Sheram

Sheram (, born Grigor Talian; 20 March 1857 – 7 March 1938) was an Armenian composer and bard (ashugh or gusan). A native of Alexandropol (Gyumri), the center of the Armenian ashughs, he received no education and was a self-taught musician. He was one of several Armenian folk musicians who introduced simpler and lighter forms of music and lyrics. Many of his songs remain popular to this day.

Biography Sheram, whose birth name was Grigor Talian, was born in Alexandropol (modern-day Gyumri, Armenia, then part of the Russian Empire) on 20 March 1857. His grandfather, Kyamali, was also an ashugh. Grigor's father died when he was ten years old, after which he was apprenticed to various craftsmen. He made his own saz and tar and taught himself how to play. He began composing songs at the age of twelve or thirteen. He joined the itinerant trio of the kamancha player Chungur Hago, traveling to Erivan (Yerevan), Tiflis (Tbilisi), Baku, Astrakhan, Shusha, Kars and other cities where Armenians lived. He also started his own music group.

Sheram lived and worked in a time when Armenian bard-craft was experiencing a revival which, according to S. Grigorian and M. Manukian, abandoned complex forms and measures while maintaining the rich traditions of the art. He and his contemporaries preferred simpler and lighter forms, held to be closer to authentic folk prosody and thinking. Grigorian and Manukian write that Sheram "turned to the true foundations of Armenian folk music, whether that of the cities or villages, more boldly than his predecessors and contemporaries, further developing the melodiousness of lyrics and the colorfulness and emotionality of melodies." The notes to the melodies of Sheram's songs were published in 1959 in the volume .