The music of Turkey

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The music of Turkey includes diverse elements ranging from Central Asian folk music and music from Ottoman Empire dominions such as Persian music, Balkan music and Byzantine music, as well as more modern European and American popular music influences. In turn, it has influenced these cultures through the Ottoman Empire.[1] Turkey is a country on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, and is a crossroad of cultures from across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, the Caucasus and South and Central Asia.
The roots of traditional music in Turkey spans across centuries to a time when the Seljuk Turks colonized Anatolia and Persia in the 11th century and contains elements of both Turkic and pre-Turkic influences. Much of its modern popular music can trace its roots to the emergence in the early 1930s drive for Westernization.[2]
With the absorbance of immigrants from various regions the diversity of musical genres and musical instrumentation also expanded. Turkey has also seen documented folk music and recorded popular music produced in the ethnic styles of Armenian, Greek, Polish, Azeri and Jewish communities, among others.[1] Many Turkish cities and towns have vibrant local music scenes which, in turn, support a number of regional musical styles.
Historical background
Traditional music in Turkey falls into two main genres; classical art music and folk music. Turkish classical music is characterized by an Ottoman elite culture and influenced lyrically by neighbouring regions and Ottoman provinces, such as Persian and Byzantine vocal traditions and South European cultures.[3] Earlier forms are sometimes termed as saray music in Turkish, meaning royal court music, indicating the source of the genre comes from Ottoman royalty as patronage and composer.[4] Neo-classical or postmodern versions of this traditional genre are termed as art music or sanat musikisi, though often it is unofficially termed as alla turca. In addition, from the saray or royal courts came the Ottoman military band, Mehter tak?m? in Turkish, considered to be the oldest type of military marching band in the world. It was also the forefather of modern Western percussion bands and has been described as the father of Western military music.[5]
Turkish folk music is the music of Turkish-speaking rural communities of Anatolia, the Balkans, and Middle East. While Turkish folk music contains definitive traces of the Central Asian Turkic cultures, it has also strongly influenced and been influenced by many other indigenous cultures. Religious music in Turkey is sometimes grouped with folk music due to the tradition of the wandering minstrel or a??k (pronounced ashuk), but its influences on Sufism due to the spritiual Mevlevi sect arguably grants it special status.[6]
It has been suggested the distinction between the two major genres comes during the Tanzîmat period of Ottoman era, when Turkish classical music was the music played in the Ottoman palaces and folk music was played in the villages.[7][3] However, with the type of cultural cross-breeding the empire allowed, both genres relate to the multitudes of ethnic groups to be found in the make-up of the Ottoman Empire. In that sense they are the first examples of their kind in world music.[7][3] Although Turkish classical and folk music have generally enjoyed a broad popularity regardless of subcultures, regional classical music has had lapses in prominence.
When the modern Turkish state was proclaimed in 1923, the new republic aimed at creating a nation with a distinct and unified culture. This included replacing the culture of Istanbul, which was perceived as the Ottoman elite, by the culture of rural Anatolia, which was considered Turkish. Hence, folk music was promoted, while classical music became less popular.[2] Moreover, western classical music was introduced and encouraged in accordance with one of the most important policies of the new state, westernization of the society.[2] By the 1960s, western popular music had been introduced to Turkey, with the name hafif-bat? müzi?i (light-western music). At the same time, socialist movements were getting popular in accordance with the world. Musicians who were inspired by these movements started adapting folk music with contemporary sounds and arrangements, giving rise to Anatolian rock and protest music or özgün muzik (authentic music). Increasing immigration in the 1970s from southeastern rural areas to big cities in the west, and particularly to Istanbul, gave rise to a new cultural synthesis, which was regarded as a degeneration of Istanbul music by some musicologists whom favoured Ottoman classical music. Paradoxically things had come full circle; a genre that had once been thought as foreign was now viewed as Turkish or alla turca, as it was reminiscent of a time when Turks were at the height of their power in world events.[2]
The new residents of metropolitan areas suffered from hard economical conditions and had difficulties in adapting to the big city from rural life. This newly constructed culture proceeded to generate its own music, derogatively termed by Istanbul musicologists as arabesque or arabesk, due to its high pitched wailing and exaggerated symbolisms of suffering. Arabesque was a synthesis of Turkish folk and middle-eastern music, similar to the growing left-wing subculture's own "arabesque", which was a new version of protest music fused in folk traditions. In the era influenced by the military government, arabesque and özgün genres were labeled "degenerate" and discouraged by the government, while Turkish classical music and contemporary music were promoted.[2]
Despite this however, western-style pop music lost popularity to arabesque in the late 70s and 80s, with even its greatest proponents Ajda Pekkan and Sezen Aksu falling in status. It became popular again by the beginning of the 1990s, as a result of an opening economy and society. With the support of Aksu, the resurging popularity of pop music gave rise to several international Turkish pop stars such as Tarkan and Sertab Erener. The late 1990s also saw an emergence of underground music producing alternative Turkish rock, electronica, hip-hop, rap and dance music in opposition to the mainstream corporate pop and arabesque genres, which many believe have become too commercial.[8]
Ottoman classical music
As the Empire grew, musics of conquered peoples of the Balkans and the Mediterranean were incorporated into an increasingly diverse Ottoman music. The Ottoman Empire was a multi-ethnic state, and cultural influences, including music, were shared by groups including the Turks, Armenians, Greeks, Kurds, Arabs, Persians, Assyrians and Jews.
With the beginning of the decline of the empire in the early 19th century, one branch gradually evolved from serious artistic music to "urban entertainment music".[2] But the essence of classical Turkish music— a refined aesthetic, a vast repertoire, a sophisticated makam system of melodic modes, a variety of usul rhythmic modes, a rich body of Ottoman poetry—survived throughout the 19th and 20th centuries and continues in the 21st century.
Though akin to today's classical Arab music, classical Turkish music has a broader repertoire, utilizes a wider range of makams and usuls, and enjoys a strong following of audiences, performers, and students. One can find more distant similarities with Azerbaijan, Uzbek, and other Turkic musics. [3]
Three of the best known composers of Turkish classical music are Buhurizade Itri, Dede Efendi, and Haci Arif Bey. Throughout its history until the late 20th century, classical Turkish music was transmitted orally from teacher to student via the me?k system. Some compositions lost from the oral repertoire have survived in Hamparsum notation, developed by composer and musician Hamparsum Limonciyan by request of Sultan Selim III.
In 1934, the government of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk banned Ottoman classical music, though the ban was lifted the following year. Even though the Republic of Turkey has a considerably less multiethnic character than the Ottoman Empire, important performers and composers like Yorgo Bacanos and udi Hrant Kenkulian came from minorities, while favourite Turkish composers include Sadettin Kaynak.
Some of the important musicologists involved with this genre are Prince Cantemir, Cinuçen Tanr?korur and Rauf Yekta Bey who wrote the first modern account of Turkish classical music available in a Western language. [4]
Modern Turkish singers of neo-classical music include Münir Nurettin Selçuk, Müzeyyen Senar, Zeki Müren, Bülent Ersoy and Emel Say?n. Safiye Ayla ranks as one of the great secular classical singers of the early 20th centery. Kâni Karaca is considered one of the great singers of mosque music and Mevlevi music in the last third of the 20th century. Leading instrumentalists include Necdet Ya?ar (tanbur), Niyazi Say?n (ney), ?hsan Özgen (kemenche), Akagündüz Kutbay (ney—deceased).

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