Introduction
Welcome to our banquet. We hope you have another enjoyable night with Korma Persian food along with cultural speeches, musical animation, and Persian concert with several traditional instruments.

The first section contains an essay on the influence of Persian poetry on the world literature by Dr Azar. An adaptation of Mrs. Faiz's Master thesis on animation of the origin of Iranian music is in a very nice artistic fashion; the philosophy and the story of the animation is given in section 2. The influence of Eastern music on the western music written by Dr Roshan-Ravan is covered in section 3. Section 4 contains the name of the traditional Persian group lead by Mr. Ghorashi; they will introduce the repercussion Tonbak and the string instrument Tanbur.

1- Animation of a Butterfly's Dream
In Dezful's area of Changhamish, a stonecutting belonging to about 3500 B. C. has been discovered. This cutting shows a number of players, playing musical instruments like harp, drum, and a kind of a wind musical instrument. A singer is also present with his hand near his ear, who is singing.

This very old stonecutting is an authentic document which shows the oldness of music in Iran, and reveals its connection to the music of other peoples.

The animation movie "A Butterfly's dream" will be made by inspiration from the pictures of this cutting, and with the aim of honouring the role of art in the proud and searching Iranian culture throughout history. The sample you will see, is the plot of the main movie which will be finished in 35 mm film by completion of the remaining plans of the movie. Because of the theme of the International Symposium on Telecommunications "The Dialogue of Civilization Through Telecommunications", and for the purpose of introducing the role of music in Iranian culture, literature, and the arts, the story of this film is chosen be shown for the honorable guests of this conference.

In the beginning of this short animation movie, the camera enters a dark space through the view of a butterfly and encounters some fragmented voices. With each voice a figure is formed but loses form facing the erosive power. Finally the figures of a harpist, a drum player, a trumpet player, and a singer are clearly formed, and they start playing and singing.. At the same time with this harmony of the players and the singer, the sun and the stars are created, and plants and flowers boast and grow and the butterfly tears its cocoon and flies, and all of these become a symbol of art's creative power. In this film, the passing of time is shown through the erosive power of the wind and at the end of the movie, the butterfly by passing through the corridor of time comes out in the historic ruins of Perspolis.

2- Influence of Eastern Music on the West
The fertile land of Mesopotamia, which is located between the two rivers of Tigris and Euphrates and today is called Iraq, has been the habitat of the first known human civilization. This civilization in fact seemed very advanced and florescent in six thousand years ago. This was due to two factors: the long stay of Semitic people specially in the north and later, the arrival of non Semitic Sumerians from the east and their occupation of the southern regions (Sumerian). These people worshiped their Gods by word and praise in their temples. They calmed Gods like Raman, the God of thunder, and Ea, the God of depths, by singing and playing musical instruments to prevent these Gods from destroying their farms and their crops by thunder and lightning and creating floods. For these rites they invented the first models of wind instruments Halhallatu, which is a kind of tongued flute, and percussion instruments Balag, which was a drum.

Sumerians changed their worshiping and religious rites which were mostly in the form of wailing and weeping gradually in later centuries to a question and answer form ( priests would sing and the chorus would answer) and to antiphonal form in which one group would sing and then is quiet and another group would answer them. The singing pieces generally were accompanied by a tongued flute named Sem.

Sumerians had created many musical instruments from which we can mention a kind of flute that would be placed horizontally in front of the lips and mouth of the player and was called a Tig or a Tigi, the legged drum named Lilis, the narrow middle drum Balag, and the tambourine called Adapa. As the result of archaeological findings other musical instruments that belong to the third millennium B.C. in Mesopotamia have become available from which we can mention Algar that is a kind of lyre and two kinds of harp by the name of Zagsal and Zaggal.

Sumerian music and musical instruments have influenced other peoples including Babylonians, Assyrians, and Chaldeans and they gradually created their own special music and musical instruments too, such that to six century B.C. different kinds of religious, worship, and battle music could be seen among the Babylonian, Assyrian, and Chaldean governments and different musical instruments such as trumpets, flutes, harps, drums, zither, lyre, cymbal were used. They are the musical instruments which later developed and evolved into today's musical instruments of different countries specially the European countries.

