Turkish Music - The Theory and Praxis of MAKAM in Classical Turkish Music 1910 - 2010 by Eric Ederer

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
Santa Barbara
The Theory and Praxis of Makam in Classical Turkish Music 1910-2010
A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the
requirements for the degree Doctor in Philosophy
in Music
by
Eric Bernard Ederer
Committee in charge:
Professor Scott Marcus, Chair
Professor Dolores Hsu
Professor Dwight Reynolds
Professor Münir Nurettin Beken
September 2011
Copyright © 2011
by
Eric Bernard Ederer
iii
CURRICULUM VITAE OF ERIC BERNARD EDERER
September 2011
EDUCATION
Ph.D. Ethnomusicology, University of California, Santa Barbara, September 2011

M.A. Ethnomusicology, University of California, Santa Barbara, January 2007
B.A. Music Composition, UC Santa Barbara, June 1996
A.A. Spanish, Santa Barbara City College, June 1994
PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYMENT
2007: Associate Teacher, Department of Music, University of California, Santa

Barbara, World Music
2003-2008: Teaching Assistant, Department of Music, University of California,
Santa Barbara, World Music, Music and Pop Culture in America
2003-2008: Oud Instructor for UCSB Middle East Ensemble (unpaid)
2003-2008: Music Transcriber for UCSB Middle East Ensemble (unpaid)
PUBLICATIONS
“Cümbüş as Instrument of the Other in Modern Turkey” in Porte Akademik: 4 Aylık

Müzik ve Dans Araştırmaları Dergisi, vol. 1, no. 1: Müzikte Temsil ve Müziksel
Temsil. Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey (October 2010)
“İstanbul’un Cümbüş Sadâsı – Istanbul’s Voice of Revelry,” chapter in Bizans’tan

Günümüze İstanbul Musikileri – Music of Istanbul from the Byzantine Empire to the
Present, Istanbul: Yeditepe University (in press)
Definitions of the musical instruments “Cümbüş,” “Yaylı Tanbur,” and “Lâvta” in

The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Oxford: Oxford Universty Press
(in press)
“The Cümbüş as Instrument of the Other in Modern Turkey” Master’s Thesis,

January 2007
iv
PRESENTATIONS
“(Re-)Constructions of Ottoman-ness in Today’s Classical Turkish Music World”

Society for Ethnomusicology Conference, Los Angeles, November 2010
“Music of the Eastern Mediterranean,” Fall 2010, Linfield College, McMinnville, OR
“Music and Advertising,” presentation for the class Music and Popular Culture in
America Fall 2006, Winter 2007, UCSB
“Lutes of the Silk Road,” (contributor) as part of visiting Silk Road Project
exhibition, UCSB, March 2007
“Music of the Sephardic Jews” presentation for the class Jews Among the Nations
Spring 2007, for the class World Music Spring 2005 and for the class Religion and
Western Civilization II: Medieval Winter 2004, Winter 2005, UCSB
“Hollywood as Music Culture” presentation for the class World Music Spring 2004,
Fall 2004, Winter 2005, Spring 2005, UCSB
“Greek Music: Smyrneika and Rebetika” presentation for the class Music of the
Balkans Fall 2005, UCSB
“Imaginings of Ancient Greece in Twentieth Century Music,” Society for

Ethnomusicology Southern California Chapter, UC Santa Barbara February 2008
“Dueling Multiculturalisms and Musical ‘Con-Fusion’ in Modern Turkey: the

Recontextualization of an Instrument of Otherness,” Society for Ethnomusicology
Conference, Honolulu, HI, October 2006
“Dueling Multiculturalisms and Musical ‘Con-Fusion’ in Modern Turkey: the

Recontextualization of an Instrument of Otherness,” Society for Ethnomusicology
Southern California Chapter Conference, San Diego, CA, March 2006
“Cümbüş as Instrument of the Other in Modern Turkey,” International Conference on

Musical Representation/Representation in Music, Istanbul Technical University,
Istanbul, Turkey, October 2005
Translation from the Spanish of: Wilde, Guillermo. 2007. “Toward A Political
Anthropology Of Mission Sound: Paraguay In The 17th And 18th Centuries” in
Music and Politics vol. II, 2007
v
AWARDS AND FELLOWSHIPS
Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Fellowship, Fall 2008
American Research Institute in Turkey Dissertation Fellowship, Winter 2008

