Reading Persian Notation: Koron, Sori, and the Adapted Staff

Persian classical music uses Western five-line staff notation with two additional accidentals — koron and sori — to represent the microtonal intervals that standard sharps and flats cannot capture. This adaptation, introduced in the early 20th century, gave Persian music a writable notation system while preserving its essential sound.

The five pitch levels

Established Standard Western notation provides four pitch modifications: flat, natural, sharp, and double-flat/double-sharp. Persian notation adds two more, creating five distinct levels for any given note name:

Attested Koron appears as a small vertical line with an open triangular head pointing downward. Sori resembles a greater-than sign (>) crossed by two short vertical lines. Both were assigned Unicode code points in Unicode 14.0 (2021): U+1D1EA for koron and U+1D1E9 for sori.

Vaziri's innovation

Established Ali-Naqi Vaziri (1886–1979) introduced koron and sori in his 1913 treatise Dastur-e Tar, alongside the first systematic adaptation of Western staff notation for Persian music. Before Vaziri, Persian classical music was transmitted entirely through oral tradition — the meşk system of master-to-student teaching. There was no standard written notation.

Attested Vaziri's system was controversial from the start. His parallel proposal for a 24-tone equal temperament — dividing the octave into 24 equal quarter tones — was widely rejected by both traditionalists and later scholars like Farhat, who argued that Persian intervals are not equal divisions of any kind. But koron and sori themselves survived the controversy: the symbols were adopted even as the temperament theory behind them was abandoned.

Practice This historical detail matters for reading notation today. When you see a koron on a score, it does not mean "lower by exactly 50 cents" (as 24-TET would imply). It means "lower by approximately a quarter tone, with the exact amount determined by the dastgah, the gusheh, the melodic direction, and the performer's judgment."

Key signatures in dastgah notation

Attested Persian scores use key signatures much like Western music, but with koron and sori included alongside standard sharps and flats. Each dastgah has a characteristic key signature that establishes its basic pitch collection.

Common key signatures include:

• Shur — E koron, A koron (approximately)
• Mahur — no accidentals (similar to C major)
• Homayun — E koron, A flat (mixing koron and flat)
• Segah — E koron, B koron
• Chahargah — E koron (with additional accidentals introduced within gusheh)

Practice Key signatures in dastgah notation are less stable than in Western tonal music. A dastgah performance moves through multiple gusheh, each of which may temporarily alter the pitch collection. Performers and editors handle this differently — some write new accidentals inline, others mark section changes with cautionary accidentals, and some published radif editions use no key signatures at all, placing every accidental explicitly.

Reading moteghayyer in notation

Established The concept of moteghayyer — mutable pitches that shift depending on melodic context — creates a distinctive challenge for notation. A pitch written as E koron in one passage may need to be read as slightly higher or lower depending on whether the melody is ascending or descending, and on which gusheh is active.

Attested Farhat addresses this directly: notation represents an approximation of pitch, not a specification. When a score shows E koron in Dastgah-e Shur, the performer understands that this pitch carries inherent flexibility. The notation tells you which pitch zone to aim for; the radif training tells you how to inflect it.

Practice For learners, this means that reading Persian notation is a two-layer skill:

1. The literal layer — read the notes, accidentals, and rhythms as written, just as you would read any staff notation.
2. The interpretive layer — understand which pitches are moteghayyer in the current dastgah and how tradition expects them to flex. This second layer cannot be learned from the score alone. It comes from studying the radif with a teacher or through careful listening to master recordings.

Differences from Turkish notation

Attested Where Persian notation uses two microtonal accidentals (koron and sori), Turkish AEU notation uses ten — five types of sharp and five types of flat, each representing a different number of Holdrian commas. This reflects a fundamental philosophical difference:

• Turkish theory aspires to specify each interval precisely within the 53-comma grid. The notation aims to capture the exact perde.
• Persian theory accepts that intervals are approximate and context-dependent. The notation aims to capture the pitch zone.

Practice Neither approach is right or wrong — they model different aspects of the same reality. Turkish notation is more precise on paper but creates a false impression of fixity (as the tuning debate demonstrates). Persian notation is less precise but more honest about the flexibility that both traditions share in practice.

Practical tips for beginners

Practice If you are coming to Persian notation from Western music literacy:

• Treat koron and sori as new accidentals, not as "half a flat" or "half a sharp." They have their own sound that you need to learn by ear, not by calculation.

• Listen before you read. Find a recording of the gusheh you are studying and learn the melody by ear first. Then look at the notation. This reverses the Western approach (read first, then play) but matches how the radif tradition actually works.

• Expect inconsistency between editions. Different published versions of the radif may notate the same gusheh slightly differently, especially regarding moteghayyer pitches. This is normal — the notation is an aid to memory, not a definitive text.

• Do not tune to a piano. Persian koron and sori intervals do not exist on a standard keyboard. Use a setar, tar, or kamanche as your reference instrument, or an electronic tuner capable of displaying cent deviations.

Where to go from here

The accidentals themselves: Koron and Sori. The modal system they notate: The Dastgah System. Pitches that shift in performance: Moteghayyer. How Turkish notation handles microtones: Reading Turkish Notation. Notation systems compared: Notation Systems.