Part two

RHYTHMICAL PECULIARITIES OF AZERBAIJANI MUSIC

According to its metrical and rhythmical structure, Azerbaijan folk music is divided into music with conspicuously expressed metrical measure and music without any meter. Music with conspicuously expressed measure is represented by the folk songs, all types of folk dances and also tasnifs (vocal music) and ranghs (instrumental music). The meter of these forms is quite ordinary, i.e. 6/4, 4/4, 3/4, 2/4, 4/8, 5/8, 3/8.
There is no such meters as 7/8 and 5/4, which are encountered in music of other Eastern peoples. Meter 4/4 is more typical for Azerbaijan music than 2/4.
4
The example below is a typical pattern of music with the meter 4/4.

The four-parted bars may be expressed in this way too:

In the meter 6/8 grouping, as a rule, consists of two parts (per 3/8 each), but the peculiarities of the metrical and rhythmical structure of Azerbaijan dance music, and some songs with the features of dance music require quite a different grouping. This grouping consists of the alternation of two parted bas with three-parted one, for example:

In the above examples (194, 195) all the bars are played without change of tempo. In example 195 second and the fourth bars must not be played with tension, which is inherent to syncope, i. e. they are not to be played in the following way:

(there arc 3, but not 2 accents in this bar)

The exact performance of these examples requires from the player intuitive understanding of the character of the above popularities of Azerbaijan dance music.

The vocal and instrumental improvisations in the modes refer to the music without any measures. In these improvisations the musical phrases are not confined to any one bar. The grouping of notes here presents the use of some tones or melismatic colours, for example:

The forcible confinement of the performed improvisation into certain bars leads to an inexact recording of the performed improvisation and to a departure from the style of improvised music.

In practice one may encounter incidental mistakes of incorrect recordings of the examples of Azerbaijan folk music.

1. In recording music with measure 6/8 the third peculiarity of alternation of two-parted and three-parted bars is not observed. It leads to the distortion of music as the weak quotas fall into the strong period of the bar, and on thc contrary, strong quotas fall into the weak period of the bar. For example, instead of:

(correct)

they write

(wrong)

The second and the fourth sounds in example 199, which are situated in the relatively strong part of the bar, fall into the weak part of the bar in example 200. The third sound, which is in the weak part of the bar in example 199, falls into the strong part of the bar in example 200, which leads to incidental distortion of music.

2. In example 201 the measure 2/4 even with a slow tempo shows that the bar is of two quotas, while it requires four quotas but with a rapid tempo.

Example 202 is a grammatical correction of example 201 from the point of view of correct arrangement of bar lines, but even in this case there appears a discrepancy between the bar accent and the accents of percussion instruments. The strong strokes of the instrument fall on the weak bars which generally leads to a rhythmical confusion.