(declined)
UCSB Music Affiliates Menk Fellowship 2008-2009
Excellence in Performance: Ethnomusicology, UCSB Music Dept., 2007 and 2003
Sarkis Tchejeyan Memorial Fellowship, June 2007 and June 2002
vi
ABSTRACT
by
Eric Bernard Ederer
By comparing current solo “improvisations” (taksim-s), recordings of such
performances from the earlier part of the period studied (1910-2010), and the official
classical Turkish music theory as formulated in textbooks of the twentieth century,
this study firstly determines the differences between what performers do and what
theorists say that performers do in regard to defining the Turkish makam (melodic
mode) system. This information, gathered during forty-two weeks of Fulbright-Hays
sponsored field research in Istanbul, Turkey in 2008 and 2009, is then used to
elucidate an independent, previously unwritten “performers’ theory” for Turkish
makam music. The “principles of melodic movement (and modulation)” so derived
are distinct from that aspect of makam theory that is characterized by makam
definition per se (a subject that is the focus of virtually all twentieth-century Turkish
makam theory texts). Two levels of such “principles” are discerned: the first—
“principles of cins conjunction”—charts out every makam-evoking conjunction from
all the possible combinations of trichords, tetrachords and pentachords (“cins-es”)
recognized in the performers’ theory and arranges the results in a “cins constellation”
for each individual cins, showing each makam that may be evoked by moving from
vii
that cins up or down into any of its allowable neighbor cins-es. The second level of
“principle”—“principles of motivity”—concern the means by which melodies are
moved forward (whether or not in the context of modulation). They consist of: a pivot
between two makam-iterations that share one cins at the same level; a shift in
emphasis within a makam’s tonal structure showing a new makam “existing inside”
another makam; a direct change of cins at the same level; and, chromaticism in
makam-s with diatonic tonal structures. As a whole these “principles of melodic
movement” formalize a performer-oriented perspective upon Turkish makam music
analogous to the theory of “functional harmony” in Western art music; they present a
radically different way of understanding makam music than both traditional and
current theoretical models, and yet work in parallel to these, altering without making
them obsolete.
viii
To the memory of my mother, Patsy Ruth “Patricia” Goff Burns Ederer.
ix
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Coming at the end of a long and weary road, the “acknowledgments section” is
always a difficult one for me; it is literally the last part of a piece to write and yet
many of the first people to have helped me bring this work into being I have not seen
in years—some are no longer with us, even. Add to this inevitable relational speed-
bumps, the worry that I will surely forget to thank someone I really should have, and
the fact that, for whatever reason, I become embarrassed when giving thanks—the
better deserved the worse—and it is easy for me to say that the 600-some pages
before you were quite simple to compose in comparison. Nonetheless it is, of course,
only with an enormous amount of support that a project such as this one can have
been created, and many sincere thanks are due.
Firstly I am grateful to the music artists, theorists, and historians who shared with me
their time and heart and enthusiasm for this project; if I have managed to make a
statement with the work it is only because of their immense contribution and care.
From the beginning I had hoped to make this text a framework for their voices; I now
hope the conclusions may voice an adequate response on my part, a gratitude linking
us through the music we all love so well. This group of research consultants consists
of: Agnès Agopian, Bülent Aksoy, Vasfi Akyol, Murat Aydemir, Göksel Baktagir,
Ahmet Nuri Benli, Şehvar Beşiroğlu, Furkan Bilgi, Mehmet Emin Bitmez, İhsan
Cansever, Necati Çelik, Ünal Ensari, Emre Erdal, Sinan Erdemsel, “Erkin,” Furkan
x
Esiroğlu, Selim Güler, Selçuk Gürez, Eymen Gürtan, Firuz Akın Han, Bilen Işıktaş,
Şükrü Kabacı, Nurullah Kanık, Kemal Karaöz, Baki Kemancı, Osman Kırklıkçı,
Turgut Özefer, Aslıhan Özel, Özer Özel, İhsan Özgen, Erdem Özkıvanç, Hasan
Şendil, Murat Salim Tokaç, Yurdal Tokcan, Ahmet Toz, Yavuz Yektay, Volkan
Yılmaz, and Zeki Yılmaz. If it should seem that an alphabetical list of such length
loses a bit of its sincerity in the medium, let me say that I am looking forward, by and
by, to thanking each soul personally (and may it be soon)—until then, çok teşekkür
ederim, hocalarım. I would also thank here all those who offered to work with me on
the project but for so many reasons we never found the right time to meet again—
next time we will, inşallah!
Among those research consultants whose efforts are not as obvious in the text I would
thank all my cohorts in the Molla Eşref group for their acceptance, support, and
friendship, and especially for including me in the weekly practicum where we played
ayin-s at the Nasuhi Mehmet Efendi Dergâhı in Üsküdar—an incomparable
experience and one I miss often; the many helpful graduate students at the Turkish
Music State Conservatory and the Center for Advanced Studies in Music within
Istanbul Technical University, fearlessly led by friend and fellow ethnomusicologist
Şehvar Beşiroğlu along with such teaching lights as İhsan Özgen, Mehmet Emin
Bitmez, and Belma Kurtişoğlu; the incredibly helpful people at music bookstore and
publisher Pan Kitabevi in Istanbul. For their considerable contributions and support
both in the field and afterward I thank fellow Turkish music oriented
xi
ethnomusicologists Denise Gill, Eliot Bates (and wife Ladi), Sonya Seeman, John
Morgan O’Connell, and Karl Signell—it is exciting to be able to build up our little
corner of the field together. In the same vein, I would like to acknowledge that
classical Turkish music enthusiast Phaedon Sinis invented the idea of the video clip
of a taksim performance with the artist’s analysis as subtitles before I did; although I
did not get the idea from him, it is only fair to note that his first use of it preceded
mine by a couple of years (and what a good idea it was!). I am grateful to him and to
many other friends interested in the work who kept my spirits up simply by keeping
in touch to ask how it was going and to assure me they really do want a copy when it
is done, and here (though I am bound to disappoint someone by omission) I am happy
to mention in no particular order Mary Hofer Farris, Bob Beer, Nicolas Royer,
Nicolas Elias, Tristan Driessens, Ranin Kazemi, Vjeran Kursar, Jerry Fugate, David
and Delpha Reihs, Michael Beach, Sipko den Boer, Molly at Molly’s Café in Galata...
if you think you belong on this list but do not appear on it, write me; I’ll thank you
personally! Also, many thanks to my fellow graduate students in the UCSB music
department, and to Kelly Morse Johnson, who helped me find my way around an
Arabic dictionary in time of need.
I also thank the Roberta Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies and
the Keyman Family Program in Modern Turkish Studies at Northwestern University
for making me a research fellow there during the 2009-2010 school year while I
wrote. Of course the anonymous cherubim connecting me to the Fulbright-Hays
xii
Fellowship that largely supported the operational aspects of the research deserve my
high thanks and praise though I cannot know who they were. I am also happy to thank
the Music Department and Graduate Division at the University of California, Santa
Barbara for their support.
I am also quite happy effusively to thank here the members of my dissertation
committee: Dolores Hsu, Dwight Reynolds, Münir Beken, and Scott Marcus. If ever
there were an ideal balance in my mind between the ideas of “free reign” on one end
and “fine tuning” on another I think we reached it! I hope the work is a thing we will
be glad forever to have our names upon, and I thank you for shaping it such that it
should be so.
Finally I thank my family: my father Bernie, brother Greg, and especially my mother,
Pat, who held on through a final illness until the day after I returned from the
research, just long enough say goodbye. I also thank my partner Dr. Andrea Fishman
for her amazing patience, support, and love throughout the process, which I hope to
return over long years.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Front matter.....................................................................................................................i
CV.................................................................................................................................iv
Abstract........................................................................................................................vii
Dedication.....................................................................................................................ix
Acknowledgments..........................................................................................................x
Table of Contents.......................................................................................................xiv
List of Figures.............................................................................................................xix
Pronunciation Guide..................................................................................................xxv
Preliminary Definitions.............................................................................................xxvi
The terms “makam” and “taksim”................................................................xxvi
On theory and praxis...................................................................................xxviii
On “improvisation”........................................................................................xxx
Preface.....................................................................................................................xxxii
Aim of the study.........................................................................................xxxiii
Outline of the dissertation............................................................................xxxv
Author’s qualifications...............................................................................xxxvi
Chapter I: Methods, Methodology, Sources, and Parameters........................................1

Research methods used......................................................................................1
Primary sources..................................................................................................5
Secondary sources............................................................................................10
Parameters of the study....................................................................................13
On the term “classical”....................................................................................14
Genres reciprocating influence with classical Turkish music..........................16
On informants in regard to “mastery”..............................................................18
Instruments represented in the study................................................................19
On the periodization “1910-2010”...................................................................20
Geographic location of the research................................................................20
Relations between the author and the informants............................................22
Chapter II: A Brief History of Makam and Taksim in Turkey....................................25

Proto-makam music: Bronze Age through the Selçuk period.........................25
Makam music in the Ottoman period...............................................................29
xiv
Makam music in the Early Republic................................................................34
Birth and early characteristics of the taksim genre..........................................40
On subsidiary modal entities in taksim............................................................47
Taksim’s effect on new makam creation.........................................................48
On seyir............................................................................................................49
On current characteristics of taksim performance...........................................51
Chapter III: Issues in Turkish Music Theory Since 1910............................................58

Political pressures upon a newly conceived music theory...............................58
A return to the concerns of the Systematists....................................................59
Intervals............................................................................................................61
The term “perde”.............................................................................................67
Current theorists on intonation issues..............................................................69
The Töre-Karadeniz system.............................................................................73
Makam Structure, Classification, and “Cins”: Trichords, Tetrachords,
Pentachords, and Octave Scales in KTM Theory............................................77
“Complete” tetrachords and pentachords, and the trichord.............................78
Non-repetition at the octave.............................................................................78
Placement of the dominant (güçlü)..................................................................82
Two definitions for “basit” makam-s...............................................................83
Notation............................................................................................................85
In regard to the “basic (natural) scale”............................................................86
Current theorists on the “basic scale”..............................................................91
False parallels between language and music reforms......................................93
Chapter Conclusion..........................................................................................95
Chapter IV: Current Performers’ Views on Makam Theory, Taksim,

and the State of the Art................................................................................................99
Performers on Makam Theory and its Texts....................................................99
Changes in Classical Turkish Music 1910-2010...........................................113
Loss Narrative and the End of Empire...........................................................123
Changes in Playing Techniques.....................................................................131
Changes in Instrument Sound and Construction............................................135
Performers and Educators on Taksim............................................................137
On Çeşni, Cins, Seyir, and Principles of Melodic Movement.......................148
Chapter Conclusion........................................................................................159
Chapter V: Makam Praxis Since 1910.......................................................................162

The Cins-es According to Arel......................................................................164
Basic characteristics of makam-s...................................................................167
Key to the transcriptions................................................................................170
Tanburi Cemil Bey’s “Rast Taksim”.............................................................173
Mesut Cemil Bey’s “Rast Taksim”................................................................178
Melody versus cins-oriented applications of makam in taksim.....................181
xv
Agnès Agopian’s “Rast Taksim 1”................................................................184
A “species” modulation.................................................................................184
Agnès Agopian’s “Rast Taksim 2”................................................................186
A “pivot” modulation.....................................................................................188
New terms for the pitch-levels of cins-es......................................................192
A “direct” modulation....................................................................................194
Quotation as principle of melodic movement................................................196
Makam system’s openness to new combinations..........................................198
The problem of “hüzzam”..............................................................................201
A proposed solution to the hüzzam problem.................................................209
Consolidation (of principles shown above)...................................................210
On the “holistic” nature of the makam system..............................................215
Implications of “makam loss” on this “holistic system”...............................218
Chapter Conclusion........................................................................................219
Working around Arelian theory.....................................................................224
Intonation and Notation.................................................................................225
Makam Identity and Construction.................................................................226
The Basic Scale..............................................................................................228
Basic, Transposed, and Compound Makam Categories................................230
Chapter VI: Cins Conjunctions within the Principles of

