In a box: a narrative of a/n (under)grounded Iranian musician

ABSTRACT

Due to years of precarious sociopolitical circumstances before and after the 1979 revolution, Iranian youth developed an acute sense of music making and learning unique to their locales, representing their deep-rooted desire to make their own music, and to move away from the state’s heavy-handed intrusion into their act of music making, and years of continuous religious/national identity crisis. Through narrative inquiry, the current research examines the life stories of Raam, an underground rock musician, who started his musical career unofficially in Iran with the assistance of his peers and family members, but later left the country to pursue his musicianship officially and outside the imposed regulations. During these years, Raam, along with fellow Iranian musicians, created an underground music scene that followed the sentiments of anarchism, do-it-yourself, and the Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ). This scene became one of Iran’s core music learning and teaching platforms where creativity, collaboration, and sense of camaraderie set the tone for the movement, striving for change and self-expression. Through Raam’s life stories, one can read the story of a generation of Iranian youths’ inevitable political music education; one in which local activism is of great significance, and hides small but steady acts of subversion.

KEYWORDS:

• Narrative inquiry
• music education in Iran
• Iranian underground music
• anarchism
• local activism
• exoticism

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Corrigendum

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Nasim Niknafs, the recipient of the Connaught New Researcher Award and the Faculty Mobility Grant, is an Assistant Professor of Music Education at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto. Born and Raised in Iran, Nasim's publications have appeared in IASPM@Journal, Visions of Research in Music Education, The Recorder, and General Music Today. Her research interests include improvisation in general music education, equity and politics of contemporary music education with special focus on Iran, and community music programs.

Notes

1 For more detail on the contemporary historical context of music making and media following the 1979 revolution, please refer to Nooshin (2005a), Semati (2008), and Youssefzadeh (2000).

2 For a comprehensive portray of underground and overground music in Iran, refer to Nooshin (2005b) and (2008).

3 I use the terms underground music (moosighie-ziramini), unofficial music (moosighie-gheire-rasmi), and illegal music (moosighie-gheire-ghanooni) interchangeably in this article, as all of these terms, in one way or another, represent the unsanctioned rock music scene in Iran. Nevertheless, Nooshin (2005b) and Robertson (2012) comprehensively discuss the contextual meanings of each term.

4 For further read on fluid identities in this context, please refer to Robertson (2012).

5 For more detail on Hypernova’s trip to SXSW, please refer to Robertson (2013).

6 During our interviews, Raam would go back and forth between the dates. His remembrance of the events was not chronological, but was rather event-based.

7 Also noted by Hemmasi (2014).

8 Translated by the author.

9 Please see http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/nyregion/4-dead-in-brooklyn-murder-suicide-police-say.html?_r=0

10 Iran has one of the highest rates of brain drain since 1979 revolution (Shams and Shams 2014; Torbat 2002), which is not specific to a particular social stratum.

11 For further detail on anarchistic music scenes please refer to Bennett and Peterson (2004) and Monem (2007).

12 In the context of this article, I use the term ‘music scene’ as capital ‘S’. Scene in this context covers a broad spectrum of musicianship in Iran including genres such as blues, jazz, hip-hop, punk, electronic music, and New Pop – a version of Persian Pop reminiscing the popular music before the 1979 revolution. The practice of all of these genres of music and their corresponding styles of musicianship creates the music scene in Iran. And it is through the dynamic interaction between underground and overground – examined in detail by Nooshin (2005b) – that makes this scene a vibrant hub of artistic and activist musicianship.

13 Also mentioned by Robertson (2012).

14 For further detail on the discourse around the language and the style of music of Iranian rock musicians, please refer to Nooshin (2008).

15 Please also refer to Nooshin (2005b).

16 See, for example, Satrapi (2003).