In this paper I discuss a complicated process through which the modernization project that followed the colonial encounter in Iran, transformed aesthetics of Iranian music. The state’s expansive institutionalization that began in Iran in the mid-nineteenth century, had far-reaching impact on various aspects of everyday life, including artistic and cultural discourse and products. I begin from an analysis of existing historical accounts of the past century and a half, but in order to offer an alternate narrative, I rely on the lived experiences of Iranian musicians and music scholars. I argue that musicians’ particular aesthetic choices such as instrumental tuning or the quality and placement of microtones in Iranian modes (g?shehs) are part of a broader debate over Iranian national identity, the artists’ relationship with the ‘West,’ and the various Iranian experiences of ‘being modern’ (Adelkhah 2000). I propose that modernization of Iranian music began in military and educational institutions precisely because those two were the disciplinary arms of a state that was practically run by colonial powers (Foucault 1975, 2008). The disciplining of musical practices and products is exemplified in the institutionalization of music pedagogy, the use of notation as a means of fixing the aural on paper, and the standardization of musical intervals and the production of instruments to name a few. In this paper I argue that such processes have shaped the aural aesthetics of Iranian music and the discourse from nomenclature and classification to pedagogy and creativity. Iranian musicians, then, are constantly negotiating the desire for an ‘authentic’ creative self with what it means to be a ‘modern’ musician in the world today. To understand whether and to what extent such disciplinary projects have succeeded in Iran, I examine Iran’s particular relationships with colonial powers, and the particularities of ‘being modern’ in Iran.