Melodic Movement....................................................................................................234
The Cins-es According to Current Praxis......................................................236
Cins Conjunctions..........................................................................................239
Summary of the cins conjunctions and their use in the first level of
“principle of melodic movement”..................................................................248
The Constellations of Cins-es........................................................................250
The “pre-cadential flat 5” gesture and the kürdi pentachord.........................253
Chapter VII: The Principles Applied.........................................................................261

The aspects of the taksim recordings analyzed..............................................261
Types of Cins Change....................................................................................264
Significance of cins change in terms of evoking a new makam....................265
On Direct Cins Changes at the Same Level...................................................266
Two situations in which these occur..............................................................267
On Pivot-type Cins Changes..........................................................................269
Whether or not new makam’s seyir was followed.........................................270
Hierarchical changes in pivot tones...............................................................270
On Species- and Quote-type Cins Changes...................................................271
On “Unique” Cins Combinations...................................................................273
On “Ambiguous Combinations”....................................................................275
On Cins Changes in Relation to Modulation.................................................274
Chromatic Runs.............................................................................................278
“Pre-Cadential Flat-5” Gestures....................................................................279
xvi
Tally of taksim-s with (or without) modulation.............................................280
Chapter Summary..........................................................................................280
The Poetic Strategies of Confirming, Delaying, and Deceiving....................285
Expansion of Beken’s and Signell’s concept.................................................286
Application of these strategies to the taksim analyses...................................287
Conclusion.................................................................................................................291
Appendix A: List of Informants and Their Contributions.........................................323
Appendix B: Makam-s Represented in the Original Recordings...............................328
Appendix C: Makam-s Listed in Özkan, Yılmaz, Karadeniz, and

the State’s “Rarely Used Makam-s”..........................................................................335
Appendix D: Theory Text Samples...........................................................................338
Appendix E: Photographs of the Instruments Represented in the Study...................354
Appendix F: Intervals, Note Names, and “Ahenk-s” in the Standard

Turkish System..........................................................................................................362
Ahenk.............................................................................................................363
Intervals and Note Names..............................................................................366
Intervals..........................................................................................................368
Note Names....................................................................................................369
Appendix G: On Rast and Çargâh.............................................................................372
Appendix H: The Hüzzam Tetrachord.......................................................................385
Appendix I: Cins Constellations by Name.................................................................393
Appendix J: Makam Definitions................................................................................402

Makam Families by Page Number.................................................................406
Rast Family....................................................................................................409
Uşşak Family.................................................................................................418
Segâh Family.................................................................................................433
Buselik Family...............................................................................................442
Kürdi Family..................................................................................................447
Acem Aşiran Family......................................................................................455
Hicaz Family..................................................................................................458
Nikriz Family.................................................................................................468
A Note on Species Relations Between Makam-s..........................................470
xvii
Appendix K: Analyses of the Recorded Taksim-s.....................................................474
Appendix L: DVDs of the Taksim-s..........................................................................565

List of the taksim-s.........................................................................................565
Glossary.....................................................................................................................571
Bibliography..............................................................................................................596
Discography...............................................................................................................612
xviii
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: table showing the tally of taksim-s recorded..................................................3
Figure 2: the cins-es according to Arel......................................................................165
Figure 3: transcription key.........................................................................................170
Figure 4: Rast taksim, Tanburi Cemil Bey................................................................173
Figure 5: Rast taksim, Mesut Cemil Bey...................................................................178
Figure 6: Rast taksim 1, Agnès Agopian...................................................................184
Figure 7: Rast taksim 2, Agnès Agopian...................................................................186
Figure 8: two modulations effected by pivots............................................................188
Figure 9: Agopian Rast taksim 2 depicted in grids....................................................193
Figure 10: Agopian Rast taksim 2, modulation in Hüzzam.......................................201
Figure 11: the cins-es according to current praxis.....................................................236
Figure 12: cins conjunctions: pentachord + tetrachord..............................................243
Figure 13: cins conjunctions: tetrachord + pentachord..............................................244
Figure 14: cins conjunctions: trichord + tetrachord...................................................245
Figure 15: cins conjunctions: tetrachord + trichord...................................................246
Figure 16: cins conjunctions: trichord + pentachord.................................................247
Figure 17: cins conjunctions: trichord + trichord......................................................248
Figure 18: constellation of Rast-5..............................................................................252
Figure 19: constellation of Uşşak-5...........................................................................252
Figure 20: constellation of Pençgâh-5.......................................................................253
xix
Figure 21: constellation of Buselik-5.........................................................................253
Figure 22: constellation of Kürdi-5............................................................................253
Figure 23: constellation of Çargâh-5.........................................................................254
Figure 24: constellation of Hicaz-5............................................................................255
Figure 25: constellation of Nikriz-5...........................................................................255
Figure 28: constellation of Hüzzam-4........................................................................257
Figure 31: constellation of Çargâh-4.........................................................................258
Figure 32: constellation of Hicaz-4............................................................................258
Figure 35: constellation of Segâh-3...........................................................................259
Figure 36: constellation of Müstear-3........................................................................259
Figure 39: cins changes involved in modulations......................................................276
Figure 40: cins changes not (clearly) involved in modulations.................................277
Figure 41: Rast according to Arel..............................................................................339
Figure 42: Rast according to Özkan...........................................................................344
xx
Figure 43: Acemli Rast according to Özkan..............................................................344
Figure 44: Uşşak within Rast according to Özkan.....................................................345
Figure 45: Segâh according to Özkan........................................................................345
Figure 46: Rast on yegâh according to Özkan...........................................................346
Figure 47: Rast as bottom-heavy according to Özkan...............................................346
Figure 48: upon the upper tonic of Rast according to Özkan....................................347
Figure 49: old Rast according to Kutluğ....................................................................348
Figure 50: intermediary Rast according to Kutluğ....................................................349
Figure 51: Arel’s Rast according to Kutluğ...............................................................350
Figure 52: Rast according to Yılmaz.........................................................................352
Figure 53: beneath the tonic in Rast according to Yılmaz.........................................352
Figure 54: Acemli Rast according to Yılmaz............................................................353
Figure 55: Tanbur......................................................................................................354
Figure 56: 2 Ney-s.....................................................................................................355
Figure 57: Kemençe...................................................................................................356
Figure 58: Ud.............................................................................................................357
Figure 59: Kanun.......................................................................................................358
Figure 60: Klarnet (Clarinet).....................................................................................359
Figure 61: Keman (Violin).........................................................................................360
Figure 62: Yaylı Tanbur.............................................................................................361
Figure 63: Ahenk-s according to Ayangil..................................................................365
Figure 64: division of the whole tone into nine koma-s............................................367
xxi
Figure 65: intervals of classical Turkish music.........................................................368
Figure 66: note names of classical Turkish music................................................369-71
Figure 67: eighteenth-century Persian and Turkish note names................................376
Figure 68: constellation of rast-5 (2).........................................................................393
Figure 71: constellation of uşşak-5 (2)......................................................................395
Figure 74: constellation of segâh-3 (2)......................................................................396
Figure 75: constellation of müstear-3 (2)...................................................................396
Figure 76: constellation of pençgâh-5 (2)..................................................................397
Figure 77: constellation of hüzzam-4 (2)...................................................................397
Figure 78: constellation of buselik-5 (2)....................................................................397
Figure 81: constellation of kürdi-3 (2).......................................................................398
Figure 84: constellation of çargâh-5 (2).....................................................................399
Figure 85: constellation of çargâh-4 (2).....................................................................400
Figure 86: constellation of hicaz-5 (2).......................................................................400
xxii
Figure 87: constellation of hicaz-4 (2).......................................................................401
Figure 88: constellation of nikriz-5 (2)......................................................................401
Figure 89: Rast...........................................................................................................409
Figure 90: Neva..........................................................................................................412
Figure 91: Rast on yegâh...........................................................................................412
Figure 92: Basit Suzinak............................................................................................414
Figure 93: Nişaburek..................................................................................................414
Figure 94: Uşşak........................................................................................................418
Figure 95: Neva (2)....................................................................................................420
Figure 96: Acem........................................................................................................421
Figure 97: Karcığar....................................................................................................423
Figure 98: Nişabur.....................................................................................................426
Figure 99: Hüseyni.....................................................................................................427
Figure 100: Saba........................................................................................................430
Figure 101: Segâh (1).................................................................................................433
Figure 102: Segâh (2).................................................................................................433
Figure 103: Hüzzam...................................................................................................436
Figure 104: Irak..........................................................................................................437
Figure 105: Müstear (1).............................................................................................439
Figure 106: Müstear (2).............................................................................................439
Figure 107: Buselik (1)..............................................................................................442
Figure 108: Buselik (2)..............................................................................................442
xxiii
Figure 109: Nihavend (1)...........................................................................................443
Figure 110: Nihavend (2)...........................................................................................443
Figure 111: Kürdi.......................................................................................................447
Figure 112: Kürdili Hicazkâr (1)...............................................................................449
Figure 113: Kürdili Hicazkâr (2)...............................................................................449
Figure 114: Acem Aşiran...........................................................................................455
Figure 115: Hicaz.......................................................................................................460
Figure 116: Hümayun................................................................................................460
Figure 117: Uzzal.......................................................................................................461
Figure 118: Zirgüleli Hicaz........................................................................................462
Figure 119: Hicazkâr..................................................................................................463
Figure 120: Nikriz (1)................................................................................................468
Figure 121: Nikriz (2)................................................................................................468
Figure 122: Nev’eser..................................................................................................469
xxiv
PRONUNCIATION GUIDE
The Turkish language has been written in a variation of the Latin alphabet since 1928
and the pronunciations of the consonants may be considered, for our purposes,
identical to those of the same letters in English, with the following exceptions:
C, c sounds like the “j” in judge

