culture
TURKISH MUSIC CULTURE
Turkey's cultural fabric is made up of a rich combination of diverse cultures rooted deeply in history. By virtue of its geographical position, Turkey lies at the axis of the cultures of the East, the West, the Middle Eastern, the Mediterranean and Islam. Anatolia is one of the world's oldest human habitats – hosts of civilizations have called it home – and it enjoys a unique cultural richness with its thousands of years of history. Anatolia's cultural variety is so rich that we can see great cultural differences even in areas geographically quite close to each other.
This colorful portrait holds just as true for Turkey's music.
We can categorize the types of music heard through the years of Anatolia's long history into three groups:
Traditional/Local Music
The Concept of Traditional Music: This is generally music that is created in a common manner, has continued from the time of its production right down to the present day, is popular and frequently played and recited in its region and by local people, and is usually anonymous.
In Turkey, music that conforms to the above definition, which is produced by and located in a settled culture and which has thereby become traditional, can be classified as either ‘religious' or ‘secular.' These can also be considered under the headings ‘Folk/Local Music' and ‘Ottoman Music.' These two groups have many features in common, and can be classified as either ‘instrumental' or ‘with lyrics.'
Modern Turkish Classical Music
Western influence had already begun to be felt in Ottoman music towards the middle of the 19th century. These increased towards the end of the century, and led to efforts to change Ottoman music from monodic to polyphonic.
With the declaration of the republic in 1923, Cemal Reþid (REY), who was then studying music in Europe, returned to Turkey and began to teach at a music school established in Istanbul. At the same time, a number of talented young people were sent by the republic to various cities in Europe to study music. After they returned to Turkey, the group that would later be called ‘Türk Beþleri' (the Turkish Five) and which prepared the groundwork for Modern Polyphonic Turkish Music, emerged. The common aim of the group was to use the traditional themes of traditional Turkish music together with the values of Western classical music that they had studied to produce a new polyphonic structure. In later stages, every composer who amed at a more contempoýrary sound interpreted the colours and mystery of popular melody in his own way, and instead of merely treating well-known popular melodies they began to achieve syntheses by means of abstraction.
The Turkish Five consisted of; Cemal Reþit REY, Ulvi Cemal ERKÝN, Hasan Ferit ALNAR, Ahmet Adnan SAYGUN and Necil Kazým AKSES. Later, others produced and are still producing works in the same field, including; Nuri Sami KORAL, Kemal ÝLERÝCÝ, Ekrem Zeki ÜN and Bülent TARCAN of the second generation, Sabahattin KALENDER, Nevit KODALLI, Ferit TÜZÜN, Ýlhan USMANBAÞ, Bülent AREL and Ýlhan MÝMAROÐLU of the third, and Muammer SUN, Cenan AKIN, Cengiz TANÇ, Kemal SÜNDER, Ýlhan BARAN, Yalçýn TURA and Ali Doðan SÝNANGÝL of the fourth. An ýncreasing number of other composers after that last generation continue to write works. The current number has now reached around 60.
Popular Music
Popular music is to a large extent produced by the consumer generation, or even if not later came on to take on many of those characteristics, and takes its form from the criteria of its own particular sectoral features, in such a way that the values that comprise those criteria are not based on the preferences of the culture of any one section of society, and thus is a form that to a large extent brings together different cultures. In the same way that Europe has seen an industrialised society, the increase in artistic products related to popular culture and their increasing spread in all sections of society, and the efforts towards industrialisation in Turkey and the concomittant rise in urbanisation, have all led to an independent popular cultural atmosphere in society. The basic values that the wide community in which popular culture is influential expects from artistic endeavours can be summed up as easy to understand and comprehend and requiring no great depth, thus calling for no great debate. In Turkey, the products of popular culture have lent colour to the last quarter of the 20th century in particular, and as objects, or from the visual point of view, have called to a wide constituency.
Rapidly changing and progressing cultural formations lead to a suitable environment for the emergence of such products as the artistic works of popular culture. In Turkey, popular culture and the music belonging to it are spreading in this environment with great rapidity in all sections of community. By 2000 it had become powerful enough to respond to the musical tastes of just about all of society.
ANECDOTES
Short satirical, witty or barbed tales describing events from daily life in a lively manner and intended to draw a conclusion from what has been related.
EXAMPLES OF ANECDOTES
That's different
A man came to Nasreddin Hoca when he was serving as governor.
