pivotal themes in ethnomusicology of iranian kurds

the human being attitudes, customs and their style of life are explained through their musical system design. so far the music is a part of the culture, therefore, to understand a culture one should also consider musical aspect of that culture. the human being attitudes, customs and their style of life are explained through their musical system design. so far the music is a part of the culture, therefore, to understand a culture one should also consider musical aspect of that culture. music is an important aspect of a culture, which by no way it is separable from the total way of life of man. music should not be considered as only an instinctive phenomenon. because it has close relations with the social traditions, believes, sexuality, social aesthetic, co-operative and actions with other cultures. within man’s history music always companied him, and had different functions and roles in production, entertainment, curative of diseases aesthetic and etc. different ethnic groups based on their environmental, socio-cultural and economic conditions, develop different musical systems. this means that, music should be considered as a complex phenomenon of cultural system. some researcher’s interest is diverted to the music’s expansion and its complexity nature. music is the oldest arts; its symbolic function even can be traced in its ethnic identity nature. each ethnic group possesses a kind of direct relation with the states, psychic qualities, thoughts and verbs of the people. therefore, we conclude that each ethnic group’s musical structure is developed under the above conditions and people’s qualities of life. present research attempts to discover important pivotal themes of iranian kurdish musical system, through the anthropological approach. in this paper emphasis is on this point how the kurdish people explain their thoughts, wishes, attitudes, identity, classification, and stratification diverse within their musical system. the growth of socio-cultural changes, acculturation processes, rapid growth of technology and globalization phenomenon are brought about a situation, that with a short span of time traditional cultures either vanish or diminish some of the confrontation mechanisms of survival. simultaneously this work does not neglect the important aim of anthropological objective, that is, reconstruction of cultural aspects before decline of traditional art within cultural context. the present research theoretical consideration is ecological anthropology approach. in this approach the music is seen as a cultural phenomenon, based on the effect of economical, social, and cultural conditions in the kurdish people life. in fact this approach is introduced by julian steward which emphasis on cultures adaptation with particular environmental situations. researchers considered important elements of kurdish musical system as pivotal themes. data collection procedure is followed by ethnography method. the ethnographic techniques like participant observation deep interviews with key informants, songs analysis, emic and etic approaches were employed for this purpose. this research findings show that kurdish musical system is affected by factors like socio-cultural, economical and environmental one. the result of this research can help the integration and enforcement of different cultural convergence of different ethnic groups within a plural society of iran.