Ç, ç sounds like the “ch” in church
G, g sounds always like the “g” in get (never “soft” as in gin)
Ğ, ğ is silent but extends the preceding vowel
J, j sounds like the “s” in measure
S, s sounds always like the “s” in simple (never “voiced” as in is)
Ş, ş sounds like the “sh” in share
The eight vowels in Turkish are as follows, and their given pronunciations are
approximately those of a hypothetical standard dialect:
A, a sounding like “a” in father

E, e sounding like “e” in fed
I, ı sounding like “uh,” e.g., in the second syllable of nation
İ, i sounding somewhere between the “i” of machine and the “i” of bit
O, o sounding like “o” in no
Ö, ö sounding like “eu” in the French peu (i.e., setting the lips as if to say ooh and
pronouncing the second syllable of nation)
U, u sounding like the “oo” in pool
Ü, ü sounding like “ü” in the German über (i.e., setting the lips as if to say ooh and
pronouncing the “i” in machine)
The vowel a with a caret over it (â) is pronounced with a slight “y” sound before it
(e.g. kâr sounds like kyar); other vowels may also carry such a caret but their
pronunciation remains unchanged.
Since information in the appendices and bibliography are given alphabetically

according to the Turkish alphabet, I will reproduce its order here:
ABCÇDEFGĞHIİJKLMNOÖPRSŞTUÜVYZ
xxv
PRELIMINARY DEFINITIONS
Throughout this text the following conventions will be used to distinguish three
categories of concept that use the same or overlapping nomenclature:
• the name of a makam (see definition below) is represented with an initial
capital letter, e.g., “Hicaz” refers to the Hicaz makam
• the names of individual tones are in lower case and italicized, e.g., “hicaz”
refers to the tone named hicaz
• the names of tetrachords, pentachords, characteristic motifs or other sub-units
of makam are unmarked, e.g., a reference to the “hicaz tetrachord”
Furthermore, although there is a glossary of terms starting on page 571, the two terms
makam and taksim are so fundamental to all that follows that I will give basic
definitions of them here:
• a makam (fr. Arabic maqām, “place.” Arabic plural maqāmāt, Turkish plural
makamlar; in this document the plural will be presented as “makam-s”) is a
kind of melodic mode; a subset of rules regarding the choice of permissibly
playable tones and a player’s treatment of them (in terms of melodic direction,
order of importance regarding emphasis, tonal inflection, etc.), drawn from a
larger system of acceptable tones (that is, a general scale) in order to create a
xxvi
distinct modal identity.1 Every piece of classical Turkish music—whether
“improvised” or pre-composed—is describable in terms of its makam(-s),
indeed most pieces have the name of their makam in their titles (e.g., a “Rast
Saz Semaisi”—Rast being a makam and saz semaisi a compositional form—
or a “Rast taksimi”). A makam is, in effect, a heuristic device for creating (or
analyzing, or in some senses appreciating) the structure of a piece of classical
Turkish music.2
o each makam has a specific, normative tonic (durak [Turkish, lit.
“stop”] or karar [Arab, lit. “decision,” “resting point,” “resolution”]);
the makam may be referred to as being “in its place” (Turkish:
yerinde,3 e.g., Rast makam “on” the tone rast [i.e., using rast as the
tonic]) or if in transposition, as being “on” another named tone (e.g.,
“Rast on dügâh,” Turkish: dügâhta rast; see Arel 1991 [1943-48]: 33);
see Appendix F for a list of named tones in the system
1
A greater level of detail will be explained throughout this text, and 80 specific makam-s are defined
in Appendix J. See also Marcus 1989a: 323-6 and 438-713 regarding the defining characteristics of a
maqām in an Eastern Arab understanding. One small but significant point I must make here regards the
importance of rhythmic cycles (usûl-s) in classical Turkish music; because the taksim genre is
generally unmetered, avoiding prolonged repeated rhythmic figures, the emphasis on this study is on
makam. However no education in this music would be considered complete without a thorough
grounding in the rules of both makam and usûl (see Bektaş 2005 passim, O’Connell 2000: 120 fn. 5;
also Wright 2000: 389, cf. Marcus 2002: 89).
2
See Chapter I of this document regarding the potentially contentious use of the term “classical” in
reference to this music, and regarding my justification for using the term.
3
May also be yerinden, “from its place”; see Ayangil 2008: 439 (parenthetically, for whom
“yerinde/n” is short for “bolahenk yerinde/n” (see Appendix F regarding “bolahenk” and other
transposition schemes; see also Shiloah 1981: 40 and Feldman 1996: 198 regarding makam-s being
settled on particular notes at least since the fifteenth century).
xxvii
o music created using the rules of makam may be referred to as being in
“the makam system,” in “the Turkish music system,” or even simply
as “makam [music]” 4
• a taksim (fr. Arabic taqsīm, “division, distribution.” Arabic plural taqāsīm,5
Turkish plural taksimler; in this document the plural will be presented as
“taksim-s”) is a genre consisting of an extemporaneous performance
(“improvisation,” see below) played on an instrument (its vocal equivalent
being called gazel or kaside; see Feldman 1993: 8, O’Connell 2003) by a
performer who has previously learned the intricacies of the makam system in
ways to be elaborated in this text. A performer creates a taksim within a
makam or moving from one makam to another; one level of the aesthetic
judgment of a taksim consists in assessing the performer’s skill in
demonstrating knowledge of the makam(-s) used, including the relations
between makam-s that make modulations appropriate (i.e., successfully
achieving beauty within established convention), however temporary such a
modulation may be.
Lastly I wish to provide brief explanations of what I mean by the terms “theory” and
“praxis” as used in the title. The first of these is perhaps the more straightforward as it
directly parallels the Western and other “music theories” with which most readers
4
See also Tsuge 1972 regarding other maqām/makam/mugham musics in the world; cf. Touma 1971,
and Yarman in Bayhan 2008: 141-2 arguing for referring to variations of a single “makam music.”
5
Scott Marcus notes that in Eastern Arab usage the plural taqāsīm is used as both singular and plural
in reference to this genre (1993b, where see also his definition of the genre in an Eastern Arab
understanding). This is not the case in Turkey.
xxviii
will already be familiar, that is, it refers to a body of knowledge dealing with the
ways in which a music system (here, the Turkish version of the “makam system”)
works. People—music theorists, performers, aficionados, et al.—employ classical
Turkish music theory to represent normative abstract models of the elements and
parameters that constitute the system, such as acceptable pitches and their interval
relationships, the construction and use of modal entities and rhythmic cycles, etc.6
The second term, “praxis,” is a rarer word in English and may ring of something
obscure and complicated but simply means the enactment of a theory or skill—the
application of an abstract principle in practice. A taksim is a form of praxis of
principles drawn from the body of makam theory, that is, the enactment of (a
delimited subsection of) makam (theory) in the moment of performance.7 When I
refer in this document to “performance practice(s),” I intend it to mean this praxis
and/or performance techniques (which are not an expression of theory), but not to this
praxis alone.
6
The traditional and normative term for theory in Turkish is nazariyat (or nazariye, fr. Arabic
nazariya); this was the term used by my informants. Note, however, that some current Turkish music
theorists, such as Zeren and Sayan (e.g., in Bayhan 2008: 22-3 and 71 respectively) prefer the word
kuram, ascribing to it the implication of scientifically derived results, which have at times been lacking
in traditional nazariyat (cf. Ertan 2007: 35-52, Wright 2000: 11).
7
The paradigm is from Aristotle, who posited that human beings participate in three basic kinds of
activity: theoria (witnessing and contemplation; theory), poiesis (creating something durable), and
praxis (practical application); it could be argued that pre-performance composition falls into the
category of praxis rather than poiesis—that it, too, is an enactment of (makam) theory—but I prefer to
maintain the in-the-moment-activity sense of “praxis,” obviating the need to qualify taksim as
“performance praxis,” or some such unwieldy construction. Parenthetically, for Aristotle, praxis
“…depends on a kind of WISDOM that is not purely intellectual and that must be developed through
experience” (Becker 2001 s.v. Praxis); I believe the great majority of my informants for this project
would agree with this in regard to taksim. (The term “praxis” is also used in several social sciences in
reference to [a certain application of] Marxian theory, but no such connection is intended here.)
xxix
This leads me to say a few words about the idea of “improvisation,” which some
writers have found problematic (whether or not they continue to use the term; see
Racy 2000, Nettl 2008, Arnon 2008, Hulse 2008). For instance Feldman prefers the
term “performance-generated” to “improvised” in regard to taksim, fearing that the
latter term may carry imprecise and pejorative implications (1993: 25, fn. 8). I do use
the term “improvisation” occasionally in regard to classical Turkish music, and I trust
that the presumably few and specialized readers of this dissertation will understand
that I mean it without pejorative implication when I do,8 but more importantly I
would point out that understanding taksim as the praxis of makam obviates the need
to bring improvisation into the discussion at all; taksim is simply the real-time
enactment of certain theoretical principles.9 This is not merely a convenient way of
avoiding the problem of what improvisation is; I would contend that there is an
experiential difference between a spontaneous artistic performance that may
incidentally be informed or qualified by abstract theoretical principles (a certain kind
of improvisation), and the (nearly?) synchronous mind-body recollection of principles
applied as a generative device for creating a performance (as is taksim).
8
If after reading this dissertation the reader should find my intention regarding the word unclear,
please refer to the caveats in Feldman’s note on “performance-generation” (1993: 25, fn. 8), and to
Racy 2000 (passim), with which I generally agree.
9
Cf. Feldman 1993: 22 on taksim as “a vehicle for expressing seyir [melodic shape] and modulation
within the makam system” (see Chapter II here for a finer definition of “seyir,” and regarding the
importance of modulation in taksim). See also Chapter III fn. 50 and Chapter IV fn. 41 herein for
instances of what I consider improvisation in the performance of taksim-s that lie outside of the praxis
of a theory.
xxx
In the classical Turkish music world this is also understood as a defining aesthetic
principle; a spontaneous performance that does not express the rules of makam theory
is labeled “doğaçlama” (improvisation) and not “taksim.” We may compare this with
a typical jazz improvisation, which might ostensibly be in a key, such as B flat major,
but whose aesthetic success depends on the strategic inclusion of at least some of the
5 tones outside of that key.10 That is to say that, rather than “expressing B flat major-
ness,” the improvisation’s success depends to some extent upon creatively
deconstructing the key (even though deviations may be explained in terms of the key,
e.g., a “flat 3rd” or “sharp 4th”). A taksim requires greater constraint than this; one of
its goals must be to properly define the makam it is in and to maintain that definition
throughout, and to treat internal modulations similarly—it is not enough that it merely
be “improvised.”
10
This example does not even include “free jazz” improvisation, in which such traditional structural
constraints as “key” may be completely absent.
xxxi
PREFACE
In our music, we tend to go to the theorists with debates on makams. The