Performing customs of religious and worship music of Mesopotamia and its advanced governments, later, influenced Egypt, Greece, and then during the early centuries A. D. influenced worship ceremonies and eulogy of the Christian church. With the fall of the Assyrian and Babylonian states and their annexation to the large Iranian empire in the sixth century B. C. , the musical culture and customs of these nations together with the very developed Iranian music, made the Iranian music one of the great musical cultures of that time which had a theory, philosophy, musical systems, themes, musical instruments, and its own special performing methods. So, Iranian music took a place at the side of advanced musical cultures of the time such as Indian, Chinese, Greek, and Egyptian. It is worth mentioning that the music and musical instruments of civilizations of Mesopotamia have had direct effects on the Greek, Indian, Egyptian, and Iranian music. From one millennium B.C. serious influence starts by the Greek, Indian, Chinese, Iranian, and Egyptian music on other countries specially the European countries. Different aspects of this influence can be studied including musical theories, philosophy, performing methods, and musical instruments. At the Chaldean era, astronomy and astrology very much flourished and became the superior knowledge of the time . People who focused on the situations of the stars, firstly believed that celestial bodies influence the present human life and his fate in the future, and secondly they had faith in the existence of harmony and everlasting equilibrium in the heavens.

Since the universe ( the great world) and man ( the small world ) were in close relation with each other, thus man can make a music that its fundamental bases are reflections of this relation and that harmony. In other words, music can be tuned with nature. This point of view and the scientific and educational research, together with effort by mathematicians who gained access to heavenly music and connected the great world and small word by the use of catgut and grading it, elementary divisions along a string was made and this resulted in creating four divisions on the string which the experts of the technique made these four divisions based on the yearly seasons. This method of calculating distances between musical sounds and also the method of teaching it which was widespread in the schools of Mesopotamia, was disseminated by Pythagoras in Greece and was set forth as a branch of science under the title of harmony of heavens and efficiency of numbers that was later given up to Europeans. Thus, the origin of the musical step and bulk of the European and western music has most probably been in Mesopotamia .

Indian music itself has been blended with Indian philosophy and thought to such a degree that appreciating it, is not possible without familiarity with Indian thought and philosophy. A philosophy which is in the class of philosophical reflections and thinking in ways of discovering the truth and spiritual salvation.

Iranian music with mysticism, spirituality, introspection, seeking the right, and closeness to the essence of existence, has created a kind of music that is inward looking, mystical, deep, and full of mystery and enigma, and to appreciate it, one needs richness of spirit, rejection of selfishness, inner serenity, and purity of thought. In Iranian music rhythms and melodies obey a special theoretical order and scaling of the musical instruments conform to mathematics and Iranian philosophy and mysticism. In ancient China, in planting seasons and between seasons, feasts and special ceremonies were set up on riverbanks and specially at river junctions. In these ceremonies singing groups of boys and girls who belonged to different villages sang in front of each other. This singing which was accompanied by dance and movements of head and hand, was performed in the form of bragging and challenge between boys and girls. It is said that this kind of match between genders and singing in the form of antiphony is manifestation of Chinese belief in a bipolar world, one pole is called Yang and the other is Yin and ceremonies with sexual character of man and woman are in fact the agent for creating harmony with nature and human by uniting the two elements of the world of existence. The Chinese pentatonic step which is a memorial of very old times, has been the basis and foundation of the Chinese melodies. Chinese five-note step was later used by European composers. The existence of pentatonic step and also many musical instruments of Chinese origin in America, arises from direct domination by Mongolian peoples such as Eskimos and American Indians in this continent. Confucius(Kung Fu-Tzu) the great Chinese philosopher, is the founder of a philosophy which is today known as the Confucian philosophy. In this philosophy, Confucius has based the principles of music on celestial and cosmic elements. In fact, during the time between Confucius ( 551-479 B. C.) and the end of Chou's historical era (255 B. C.) the foundation and building stone of china's theory of music were laid. Confucius believed that music is an expression of the balance between the sky and the earth and based on what is written in the book of ceremony's record, the number 3 is sky and the number 2 is earth, thus three by two sounds create harmony, the same way that earth and sky are in mutual agreement. To say this in musical language, the set of changeable distances which make the step of Chinese music are climbing fifths and descending fourths.

As we can see, music in ancient Eastern civilizations, has coincided with philosophy, mysticism, mathematics, order of the universe, and the turning of the world of existence, meanwhile, it has been related directly with life, work, and worship-religious ceremonies. Theories of music of ancient Eastern civilizations which formed the basis and foundation of their music, gradually propagated to European countries and caused the appearance of new theories of music in Europe. Fixing musical distances and notes in a musical pitch (Tetra chord), mathematical proportion of sounds to each other, musical steps, performing forms and shapes specially in religious music, and fashions and rhythmic periods which have been present in different forms in world's music and are still present, are the precious heritage of Eastern music.

Mysticism and philosophy that is present in the music of the East, specially that of India and Iran and their inward looking music, a music that is based on purification of the soul, its simplicity and pithiness, and concentration and tranquillity that is necessary for performing it, has been used widely in industrial societies to soothe and calm the nerves and to create spirituality and introspection.

