The gusheh Zabol in the dastgah Sehgah, for example, is named for a town in eastern Persia, and the gusheh Bakhtiari in Homayun is named for the large Bakhtiari tribe. Certain titles simply describe the gusheh: bozorg (big), kuchek (small) ; and some gusheh-ha carry the names of persons : Hosseini, Mansuri. Tracing the names of the gushehha is fascinating, since some mentioned as early as the tenth century are still in use today. In addition, there are similarities in the names used in the Arabic and Turkish maqam repertories.
The features of rhythm that contribute to the genetic material of the gusheh are far more difficult to isolate, as most gusheh-ha are non-metric and are played with a very free rhythm. For those melodies that are still associated with a particular poem, the stamp of the poetic meter is recognizable in the melody.10 Traditional motives and ornaments used in certain gusheh-ha also bear their own rhythmic characteristics. But most of the rhythmic features of a gusheh seem specific to the performer rather than to the gusheh. The tempo, on the other hand, is primarily determined by traditional usage.
A comparison of four gusheh of Shur will show how each is distinguished by those genetic features that we have discussed: the location and extent of the range of each, the configuration of the notes in its range, the notes of stress and stopping, and the melodic shape. Note that the examples indicate not what was actually played but what was abstracted by Persian theorists from improvised performances. Such condensed versions of each gusheh do not exist in practice. For the opening gusheh, the daramad, the melodic range encompasses the is noteworthy as it is not comparable to any found in Western music. There are two consecutive neutral seconds : C to D-koron and D-koron to E-flat.
In the daramad, both the shahed and the ist, the notes of stress and stopping, coincide, accounting for the heavy emphasis on the note C. The melodic shape of this particular version of the daramad, which is shared by those of many other musicians, has three basic elements. The first is stressing of the tonic by repeated sounding of it and its upper auxiliary, D-koron. The second is the widening of the tonal area to three and then four notes with stress on the return to the tonic from each. The final cadence again stresses the leading-tone function of the upper auxiliary, here with the lower leading tone used for additional stress. The predominant melodic contour, especially clear in this daramad, may be described in a single word—descent.
These, then, are the basic characteristics of the daramad of Shur. When a composer employs this genetic material to create an improvised composition, these elements are used as the basis for the individual small pieces that form the sections of the gusheh. The composer whose version of the daramad was quoted, Mussa Maruffi, retains the modal characteristics, the basic shape of the melody, and the characteristic figures throughout the fourteen small pieces· making up the gusheh.