issue is continually looked at through the abstract window of theory, and often
enough, that of one particular theoretician. However, it is the performer who
removes the makam from the realm of abstraction and breathes life into it. If a
theory book could be written with an eye focused directly on performance, it
would shed a very new light on the discussion of makams. (Bülent Aksoy
2006: 52)
Classical Turkish music, like the medieval Islamic art music from which it is
descended (see Chapter II)—and perhaps like “classical” musics, generally—has
throughout its existence consisted in an active and constant interaction between a
body of formal, structure-oriented theory (often documented in writing, even if
usually transmitted orally) and applied (but scarcely documented) performance
practices (see Sawa 1989, Signell 2008: 1-8).1 The present study does not seek to
dispense with or ignore “music theory”—it rather depends upon it—but the problem
that Dr. Aksoy’s remarks above allude to resides in the fact that classical Turkish
music theory as it currently appears in canonical textbooks (e.g., Ezgi 1935-53, Arel
1968 [1943], Yılmaz 2007 [1973], Karadeniz 1983, Özkan 1984, Kutluğ 2000, et al.)
is the product of a certain kind of modernization project. This project took Western
European techniques, musical literacy, and pedagogical goals and applied them to a
music that had many characteristics which on the one hand might have been better
served by a more culturally organic systematization (see O’Connell 2008; cf. Yekta
1
As mentioned in a footnote in the previous section, a problematizing of the term “classical” in the
sense used here will be presented in Chapter I.
xxxii
1922, Karadeniz 1983, Bayhan 2008), and on the other hand took little more interest
in accounting for applied performance practices than preceding theories had done
(Aksoy, p.c. 2/4/09; see also Ayangil 2008: 402, 415, and Wright 2000: 30).
The aim of the present study is to make explicit the understandings of “makam
theory” as employed by practicing musicians as they apply it to their own creative
activity in the genre of taksim. By extension (or recursion), these understandings are
also the basis of these performers’ analyses of pre-composed pieces, and represent the
knowledge of makam that they transmit to their students, whether primarily through
oral or written means.2 In short this work is primarily a comparison between what
musician-composers have been doing and what prominent theorists have been saying
these musician-composers are doing (or what they should be doing) throughout the
period defined. My hypothesis is that the differences amount to an unwritten,
performance-oriented body of “theory,” and I use recordings of taksim-s from
throughout this period as examples of literal but non-verbal explications of that
theory. By systematically analyzing these taksim-s and comparing them with the
verbal descriptions of current performers, and with the “official” textbook music
theory, my goal is to present—apparently for the first time in one document—a
formalized interpretation of this performance-based “theory” in a verbal format.3
2
Normally an unequal combination of both, there being greater emphasis on texts in conservatories
and greater emphasis on learning through supervised playing in private lessons.
3
I should say that this is “for the first time” regarding Turkish makam music: Scott Marcus has done
much work on this subject in regard to Eastern Arab maqām (see 1989a: 755-76, and particularly
1992). Although this dissertation is not itself a comparative project, the considerable differences
xxxiii
These are presented as a system of “principles of melodic movement (and
modulation)” based on: a performance-oriented reckoning of possible cins-es
(trichords, tetrachords and pentachords); the acceptable conjunction of these from all
their possible combinations; and several strategies for moving a melody along cins by
cins.
Implicitly there runs through the theory-versus-practice dialogue a particular history
of the changes in both theoretical conceptualizations of makam, and performance
practices in the taksim genre that, beyond merely reflecting the one hundred-year
period from which our taksim examples are drawn, extends to the seventeenth-
century invention of the taksim genre in the Ottoman court, and in some respects even
further back in the history of maqām-based musics. A secondary goal of this work is
to make explicit such a historical narrative.4
My hope is that this document will be found useful to the classical Turkish music
establishment and interested ethnomusicologists alike, as well as to makam music
enthusiasts and composers outside of Turkey, for whom even basic (much less
extensive) practical guides to understanding current Turkish makam theory and praxis
have been gravely lacking in languages other than Turkish.5 With this in mind, in
between our findings should start an interesting conversation in the greater world of maqām-music
theorists.
4
Again there is a parallel with Dr. Marcus’s work (e.g., see 1989a: 12-67 and 1989b passim), though I
have not sought here to demarcate formal “periods” of theory as he did.
5
Partial exceptions would be the dissertations of ethnomusicologists Karl Signell (1973) and Frederick
W. Stubbs (1994)—though neither of them intended therein to document the makam-s of the system
xxxiv
addition to the information presented throughout this document, Appendix J is
organized such that it may serve as a sort of primer in Turkish makam definitions,
given the caveats that such definitions are limited, might be interpreted differently by
different artists and theorists (as will be shown throughout the main body of the text),
and that the proper application of this knowledge requires extensive study with one or
more master teachers/performers.
An outline of the dissertation follows: Chapter I consists of an explication of the
methods, methodology, sources and parameters I used in the creation of the study;
Chapter II gives a brief history of makam music and the taksim genre from roughly
the eighth century CE to its more recent (and finally, current) Turkish iteration;
Chapter III reviews how current classical Turkish music theory came into being, and
elaborates certain of its problematic issues; Chapter IV frames the ideas of current
performers on music theory, the taksim genre, and the state of the art in their own
voices; in Chapter V we begin to analyze taksim-s from throughout the period 1910-
2010 in terms of current music theory, and to formulate performer-oriented
explanations for phenomena that exist in practice but not in current theory; Chapter
VI further extrapolates performer-oriented understandings of the makam system and
reformulates those related to melodic movement at the level of the cins6 into abstract
extensively; non-scholarly attempts such as Parfitt 2004; and the recently released bilingual (Turkish
and English) pedagogical software “Mus2okur” (which I have not reviewed; see
http://www.musiki.org/index.htm [accessed 10/12/10]). See Chapter I regarding Aydemir 2010.
6
The term “cins” refers collectively to tone-structures of three, four, or five tones; they form a kind of
basic “building blocks” for the makam system (see Chapter III).
xxxv
“principles of melodic movement”;7 in Chapter VII I show how these abstract
principles also emerge from an analysis of one hundred video-recorded examples of
taksim-s made for this project,8 and investigate concurrences and divergences
between the three main objects of the study (current music theory, makam praxis in
the taksim genre, and performers’ understandings and interpretations of these); and
finally we end with a Conclusion regarding the study, followed by several
Appendices.
Although in the main body of this text I utilize terminology from makam theory that
would appear to presume of the reader a certain amount of previous makam
knowledge, it is hoped that the incidental explanations and, especially, the
information in the glossary and appendices will ultimately leave no such reference
unexplained (or at least indiscernible); readers less familiar with the concepts and
terminology of Turkish makam music may wish to look over the glossary and
appropriate appendices ahead of reading the main text.
Before proceeding to the first chapter I should say a few words about my
qualifications for undertaking this research, and the interests that led me to achieve
them. Although I began playing guitar as a child, coming to a few years of studying
7
As will be seen, these are distinct from that aspect of makam theory that is characterized by makam
definition per se—a subject that is the focus of virtually all twentieth-century Turkish makam theory
texts, as well as a central part of all classical Turkish music education, whether in conservatories or in
oral meşk education.
8
These are further explained in Chapter I, and appear whole as Appendix L, a set of 8 DVDs.
xxxvi
classical technique and repertoire on that instrument in private lessons with Antonio
López around the age of eighteen, my music education was non-academic until 1996,
when I completed (at the age of thirty) a bachelor’s degree in music composition in
the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. During
that phase of my education I was privileged to study not only with my main teachers,
