Let's learn the first part of a wonderful Kurdish music composition known as Khan Amiry.
Since we are going to learn music originally played on tanbur we will use an alternative guitar tuning. It is possible to play any of this music in the standard tuning. Nevertheless the moment we change the tuning we are closing the gap between the two instruments. Now the guitar will ring in a special way. The sound will be more powerful and rich. The ornaments will be easier to play. In addition, it will allow techniques that are easier and more fluent.
The idea is to have more ringing strings on the guitar. In this way when we strike a melody there will be more harmonics content in the sound. We will be able to make it grow thicker or thinner by striking more or less strings. As a bonus, this makes playing without mistakes easier because no matter what string we hit it will always be the right one. And most important, Kurdish music like many other oriental styles uses a kind of drone sound creating a canvas of sound over which we play the main melodies.
The tuning we will use is EAEEAE:
KHAN AMIRY a great Kurdish song on guitar.
Here is a video of the song so you can listen and watch the technical playing nuances.
KURDISH MUSIC SCORE AND TABS FOR GUITAR.
This article comes from the book “Kurdish Music for Guitar by Fernando Perez”.