Yek (one) gah was the first degree; do (two) gah, the second; and, similarly, sehgah, chahargah, panjgah, shishgah and haftgah, the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh degrees. In the early twentieth century, four of these titles were still used in Persia. Huart reports that yekgah was used for the first degree of the scale, dogah for the fifth, sehgah for the sixth degree flattened by a quarter tone, and chahargah for the seventh flattened by a quarter tone. By the middle of the twentieth century, the French solfege syllables were common in Iran and most of the Middle East. But the Persian gah system survives in the names of several Arabian melody types and three Persian ones, namely, Sehgah, Chahargah, and Rast Panjgah. In contemporary practice these three systems, are further related by sharing certain gusheh-ha, for example Zabol, Zanguleh, and Zang-e Shotor.
The scale of Sehgah is problematical. When written from the note that is both shahed and ist, here c', the scale is C Ef F C A? B'" C. But the fact that this scale has an imperfect fifth is bothersome to some Persian theorists, who feel that scales ought to have perfect fifths. Also, writing the scale this way obscures one of the more important relationships in the dastgah, the stressing of the neutral third below the tonic. Both of these faults are corrected if the scale is written with the shahed as the third note, which is the version given by most theorists: C D Ef F G A1, Β* C. But to be consistent with the other transpositions in this chapter, the first scale, starting from shahed as the tonic, is used in the following examples.
Characteristic of the daramad, and of the Saba melody, which is not, strictly speaking, a daramad but uses the same melody, is a stressing of the tonic, sometimes preceded by the lower third. There is a rise to the third, a stressing of it by its neighbor tones, and then a descent to the tonic with the very typical lower third Sehgah cadence.
The most important gusheh-ha of Sehgah are Zabol on the third scale degree, Muyeh on the fourth, and Mokhalef on the sixth. Rast kuk for Sehgah is E-koron for tar and sehtar, A-koron for santur, and B-koron for violin.
The Dastgah Humayun