Leslie Hogan and Jeremy Haladyna but also occasionally with the late Lou Harrison,
who was among the pioneering twentieth-century Western composers interested in
improvised, non-Western, ancient, and modal musics. He was particularly drawn to
work in “microtonal” intervals, that is, tuning systems other than the twelve-tone
equal temperament that has been the de facto standard of European-derived musics
since at least the mid-nineteenth century. While he and my other teachers were
encouraging about my desire to explore such music, there was very little written
material available to a four-year college student seeking detailed examples or models
of how it might be made.9
The following five years, though they included moderate successes as a composer for
film trailers, saw me largely moving away from academia and the formal study of
music, but around 2000 I was invited to join Mesógeios, a band playing early-
twentieth-century rembétika and smyrnéika music. At the time I was the only non-
Greek player in the group, and the music—new to me—was framed as “Greek
9
I do not remember having heard at that time of John Chalmers’ 1991 Division of the Tetrachord
(though it seems likely that at least one of these esteemed teachers would have mentioned it to me); I
wonder if I would be writing this today had I done so—and if so, whether I would have written it ten
years ago or not at all.
xxxvii
music,” though I would later learn of broader, multicultural origins for these genres in
the makam-based musics of the Ottoman Empire. It was clear to me that the
discrepancies of intonation between those instruments having twelve fixed, equally
tempered pitches (guitar, bouzouki) and those without fixed pitches (voice, oud,
violin) were not accidental or the result of poor skill, and yet I was not able to elicit
from my band mates a systematic explanation of what was going on in terms of the
intonation.
In the summer of 2001 I unwittingly took a further step in the direction of makam-
based music when I bought a Turkish cümbüş—a kind of fretless twelve-string lute
(see Ederer 2007)—simply to experiment with. At the time I had no intention of
learning Turkish music—in fact I was unaware that I had ever heard any—but a
friend of mine who played in the UCSB Middle East Ensemble, run by
ethnomusicologist Scott Marcus, invited me to come join them to learn some music
appropriate to the instrument. Indeed I found both the group experience and the
varied musics we played very attractive, and not least as a composer; finally I was
learning not one but several ways of playing microtonal modal musics with an
improvisational component. (Ironically, of course, the Ensemble had also been there
when I was a composition student, but I had let it slip beneath my radar.)
Over the next year my involvement with makam musics deepened: I began studying
oud (Turkish ud, Arabic ùd—fretless precursor to the European lute) as well as
xxxviii
Eastern Arab maqām theory with Dr. Marcus, and I assisted in a series of recording
sessions with visiting Turkish ud-ist Necati Çelik. I was able to begin taking lessons
with him also, attending the first of several summer music camps in Mendocino, and
by the end of that year, 2002, I had been accepted in the UCSB graduate program in
ethnomusicology. I was fortunate that Turkish language classes—which can be
offered a bit sporadically at UCSB—were indeed offered that first year, at the end of
which I took a two-month intensive language course at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul;
during that time I was also able to continue ud and makam lessons with Mr. Çelik.
After a year Dr. Marcus asked me to be the ud tutor for the Middle East Ensemble, a
volunteer position I held for the next five years as I worked through my coursework,
continuing lessons in maqām with Dr. Marcus and performances with Mesógeios,
with the Sephardic band Flor de Kanela, and with the Middle East Ensemble (for
which I was also transcribing a great deal of music from recordings).
In those summers when I could manage it I would return to Mendocino to take more
lessons with Necati bey, as well as with other ud instructors such as Haig Manookian,
Sinan Erdemsel and Naser Musa. In the late summer of 2005 I returned to Istanbul for
five months to undertake research on the cümbüş for my master’s thesis (The Cümbüş
as Instrument of the Other in Modern Turkey), continuing my music lessons with
Necati bey and expanding my contacts among Istanbul musicians. Finally, having
completed my master’s thesis, doctoral coursework (including Dr. Marcus’s class in
maqām, whose final exam mimicked that given to students about to graduate from the
xxxix
conservatory in Cairo), and oral exams—and having been awarded a Fulbright-Hays
Dissertation Fellowship for the project you are reading—I undertook the ten months
of research in Istanbul that resulted in this dissertation.
Although the results have come out quite differently, those who have read Dr.
Marcus’s dissertation (Arab Music Theory in the Modern Period, UCLA 1989) and
other works,10 will notice several parallels to it in this work: explications of the
historical grounding for current practices, the comparison of theoretical and practical
understandings of the maqām/makam system, an emphasis on the importance of
modulation (especially in the taqāsīm/taksim genre), and a formalization of
performance-based rules regarding such modulation. This is of course not
coincidental, and the explicit acknowledgment of (not to mention gratitude for) his
influence upon the research presented below is due and well deserved.
10
Particularly 1989b and 1992 (see Chapter I and Bibliography).
xl
CHAPTER I: METHODS, METHODOLOGY, SOURCES, AND PARAMETERS
The fieldwork I undertook for this project occurred in Istanbul, Turkey over a
continuous forty-two week period from November 8, 2008 to August 26, 2009.1 In
order to gather the information necessary to complete this study, the fieldwork
focused on acquiring information from four primary sources: 1) recordings of taksim
performances that I made myself (video and audio; see accompanying DVDs, listed
as Appendix L); 2) professional and archival recordings of taksim performances from
throughout the period studied (see Discography and Chapter V); 3) Turkish-language
texts on makam theory and the art of taksim that have been available in Turkey and
used in a variety of pedagogical contexts, and, of great importance; 4) the
interpretations and analyses of the previous three sources given by performers
themselves, and by music theory and music history professors in several Istanbul
conservatories and universities.
The latter of these primary sources was important to the study because I wanted as
much as possible for the interpretations and representations of the material to be those
of the taksim performers and makam theorists themselves, and not a superimposition
of my own analysis. This was particularly desired in regard to the analyses of the one-
on-one live-recorded taksim performances; my method of recording and preparing
these follows:
1
This research was accomplished with the generous funding from a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship, and
the support of the UCSB Music Department, and the Graduate Division of UCSB.
1
• Having arranged an appointment with a performer ahead of time, I would
make video recordings of taksim performances
• Either immediately afterward or at a later appointment I would meet with the
performer to review the video recordings and solicit his or her analyses of the
taksim-s in terms of makam theory, at which time I would activate an audio
recording device such that both the music from the video and the performer’s
analysis of it were recorded synchronously. (Very often I would follow this
with a recorded interview immediately after.)
• Later, having transcribed the recorded analysis (as prose) and marked timing
points for the music, I would create a video “clip” of each taksim performance
with the analysis running below it as subtitles (see the accompanying DVDs I-
IV)
• Whenever feasible I subsequently showed the clips to the performer in order
to make any corrections to the analyses, and to gain assurance that each gave
an accurate representation of his or her interpretation
In order to represent recorded taksim examples graphically in this text I have also
made simplified notations of a few of them to present here; unfortunately I was not
able to have the performers check or approve these transcriptions, but I have made
every effort that they accurately reflect the analyses that they gave for their respective
clips.
2
In all I returned to the United States with forty-two such video recordings, in which
twelve performers analyzed their own taksim-s, as well as another fifty-eight videos
of taksim performances—mainly from live concerts, and representing another twenty-
two musicians—for which I was unable to obtain the artists’ analyses,2 and whose
taksim-s I have analyzed myself as a supplementary source of information. This
“primary source” is thus represented by one hundred performances by thirty-four
artists, parsed by performance medium in figure 1, below. (I have listed the artists’
names along with their instruments, etc., in Appendix A):
Instrument Players Taksim-s Taksim-s with Taksim-s with my

