within that what they knew of Armenian folk music while the Armenian music of Beirut is Paul Baghdadlian and his kind and is nothing but a knock off of Arabic or sometimes Hayastantsi pop music.

It depends on where your Armenian relatives are from (i.e. Armenian-American, Middle Eastern, Hayastantsi), what style of Armenian music you like, and what you mean by "distinguished" and how classy is "classy"

If you are addressing me with these videos, i agree there is no similarity between them. However neither has anything to do with what I was talking about. i was talking about dance steps, not music. you can refer to my previous comments for more information. By the way, that video of yorgantz is not an actual sepastatsi folk song but rather yorgantz or someone else has made up these lyrics themselves, to the tune of the old song "vart kaghelen goo kas, yar". vart kaghelen goo kas yar, tzerkt mder e poush@ char, yes g@ dashem poush@ char, tsavt al arnem, siroon yar. parev door, siroon yar, arevi dag mi genar, shookt var iynalov, im sirds chi timanar. as to the turk singing, who is comparing his singing to yorgantz, or to the sepastia bar? i certainly am not.

They may have preserved traces found in "no other community", but this melody isn't one of them. This melody of Sepastia Bar has been preserved in the Armenian-American community for the past 90 years. (the accompanying dance has been preserved too - see my other comments)

I'm not referring to the music, but to the steps. The music played by this fellow on the kemanche is certainly the melody of Sepastia Bar, not whatever this thing is the turks are playing on davoul zourna. I'm merely pointing out that the steps reffered to by the Turks in the video as "ahcik halay" are similar to one of the dances we do for Sepastia Bar (which they clearly stole from us, as seen by the fact that they call it "ahcik (aghchig) halay".) If you watch the "Bijo Bar" video, and wait until the guy starts counting "one two three" you will see that they start doing a step similar to the one in the Turkish video. of course they are not exactly the same, but thats bc the Turks can't do it right Thanks for those videos though, I guess the dance I am talking about is actually a form of "Bijo Bar", which would explain why in my community we have two completely different dances that are both called "sepastia bar" - one is actually this so called "bijo bar", and one is the "original sepastia bar" (i knew from my aunt that the one similar to this "bijo bar" is not the "real one" but she didn't explain to me anything else) the "real" sepastia bar, which is supposed to go to the music the kemanche man is playing, is quite different. By the way I love that "govduntsi" video. That's probably my favorite video on all of youtube, I was actually about to post it to this topic myself. thats not the "sepastatsi bar" though, but more of a sepastatsi version of the halleh (kochari).

this "sivas aghchig halay" is very similar to the second version of the "sepastatsi bar". its fitting that its called "aghchig halay" because i always thought the subtle foot movements were more suited to women, although where im from all ages and sexes do this dance.

kumkap, what instrument(s) do you play? also could you enlighten me if possible on the relationship between the makams and the armenian "oot-tzain" (the church modes) because i think they are different and that actually armenian church music at least, does not use "quarter tones" though it uses modes similar to the makams including augmented modes similar to hijaz. certainly armenian church music as sung in the united states (yegmalian or gomidas version) does not have quarter tones. we sing it off of regular western notation, although it's not in a normal western "key", whether major or minor. this has gotten far off topic, but let me say that as for bambir and gor, well, if you dont consider richard hagopian to be armenian music (that is except for his many songs which are blatantly turkish, and sung in the turkish language - telegrafin telleri, konyali, siseler, etc.), if you dont consider his armenian language songs to be armenian, then bambir and gor are DEFINETLY not armenian music. (theyre western music played by armenian guys singing in the armenian language, with a slight armenian twist.) richard plays, like all armenian american kef musicians, both western armenian folk songs, western armenian folk dances, turkish belly dance songs, armenian "kef" songs (ie turkish style songs sung in armenian/turkish songs translated into armenian), bolsetsi armenian songs, and some eastern armenian songs. richard also plays ottoman classical music, due to his training in that field, though many of the ottoman classical pieces are written by armenians, and his teachers were armenian too (kanuni garbis and udi hrant). as for taksim, those are not songs, they are improvisations. no two taksims are alike, so its not like richard is "preserving turkish songs" named "hicaz taksim and huseyni taksim"...those aren't songs, you just make them up. personally i think gor is allright as far as he goes, although i'm not looking to him as some kind of "nor serount" musical savior...bambir sings with a weird ass accent that sounds like theyre copying the vocals of american hard rock groups. and gor is a copy of american folk style, even if he has an armenian twist. i showed his music to some girls from armenia and they were like "this is completely bluegrass" (they meant american folk, bluegrass is actually different, but i knew what they meant).

