French musician learns Mugham
By Laman Ismayilova
French musician Pierre de Treqomain is visiting Baku to take mugham lessons from well-known khananda [singer of mugham] Gochag Askarov, Trend Life reports.
UNESCO’s expert Senuber Bagirova assisted the musician in realizing his dreams.
“He is incredibly talented singer and passionate about our traditional music. We started the lessons with "Rast", "Bayati-Shiraz" . I will teach him the "Karabakh shikastasi" and" Sari Gelin ",” Askarov said, adding that Pierre is not the first foreigner singer who wants to learn mugam.
Pierre, for his part, considers mugham as national heritage of Azerbaijan.
“The artistic value of Azerbaijani mugham and its great significance both for national and international culture was recognized in 2003 when such authoritative international community as UNESCO announced mugham as Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Of course, to learn mugham is a difficult process, but I'll do my best to master such ancient form of Azerbaijani musical art as mugham,” he said.
During a conversation, the singer said that he knows such outstanding Azerbaijani singers as Aziza Mustafa Zadef, Gochag Askarov and Alim Qasimov.
“I will synthesize jazz with mugham. This is a difficult process, but I will do. I will translate Ghazals and understand it’s and then read,” he noted.
Mugham is one of the most valuable monuments of the material and spiritual culture of the nation and the greatest achievement of the musical and poetic art of the Azerbaijani people. The peculiarity of mugham itself firstly with the development of a modal system. It contains seven main modes - Rast, Shur, Segah (are especially common), Shushtar, Bayaty-Shiraz, Chahargah, Humayun and three collateral kinds - shahnaz, sarendj, chargah in some other form. Every mode represents a strongly organized scale, possessing a firm tonic prop (maye), and each step of the mode has its melodic function.
Mugham entered into global cultural heritage at the beginning of the last century by attracting the attention of cultural experts and music critics around the globe.
The lyrical music of Mugham attracts the young and old with its delightful sounds. At present, this pearl of Azerbaijani music art continues to take new forms, attracting attention worldwide.
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