‘I want to ask you something,' he said.
‘Go ahead,' Nasreddin Hoca replied.
‘The other day, a cow that your neighbours said belonged to you kiled one of my cows. What should I do?'
Nasreddin Hoca pulled at his beard and thought for a bit. ‘You're not going to bring charges against the animal, are you? And it's not his owner's fault. There is no way he could have known what was going to happen.
The man smiled, and replied. ‘Excuse me, I made a mistake. It was not my cow that died, but yours.'
Nasreddin Hoca jumped up. ‘That's different,' he said. ‘In that case, hand me down that legal book and let's have a look!'
The Chief of Police's Donkey
The chief of police's donkey was lost, and he was furious.
‘You had better find my animal quickly!' he shouted. Everyone was in a terrible panic. The people of Akþehir went in all directions to find the missing donkey. Some of them met Nasreddin Hoca on the way.
‘Please help us,' they begged. ‘If you see a stray donkey anywhere, grab it.'
‘Whose is the donkey?'
‘The chief of police's' they replied.
Nasreddin Hoca said he would keep an eye out, and went on his way singing.
A villager asked him why he was singing, and he replied that he was looking for the chief of police's donkey.
‘How does singing help you to find a donkey?' the villager enquired.
‘Of course you need to keep your spirits up if you are sent to look for a donkey,' he answered. ‘especially if it belongs to the chief of police!'
Why He Sat On The Donkey Backwards
One day, Nasreddin Hoca was riding home from the mosque on his donkey, and there was a large crowd behind him. Suddenly, he got off, and got on again backwards, facing the animal's tail. The people naturally asked him what he was doing.
He replied: ‘I thought about it, and decided to ride my donkey like this, because I have no time for disrespect. If you move ahead of me, then you will be turning your back on me. That would be terrible disrespect. If I go on ahead, I will be turning my back on you, and that is also quite unacceptable. This way, I can go on ahead of you and you can follow behind, and we can still keep looking at each other!'
I Found The Pitch
Nasreddin Hoca was given a saz, a kind of stringed instrument, to keep him busy at a family gathering.
‘Play us a pretty tune!' they told him.
Nasreddin Hoca began to run his fingers over the strings at random, making an odd noise.
‘Hoca!' they said, ‘is that any way to play the saz? You need to find the pitch and play properly.'
Nasreddin Hoca kept making a terrible noise, and replied: ‘My hands can't find the pitch, but they are looking for it. Now I have found one, so there is no need to go on looking.'
FOLK ECONOMY
Folk economy is one of the main components of popular culture, and also plays a major role in cultural structure.
In rural parts of Anatolia, economic life mostly depends on agriculture and livestock raising.
The term folk economy refers to all the various ways in which people try to make a living. Altough popularly regarded as a single factor, in fact, it covers the whole of social life, including even folk architecture or beliefs, and directly shapes social structure.
Beekeeping, activities in mountain pastures, migration, hunting and handicrafts are supplementary parts of the folk economy.
The folk economy also influences popular beliefs, as in the examples below:
- Seed sowing must be carried out in April. Approximately one month before
sowing, the different seeds are taken from the house and placed in the garden. (In order for the crop to be plentiful)
- People do not give seeds to their neighbours before they sow their own gardens. (It is
believed that this will protect the prosperity of the household)
- The seeds of sweet-tasting foods are put in the garden first, and hot and bitter-tasting food seeds
are put in after. (in order to make the year sweet and peaceful)
- Woman do not sow seeds or plant young trees if they are menstruating. (In order for the crop to be plentiful)
- Ribbons of different colors are tied to cows' tails. (In order to masintain the cow's milk output)
- Old people go outside their houses when it is hailing, shake to the noise of the thunder and shout: “Let my churn be speedy”
- During, and three days before religious festivals, people do not cut branches off trees, since they believe that the branches are performing their ritual prayers.
- People let their oxen enter the house on New Year's Eve. If the ox enters the house with its right hoof first, it is believed that whole year will be plentiful.
- On New Year's Eve, women throw beans at the walls. (In order to live in prosperity)
- People come together and pray for rain. If there is too much rain, however, then they pray together for it to stop.
- Anyone who draws water from a fountain on New Year's morning is believed to become rich.
-A few days before New Year, mills are prepared and all flour pots are filled. It is believed that if the pots are full on New Year's Day they will remain full for the rest of the year.
|