yeah but that armenians on 8th ave. cd is completely all turkish songs. personally i come from that old line community and im not morally opposed to turkish music on principle like some ppl, but i and i think most ppl prefer it to be more armenian songs. the point of that 8th ave cd was to show armenians singing turkish songs for those who didnt know about that. im sure a lot of those artists sang some armenian songs too, but they are not on there at all. thats why vosbikians are a better choice for "popular armenian tunes of the 40s". if nothing else, most ppl in that generation speak armenian but not turkish. their parents, the immigrant generation, spoke armenian and turkish. thats who those turkish songs were geared toward. as the younger generation grew up by the 50s and 60s they translated some of the more popular turkish songs into armenian. (for example "finjan" became "mi kavat oghi"). they are still doing that, at ACYOA sports weekend just recently the bands sang "halvaji halva" translated into armenian quite a few times. btw i wouldnt consider "heengala" a popular song of that era. its more of a folk song, singalong type song children might learn in armenian school, similar to what is shown in the video. noone dances to "heengala" or probably even listens to it on record.

ive often wondered the same questions about the saz arto tuncboyaciyan (of the armenian navy band) can play the saz. i believe he plays it on some of the navy band albums, although it says "sazabo" which sounds like the name of some kind of hybrid version, not sure what it is bc i cant find a picture of the whole "sazabo" but only one showing the neck which looks like a regular saz. on arto's website among the music clips are some which feature him playing saz (or sazabo?). also he plays the (traditional) saz on the soundtrack of the Ararat movie. if i'm not mistaken, the saz was a popular instrument among the fedayees. i remember reading a story about fedayees passing the time in jail by playing saz. also, apparently harout pamboukjian knows how to play the saz as well as guitar. on his song "hye kacher" (which is a fedayee song tho i dont know if its traditional or made by harout) it sounds like someones playing the saz during part of the song, unless its an electric guitar rigged up or played in such a was as to imitate the sound of the saz. i don't know if thats possible though, ive never played either instrument. but yes, you are right armenians rarely play saz anymore, although it is mentioned a lot in armenian poetry and folk songs. I've never seen a poem or folk song that mentioned the duduk have you??!! some examples: "mood baghchen nazov, kiz kovim sazov, yar iltimazov" - sayat nova "kovenk unger oorakh sazov, hayastani garmir kini, khmenk unger vosge tasov, hayastani garmir kini" - khnjouki yerk (khachadurian) "mer hin sazi voghpanvak latsagoumadz larn em siroum" - charentz there is also the story of the sparrow who traded a thorn for a loaf, traded the loaf for a lamb, traded the lamb for a bride, traded the bride for a saz, took the saz and became a minstrel, "dzungula mungula, dziv dziv dziv" - hovhannes toumanian when sasountsi tavit (david of sassoun) took control of sasoun and waged war against msra melik, he "ordered his father mher's large saz to be played." in the story tavit also plays the saz and sings at one point. (this is the extended, original version, not the hovhannes toumanian poem version which is much much shorter) also roupen zartarian the famous kharpertsi writer martyred in the genocide has a story called "mer hayrenagan saz@" or something like that, where he talks about his father playing the saz at family gatherings. my great grandfather's uncle used to also play the saz at family gatherings in the old country (sepastia) but i suppose certain people will write that off as being a turkish influence... the turks claim the saz to be their greatest instrument, expressing the soul of their people. rather similar to claims armenians make about the duduk. it seems possible to me that because the turks are so dead set on making the saz their "official national instrument" and armenians seem to not care much if they lose the saz from their folk music, theyve given it up because they dont want to spend time proving that its not turkish. as opposed to the oud, kanoon, etc which even turks agree come from the arabs who got them from the persians or elsewhere. however, the oud is certainly no less armenian than the saz, and even though it does not play the huge role it does in middle eastern music, or in the type of music played by armenian americans, the oud is still present in almost all "official" folk music ensembles in armenia. the saz would seem by any account to be more traditional in armenian music, even if neither is "authentically" armenian. so why get rid of the saz? i think its because of the turkish complete appropriation of the instrument as their national symbol. either that, or the oud just has a much larger range and musical capability i still have yet to see any armenian folklore mentioning the duduk.

The Armenian New Year is on August 11. The holiday of new year or Navasart was later taken over by Verapokhoumn Asdvadzadznin, more commonly known as "blessing of the grapes".