In Eastern philosophy, music is a part of life and is a tool for reaching human perfection. Music is an agent for self-making, purification of the soul, and avoiding the sins. Eastern musicians consider music as means for understanding life, nature, and the world better, and believe that music is an intermediary between man and God, and an invisible messenger through which one gets closer to the essence of being. For this reason, music in the East enjoys a special holiness and respect, and advances not because of technique but for reasons of spirituality, discovering inner secrets, and gaining access to human virtues.

Today's lost man who has moved day by day farther away from spirituality in industrial societies and is becoming more a stranger to himself, is a lonely man and is captive to the machine, who is away from family and in an iron and cold jungle, is like a wandering and metamorphosed screw which must turn to turn the wheels of giant industries. Machine struck western man for his needs to look into himself, to ponder the mysteries of creation and humanity, and because of his need to love people around him so that they love him, needs spirituality, he wants to think about himself and experience the tranquillity of nature in himself, and since he is alone, he wants a patient and kind companion to be his confidant so he can open his heart to him and say his unsaid words of many years, thus he resorts to music and philosophy of the East and becomes more attracted to it day by day. Musical instruments of Eastern nations are bases for building many of the current European musical instruments. Nearly all of the European musical instruments came to Europe from Asia in the middle ages, either through southeast and Byzantine Empire, or through north Africa by Muslims, or through northeast along the Baltic coast.

Greek and Roman musical instruments did not have much role in European medieval musical instruments, only lyre can be considered a European musical instrument. Although lyre was a Sumerian musical instrument which was later introduced in Europe by Greek and Romans.

Among the European medieval string musical instruments which were known under the name of Fiddle, the oldest kind which is known in Europe by the name of Kamanga Rumi or Byzantine Fiddle, was brought to Europe from Iran in the tenth century A. D. and became fashionable first in Spain and then throughout Europe. Old English and Irish ( ninth century) harps are taken away from Syrian harps of early middle ages which have reached Europe because of Syria's commercial relations with western Europe and northeast of Europe and transfer of Eastern goods this way, it seems that it was first adopted by Ireland and then spread throughout European continent. Another case is a musical instrument which is known in Europe as Lute. This musical instrument is the same as Ood which is one of the authentic and old Iranian and Arab musical instrument which was taken to Europe by Muslims after the domination of Iran by the Arabs and was paid attention to first in Spain and soon became one of the customary European musical instruments. This instrument in its later transformation in Europe was changed to other musical instruments including guitar and mandolin.

European brass wind instruments like horn and trumpet were made on one hand under the effect of Byzantine horn which was brought to Europe in the tenth century, and on the other hand by the influence of strong Iranian wind instruments like Karna and Sorna which had been taken to Spain by Muslims. Bagpipe which is one of the customary European musical instruments, specially in Ireland and Scotland, is one of the musical instruments that has been common in India and ancient Greece.

About the musical instrument, organ, one can say that the oldest centre for making it in the middle ages and the place from where all the instructions related to building an organ went to western Europe, Spain, France, Germany, and England, has been Byzantine Empire or the present Istanbul. Flute is also a musical instrument that has been transferred to Europe from Asia and though the Byzantine Empire.

Percussion musical instruments were used less in Europe in early middle ages, while many variety of these musical instruments were in use in music of countries like china, India, and Iran. Some of the percussion musical instruments like drum, cymbal, and kettledrum had application more in military music, and musical instruments like tambourine, and tambourine with jingles were applied in chamber music. From the middle of the middle ages when Europeans became gradually familiar with percussion musical instruments of the East, they created other musical instruments based on them. The musical instrument Santur went to Europe from Iran and became known as Dulcimer. The musical instrument Qhanun was taken to Europe from Egypt and was named Zither. We know today that the piano has evolved from Santur and has been created by changes made on it .

Eastern music has been paid attention to in twentieth century for other reasons. For example, the style of improvisation in playing and improvisation in singing which has an eminent place in the music of the East specially that of Iran and India and has a decisive and emotional role in performing traditional music, has been used amply by composers in the avant-garde music, and skilful players and singers have been trained in this field. Although the method of improvised playing in the avant-garde music and in the Eastern traditional music are different, but the basis of the work is the same in both. Composers and players of the jazz music also in turn, have paid much special attention to improvised playing and improvised singing so much that improvised playing forms a major part of the jazz music.

Intervals smaller than a semitone, and greater than a semitone which are used in the music of Eastern countries and are considered intervals that are inseparable from their music, can be seen at a relatively extensive level in the works of European and American composers from the mid-twentieth century on. These intervals under the name of microtones, have given new dimensions to the avant-garde music and the works of progressive composers.