(total) artist’s analysis analysis
Ud 5 20 11 (2 players) 9 (3 players)
Kanun 6 16 7 (2 players) 9 (4 players)
Tanbur 5 23 11 (2 players) 12 (3 players)
Kemençe 5 8 1 (1 player) 7 (4 players)
Ney 5 14 3 (1 player) 11 (4 players)
Yaylı Tanbur 4 11 8 (3 players) 3 (1 player)
Violin 4 6 1 (1 player) 5 (3 players)
Clarinet 1 1 0 1 (1 player)
Voice 1 1 0 1 (1 singer)
Totals 34* 100 42 (12 players = 35%) 58 (22* players = 65%)
Figure 1. *NB: two performers made taksim-s on two separate instruments (tanbur/yaylı tanbur, and
yaylı tanbur/violin); they are each counted here under both of their respective instruments, but not
separately in the total, therefore this chart represents thirty-four performers although the “total” here
3
adds up to thirty-six. (See photographs of the instruments in Appendix E.)
2
In some cases this was because I could not arrange to analyze them with the performer afterward, and
in others because when we met they preferred to record “fresh” taksim-s one-on-one in the manner
described above; in some of the latter cases also we could not arrange to meet later for their analysis.
From among the thirty-four performers recorded I was unable to meet and converse with only seven
(whose performances form a total of eight taksim-s and one gazel, all in a concert setting; see
Appendix A).
3
The gender distribution of my sample was 91% males (31 performers) to 9% females (3 performers).
Without being able to survey the total number of classical Turkish music performers in Istanbul as to
gender, I have no basis for saying definitively that this is a representative distribution; most of the
performers I asked about it opined that it was at least approximately accurate. However, one (female)
informant opined that female performers might make up as much as 25% of all musicians (and 40% of
all kanun players), an estimate possibly meant to include singers—a higher percentage of whom are
3
I gained other information through recorded interviews (audio only) of both
performers and theorists—which categories in some cases overlapped—including
though not limited to:
• analyses of early taksim recordings in terms of (their interpretation of)
makam theory
• detailed critiques of the aforementioned theory texts
• opinions on the worth and place in the overall art form of these theory texts
(both generally and in regard to specific texts)
• personal conceptualizations and applications of makam theory explicitly at
odds with or absent from the theory presented in (at least some of) the
common theory texts
• ideas about changes in makam theory and taksim performance practices over
the period in question, particularly in regard to three factors:
o changes in recording technology and mass mediation
o the involvement of the state in classical Turkish music and its
institutions during the Republican Period, and
o the influence of certain commonly lionized master performers4
• how the performer him/herself learned makam theory and to perform taksim
female, compared to instrumentalists, though singers form a category of musician effectively not
represented in this study—plus current conservatory students (A. Agopian, p.c. 6/19/09). The latter is
another group whose gender distribution numbers I do not know for sure, but whose female students
seemed to me (based on frequent visits to several conservatories) easily to represent at least 25-30% of
current music students.
4
Those readers seeking more information on the influence of such performers will find it in Eliot
Bates’s 2010 Music in Turkey: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture.
4
• the importance of learning established repertoire to acquiring knowledge of
both makam theory and taksim performance
• the importance of listening to and/or imitating recordings of past masters to
acquiring knowledge of both makam theory and taksim performance
The Turkish makam theory (and theory-oriented) texts I used as primary sources are
the following (in chronological order):
• Rauf Yekta (1871-1935): “La Musique Turque,” (“Turkish Music”) in the
Encyclopedie de la musique et dictionnaire du Conservatoire (Lavignac),
(Premiere partie) of 1922 (originally written in 1913)
o widely (if vaguely) “known about” among musicians and theorists,
though not wholly translated into Turkish and therefore not as widely
read (see Chapter III)
o seen as being a revolutionary, scientifically framed
improvement/update of the normative Systematist-based
understanding of makam music fundamentals5
o but seen also as having been updated/outdated by the work of H.S.
Arel, particularly as regards the intonation of formally recognized
5
The “Systematist School” is the name given to a movement in “Arab/Persian/Islamic” music theory
founded by Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Urmawī ca. 1250 CE. It was the first such theory that attempted to describe
systematically such aspects of the music as the intervals in the general and basic scales, the
construction of modes in terms of tetrachords and pentachords, the hierarchies of modal entities, the
prominence of certain tones within modes, etc.; it largely formed the basis of all maqām-oriented
theory until perhaps the nineteenth century (see Farmer 2001 [1929], Wright 1978, and Chapter II
below).
5
tones, the “fundamental scale,” and the music’s notation scheme (see
Chapter III)
• Hüseyin Sadettin Arel (1880-1955): Türk Musikisi Nazariyatı Dersleri
(“Turkish Music Theory Lessons”) originally compiled 1943-1948
o a compilation of lessons given at the Istanbul Municipal Conservatory;
originally distributed as a series in the magazine Mûsıkî Mecmuası, but
only published in collected form in 1968 (reprinted in 1991). Though
copies of the text itself have been largely inaccessible through most of
its existence, the contents nonetheless form the backbone of nearly all
Turkish makam theory since the 1940s (see Öztuna in Arel 1991
[1943-48: VII-VIII], Akdoğu in same p. IX-XIV, and Chapter III
below)
• Suphi Ezgi (1869-1962): Amelî ve Nazarî Türk Musikisi (“Applied and
Theoretical Turkish Music”), vol.s I-V, originally written 1933-1953
o Ezgi (along with S.M. Uzdilek [1891-1967]) worked closely with
Arel—in fact the system is widely known as the Arel-Ezgi-Uzdilek (or
A-E-U) system. Though the older Ezgi is seen as less influential than
Arel regarding the theory itself, this work—more widely distributed in
print than Arel’s—helped spread the Arel-Ezgi-Uzdilek system,
helping eventually to make it normative
6
• Ekrem Karadeniz (1904-1981): Türk Musikisinin Nazariye ve Esasları
(“Turkish Music’s Theory and Foundations”) published 1983 (posthumously;
begun in 1965)
o the only significant (published) dissenter from the Arel-Ezgi-Uzdilek
camp (other than Yekta)
o in a sense returns to some of the ideas Yekta had put forth (especially
regarding intonation, and the “fundamental scale”), but also introduces
other tones, an interval measurement system of “cents” (parallel to
Alexander Ellis’s), and the idea that Turkish music uses 41 tones
drawn from 106-tone equal temperament
o the text is heavily influenced by the author’s teacher Abdülkadir Töre
