No, the sounding of this Persian piano is different from the sounding of the Byzantine music. When I wrote the "style" is similar I meant that the musician played on the piano with only two fingers. The Byzantine organs (and all old organs) had no keyboards. These organs were small and the musicians used the palm of their hands to close the pipes of the organs.

This is unlikely - as far as I know the earliest mentioning of a drone is from the period near the fall of the Empire.

By comparison of the music of various people living today in the territory of the Byzantine empire I suppose that one of the organs played the main melody and this melody has single melodic line (no harmonization). The second organ served as an accompaniment - at times this could be simply a drone. Here is another youtube clip that demonstrates one possible method for the accompaniment (but the sounding again is very different from the sounding of the Byzantine music):Mugham from Azerbaijan. Notice that the singer is improvising but this doesn't mean the musicians have to use some trivial accompaniment like the drone. Something similar happens with the moder jazz music.

Fontus: I was talking about your mp3s, not the Persian guy playing with two fingers... Your mp3s have a drone in them, and they're the ones that sound weird and flat to my ears.

I see. There is some controversy about how the Byzantine musical texts have to be interpreted. My mp3s contain some modern ecclesiastical music played with the tuning of George Pachymeres (1242 – 1310). Thats why there is drone.

The intervals in the diatonic tetrachord of Pachymeres are 231-139-128 cents. For comparison in 1881 a commission measured the intervals of the Greek ecclesiastical chant to be 204-168-133 and the traditional Arabic tuning is 204-151-143.

I'm going to preach, 'cause this is about soul.

If you're in a band with guitar(s), bass, drums and vocals:

Even though the writer(s), vocalist(s) and guitarist(s) are usually the band leaders, the drummer and the bassist have full charge of the rhythm. The drummer and the bassist don't play with the guitarist and the vocalist, the guitarist and the vocalist play with the drummer and the bassist. The rhythm section produces the "cool." The "cool" confidently says to the others, "Hey, we'll be right here, follow us or not, but we're not going anywhere, we'll be right here." If the vocalist and the guitarist feel they have to control the rhythm, everything usually suffers. The rhythm section produces the sandbox for the others to play in. And they don't take rhythm orders from anybody. The guitarist(s) and vocalist(s) usually write everything, but the drummer and bassist have to take ownership of the rhythm. Period. It's the only thing that matters in their job description. And... I'll stop now.

Sorry, I had to get that off my chest.

I dig your stuff, but your drummer has to make a stand. Your singer is rushing the rest of you, and he's having breathing problems during the fast stuff. He needs to take some of the load off of himself by trusting the rest of you. He must give up rhythm control. Or you and the drummer are gonna have to take it. He will follow, but he needs to be convinced that he has a safety net.

Gotta agree with daperl. There's a reason the Atlanta Rhythm Section was so named, and why (for a while in the good old days) they were immensely popular. Ahhh, those grooves...

ideally everone would have strong time and no one has to lean on anybody. then you could have one guy playing on top of the beat and one guy just behind it, and the tension that creates can be really great. (see the meters, the wailers, booker t. and the mgs, art blakey with various bass players aso.)

Good point wesgreen. In fact ARS is a great example of that.

Agreed. There's the Rolling Stones exception though, where a certain guitarist drives the whole thing.

wesgreen: But the rhythm section needs to be solid and in control, otherwise nobody can create any of that tension. Just like a bow, you can't pull the string if the bow isn't strong.