Some of the European and American pop musical groups have tried in different ways to bring themselves closer to the Eastern music and create a new and virgin setting in their music. These efforts have been made in many ways including use of Eastern melodies, musical instruments common in Eastern music, and sometimes using intervals common in Eastern music which is contrary to the tempered western musical standards.

In music for motion pictures, also, the western composers have tried to create Eastern settings in their music. This effort was made by the motion picture music composers since the early years of the birth of sound movies. In movies that were based on the Eastern fictions or films whose events happen in Eastern countries, composers have tried in various ways to create the setting of Eastern music, but these efforts in many cases, specially for films made until the sixties, have been unsuccessful. The music for films of the recent decades which have been related in some way to the Eastern music and culture, are relatively more successful, this tells of the better understanding and appreciation of Eastern music by the composers of film music.

Eastern music from either of points of view of philosophy, theory, performance, musical instruments, and forming elements, is a precious heritage which with its very old historic and cultural backing, is today standing tall and proud on the peak of glory of world's music. It is first the responsibility and duty of the governmental and cultural organizations of the Eastern nations to try to preserve and elevate this music which does not belong to one nation or one culture, but belongs to all nations and all the humanity and is considered a part of man's cultural heritage. Then it is the obligation of the scientific, cultural, and artistic institutions as well as the world music society to make a greater effort in preserving, dissemination, and introducing it ever better and more effective. Written by Dr Kambiz Roshan-Ravan and translated by Dr Saeedi

3- The Persian Concert
There are two groups who will perform. The first group consists of 15 Tonbak (Persian Percussion) players. The other group consists of 4 Tanbur players plus a Daf player (please see the descriptions below). They will perform some classical as well as some original melodies separately and together. Most of the music and the instruments are related to the Sufi (Muslim Mystics) music.

Tanbour
Tanbour is one of the few old musical instruments whose history goes back to 6000 years ago. It has been clearly alluded to in four ancient Iranian treatises called "The Asiran Tree", "Bondhesh Encyclopedia", "Karnameh Ardeshir Babakan", and "Khosro Ghobadian and Ridak", which are all among authentic texts related to the Pahlavi era of ancient Iran. There are also detailed explanations of it in such books belonging to the Islamic era as "Moravej-ol-Mazhab" by Masoudii, "Ehsa-ol-Oloum" by Farabi, "The Great Music" by Farabi, "Mafatih-ol-Oloum" by Kharazmi, "Daneshnameh Aalaii" by Avicenna, "Maghased-ol-Alha" by Abd-ol-Ghader Maraghi, and others. Farabi believes that the music comes in three types: enlivening, impressing, and dreamful and considers the music accompanied by song as the most superior sort of music. In his book called "The Great Music", he names two types of Tanbour: Khorasani Tanbour and Baghdadi Tanbour. The music played with Tanbour is a special one. The intervals, rhythm and the quality of tunes is such makes believe that the music of Tanbour has remained from the ancient Iranian ones. Researchers have found many of the missing links of dealing with the ancient music of Iran and the world. One can find denomination reasons for the names Farabi has put on types of music.

The types of Tanbour music are as follows: 1- "Kalaam" or "Haghaani" (meaning Godly): Kalaams are compositions with wide rhythms, whose number amounts to 72 "Maghaam"s. One is not allowed to play Kalaams in any place or any company but in "Jam Khaaneh"s.
2- Chamber Maghaams (fitted for partries): Certain ones of them are called "Houreh".
3- Virtual (figurative) Maghaams: This type of music is lower than the two previous ones in rank and value as well as in antiquity. Names of some of Tanbour melodies:
Type 1 in Kalaam: "Tanemiri", "Rejian Dalahoo", "Babanaghousi" and etc.
Type 2 in chamber Maghams: "sahari", "Majnouni", "Sartarz", "saroukhani", "Tarzerostam", "gharibi", "Hejrani", "Ghatar", "Gol va Darreh", and etc.
Type 3 in virtual Maghams: "Jeloshahi", "Khan Amiri", "Savar Savar", "Jenkera", "Samaa" and etc.

