Hi . I am Youness Fattahi. Fourty years old from Tehran, Iran. My native language is Farsi/Persian so I am using an online translator to translate my words to English language.
I am the Founder of IGM. Iranian Guitarists Magazine. This magazine has started its activities since 2017 by introducing independent musicians, especially Iranian guitarists and their works of art, on the Instagram and Telegram platforms. The idea for IGM came to me a few years ago when, at the suggestion of a friend of mine, Hojat, who lives in Vienna, I started a documentary project on my mobile phone about my daily life. For this reason, I filmed and archived the first day of launching the magazine for this reason. Since then, I have continued to record these selfie videos, and I have described the ups and downs of my daily life in advancing the magazine's activities in these videos.
Today, I would first like to explain a bit about the philosophy behind the formation of IGM, as well as the content of the work I have done during this time under this title.
I am an industrial engineer in the field of systems planning and analysis. Also Master of Business Administration in Marketing. I tried twice to get a doctorate, but I was never able to continue my studies officially. The first time I applied for a doctorate was in 2010 when I went to Malaysia to continue my studies. There I started writing a research proposal for admission to Malaysian universities, as well as trying my luck at Australian and New Zealand universities, which, as I said, failed.
During my student days in Iran, I became acquainted with blues, rock and metal music through new friends. About 20 years ago. At that time, the Internet was not yet available in its current form, so it was very difficult to find the music we liked, even to listen to. Let alone the information and knowledge of different musicians. Of course, the situation is still almost the same and these styles are considered illegal in Iran and they are not allowed to do any activity. Therefore, all Iranian independent musicians who intend to work in these styles should work completely underground because it can be really dangerous for them. Because the government can prosecute them as lawbreakers. For producing unauthorized music.
It was during this time that I developed an interest and wished I could somehow enter my favorite music scene. I wanted to start playing the guitar and be able to form my own band and then produce and perform our own music and be able to immerse my whole life in music.
That's why I had the idea to formulate the subject of my research proposal for doctoral admission in the field of music and give a scientific shortcut to my favorite world.
The topic I chose was "Marketing Strategy for Iranian Alternative Bands" and research was defined based on qualitative methods. Qualitative research method means that in order to conduct research about the target community, the researcher must go among them, become a part of them and live with them in order to be able to identify and study components that are effective in the field of research. But due to financial problems, I could not have a chance to enter the university and I had to return to Iran after a year in Malaysia.
It was in 2011 that I returned to Iran and went to Golestan province in northern Iran to teach management courses and started a new life.
As soon as my work was done on the program, I bought a guitar, amps and effects, and spent all my free time at home learning and practicing guitar in the style of blues, and posting videos of my rehearsals on Instagram, which made me find many guitar friends. They get guidance for my workouts. I learned some blues and tried to get information by studying the basics and theory of music, and finally I met Erfan, who agreed to teach me metal style guitar online in Sanandaj, Kurdistan province of Iran, in Gorgan, which I will tell you more about later. .
It had been a week since, on my friend's advice, as I said, I was taking selfies and talking to the camera and archiving the videos. One of these days, during an Instagram chat with a friend from Bandar Abbas named "Saman Saibani" who was a very professional guitarist and now lives in Budapest, Hungary, I asked him some technical questions about the sweeping technique and posted his answers on my personal page. Which was well received by my friends. That's why I decided to continue these interviews and interview and publish with more guitarists. I prepared some questions and started selecting people for the interview. I decided to use the idea of filming with a mobile selfie camera here as well. I videotaped the questions and asked the interviewees to send me their answers in the same way so that I could publish IGM on my Telegram and Instagram channel, now called IGM. I later found out that this was actually my subconscious attempt to do the research I had written for my PhD and a way to enter the world of music.
Very soon, from the first interviews, I came to the conclusion that this is another documentary project about Iranian independent music, especially in the styles of rock and metal, and in general, underground and alternative music in Iran. With these interpretations, the two documentation projects were running simultaneously. The first is the same videos that I recorded from myself and explained everyday stories, and the second is a documentary about interviews with musicians and music lovers in Iran, both of which are still ongoing, and what happened today and the writing of this text is part of the same story. A true story. In the coming days, I will gradually share my story with you by releasing the selfie videos I talked about. I will also introduce you to the artist friends I have found during this time and introduce their works to you. I hope you will continue to be with me .