Tanbour Tune
The doleful moan of Tanbour is one of the sparks of divine love. Rooted in pure hearts which are full of God's love, its heartrending and mournful tune burns the hearts which has been hearing those tunes before their hegira to the earthly world and partly associates those melodies; and then makes eager hearts warm with affection, enthralled by reflection and intoxicated by love; and the bereaved are made restless by its doleful morning; it makes ripe the crude, burns the ripe and makes the foreigners friends before the Divinity. The conscious lovers make love to the pleasant mourn of this instrument in order to reach the inebriety rank of the Love Wine and makes their sober spirits eager to visit the eternity Beauty. It leads the eager to pass the servitude stage toward the stage of Divine Light Revelation, which is among the highest stages of monotheism and causes the emotions to impress the supreme power of the human spirit. Hence, we believe that the Iranian Tanbour, while being an Iranian and Oriental instrument, belongs to no single nation, tribe or sex and belongs to all. Written by Ghorashi in Persian

Daf
The Bible begins with these words: "In the beginning, there was just the word and the sound, and the two of these were possessed by God". Among various theories about the origin of musical instruments, it has been more accepted that percussion instruments are the oldest and most basic ones in the world and are aboriginal instruments in every culture, whether primary or civilized.

Daf has originally been pronounced as "doob". Moein Dictionary mentions Sumer as the origin of Daf. In Sumerian language, "soob" means "tablet" and "script". This word was then introduced into the Akkadian language with pronunciations "doopoo" and "toopoo", then was Aramaicized (i.e. changed into Aramaic pronunciation) 'doop' with the same meaning as in Sumerian. As a result of Arab servants' social interaction with Persia this instrument was known as 'Daf' meaning 'tablet'. In the Bible we read: "Tovool who is a holy prophet, son of Kamak, has been recognized as the introducer of 'daf' and Kamak as the introducer of Dohol [type of drum as pronounced in Persian]".

The oldest document for Daf, which is kept in the Iraqi museum, is a picture dating back to 2650 years ago showing three women each with a Daf in her hand performing the Sumerian rituals.

Toveis, the first professional singer in the Islamic world, became familiar with the Iranian music and his songs were accompanied by Dafs. The same is true for Al-Ghovaiz, who has been known among the four well-known Arab singers of Valid's court in Damascus. These people caused Daf to be introduced into the Arab music. At that time, the Arabic Daf used to be made in square shape. After becoming familiar with Iranian Daf, Toveis made his Dafs in circular form, which is the Iranian form of Daf. In the drawings of Chehel Sotoon, Dafs are depicted with five bells on them. The five-bell Dafs were common until the Safavid era when they had octagonal or dodecagonal shapes lacking rings. Each bell had different nuances and each was made of a special metal such as silver, brass and copper.

In mysticism, music is some way or some media that realizes man's inside and thereby, one gets into his inside through hearing and sees himself linked with 'the entire world' in this way, having relinquished his self and become linked with and perpetual in the boundless ocean of existence, one feels such a pleasant peace within himself, which is called 'ecstasy' by Sufis and the 'Samaa' dance is known as the way to the Land of the Friend (as they call God). In cases that some mystical atmosphere is desired to be there, Ney (pipe) and tanbour accompanying the Daf will be so pleasant; the Daf being there gives more splendor to the co-singing and duet performance and is one of the bases of this relationship. The Daf, as the most important of mystical instruments, is then believed by Sufis to have a holy side just as Tanbour has. Instrumentalists in 'Khaneghah's, i.e. Sufis, first kiss it and put on their eyes, and if the skin of the Daf is torn for any reason they will consider it as a martyr of reaching God. This is of unique value to them and, among the many musical instruments, prophetic missions of Daf is something much too higher than art's anxiety; it is the anxiety for becoming free and prosperous and becoming free of material constraints.

Biography of S. Afshin Ghorashi, Organiser of the Group
He was born in 1962 in Tehran and began learning music with the guitar. After twelve years of playing guitar, he became familiar with Tanbour in 1990. First he benefited from the lessons of Master Seyed Khalil Alinejad and then learned the 'Maghaam's from the great master of Tanbour, Mr. Amir Hayati. He worked as an instrumentalist in the Hannaneh group and as a composer in the Sarmastaan group. At present, he serves as the composer and head of Simorgh group and has held multiple concerts within and out of the state. He has a special style of playing Tanbour and has made innovations - while retaining the virtual values of the instrument; for example, he composed and performed the first duet of piano and Tanbour in the world. At present, he teaches Tanbour playing and is at the same time writing a book in this field. Among his well-known works are 'Amire-e-Eshgh' (Captive of Love) on CD which is a eulogy of Imam Ali; 'Ghasr-e-Eshgh' (Palace of Love), based on the poems of Rumi; 'Ghan-e-Eshgh' (Sorrow of Love), based on the poems of Hafiz; 'Didar-e-Aghl Va Eshgh' (Meeting of Wisdom and Love), which is a duet of Tanbour and piano; 'Morgh-e-Eshgh' (Bird of Love), which is void of speech.