(1873-1946), whom he credits for the entire system in the foreword—
the system is sometimes referred to as “Töre-Karadeniz”—but the
book itself, published a year after his death, is his own (see Chapter
III)
• İsmail Hakkı Özkan (1941-2010): Türk Mûsıkîsi Nazariyatı ve Usûlleri
(“Turkish Music Theory and Rhythmic Cycles”) of 1984
o for the most part a reiteration of Arel’s system, but with some novel
refinements
o as a descriptive catalogue of some 128 makam-s (and all the major
rhythmic cycles), and despite numerous widely recognized flaws, this
7
is a very popular reference book; if one’s teacher says, “you can look
up the details in the book,” he or she is likely referring to this book
• Onur Akdoğu (1947-2007): Taksim: Nedir, Nasıl Yapılır? (“Taksim: What is
it, How is it Done?”) of 1989 (herein “1989a”)
o not a theory book per se, but relies on Arel’s version of theory to
explain the art of taksim
o neither widely read nor well regarded, it is nonetheless virtually the
only book written on (Turkish) taksim
• Zeki Yılmaz:6 Türk Mûsıkîsi Dersleri (“Turkish Music Lessons”) of 1973
(though here the 2007 edition was used)
o again reframes the Arel-Ezgi-Uzdilek system
o like the Özkan above, it presents the details of a large number of
makam-s (52), but is regarded as simpler, more practical, and easier to
use as a textbook in lessons (and for self-guided study)
• Mutlu Torun (1942-): Ud Metodu: Gelenekle Geleceğe (“Ud Method: To the
Future with the Tradition”) of 2000
o also not a theory book per se, but a popular exemplar of supplemental
instrument method books framed in terms of (Arel-Ezgi-Uzdilek)
makam theory
o widely used as a textbook for ud (a fretless lute) students in
conservatories
6
I do not know the year of his birth, but he is currently living.
8
• Yakup Fikret Kutluğ (d. 2000): Türk Musikisinde Makamlar (“Makam-s in
Turkish Music”) of 2000
o printed in a once-only (and quite expensive) limited edition run; eight
volumes with two CDs covering some 219 makam-s and including 600
notated examples, its rarity is inversely proportional to its high
reputation, particularly among conservatory teachers (who may have
greater access to it than others through their institutions’ libraries)
o it is historical in approach, explaining the changes in
conceptualizations of makam theory over centuries; although the
author was a student of Arel’s he takes into account the analytical
concerns of both the Yekta and Töre-Karadeniz systems (as well as
those of the medieval Systematists)
o uniquely, presents makam-s in such a way as to explain different
versions of them through time (e.g., “makam X was played thus in the
eighteenth century, then composer Y added this to it in the 1870s…”)
 this makes it also a useful text for taksim performers wishing to
learn the appropriate form of a makam in preparation for
making taksim-s in the context of surrounding repertoire (e.g.,
a taksim in the eighteenth-century version of a makam to be
used to introduce a piece of music from the eighteenth century)
9
• Gülçin Yahya (1966-): Ünlü Virtüoz Yorgo Bacanos’un Ud Taksimleri:
Taksim Notları, Analiz ve Yorumlar (“Ud Taksim-s of the Famous Virtuoso
Yorgo Bacanos: Taksim Notations, Analysis and Interpretations”) of 2002
o again not a theory text per se, but a dissertation-turned-book using the
framework of the Arel-Ezgi-Uzdilek system to analyze the taksim-s of
a single performer, ud legend Yorgo Bacanos (1900-1977)7
o introduces a structure-level form of analytic notation for taksim-s
o takes into account many details of the artist’s performance practices,
but does not mention that its subject was not trained academically and
might have had a very different “theoretical” understanding of what
and how he was playing
My main secondary sources for this project were:
• Several works by my dissertation advisor Scott Marcus, upon which certain
aspects of my current research are closely modeled:
o his own dissertation, Arab Music Theory in the Modern Period
(UCLA, herein “1989a”)
o “The Interface Between Theory and Practice: Intonation in Arab
Music” (in Asian Music, vol. XXIV, no. 2, Spring/Summer 1993—
herein “1993a”)
7
Note that there is a similar work on the taqāsīm of Egyptian ùd player Riyad al-Sinbati (d. 1981) by
Kareem Roustom (2006).
10
o “Modulation in Arab Music: Documenting Oral Concepts,
Performance Rules and Strategies” (in Ethnomusicology, Vol. 36, No.
2 [Spring – Summer, 1992], pp. 171-195; herein “1992”)
o “Solo Improvisation (Taqâsîm) in Arab Music” (in The Middle East
Studies Association Bulletin July 1993; herein “1993b”)
o “Rhythmic Modes in Middle Eastern Music” (in The Garland
Encyclopedia of World Music, vol. 6, 2002, pp. 89-93. New York:
Routledge; herein “2002a”)
o “The Periodization of Modern Arab Music Theory: Continuity and
Change in the Definition of the Maqāmāt” (in The Pacific Review of
Ethnomusicology, UCLA, vol. V, 1989, pp. 35-49; herein “1989b.”)
o “The Eastern Arab System of Melodic Modes in Theory and Practice:
A Case Study of Maqam Bayyati” (in The Garland Encyclopedia of
World Music, vol. 6, 2002 pp. 33-44. New York: Routledge; herein
“2002b”)
o Music in Egypt (2007, Oxford University Press, World Music Series)
• The collected proceedings of the “Problems and Solutions for Practice and
Theory in Turkish Music” International Invited Congress at Istanbul
Technical University (March 04-06, 2008—released April 2009, herein
referred to as “Bayhan 2008”)
11
• Both as an article in the above text, and in conversation with its two authors, a
currently emerging theory on “confirming, delaying, and deceptive elements
in Turkish improvisations” developed by Münir Nurettin Beken in
conjunction with Karl Signell
In addition I consulted the following texts regarding technical issues: Yılmaz
Öztuna’s Büyük Türk Musikisi Ansiklopedisi 1-2.; several writings by John Morgan
O’Connell; Karl Signell’s and Frederick W. Stubbs’s dissertations on classical
Turkish music, and Ozan Yarman’s on intonation issues in classical Turkish music.
For historical context I also consulted various works by Walter Feldman, Owen
Wright, Cinuçen Tanrıkorur, Bülent Aksoy, Cem Behar, Yılmaz Öztuna, Selim
Deringil, Ruhi Ayangil, and Eugenia Popescu-Judetz.
There are additionally three newly published texts whose existence I discovered too
late to incorporate into this study but that I assume to be pertinent to the subject at
hand: Eugenia Popescu-Judetz’s A Summary Catalogue of the Turkish Makams, Nail
Yavuzoğlu’s Türk Müziğinde Makamlar ve Seyir Özellikleri (“Makam-s and
Characteristics of Melodic Pathways in Turkish Music”), and Murat Aydemir’s
Turkish Music Makam Guide, all published in 2010 by Pan Yayıncılık, Istanbul.
Popescu-Judetz’s own description of the first of these on the publisher’s website
makes the text appear to be a historical overview rather than a practitioner’s guide,
whereas the other two would seem to treat the subject from a more contemporary and
practical standpoint. Aydemir’s text is the only of these that I have seen firsthand;
12
like the other two texts its newness alone means that it cannot have been influential
upon the subjects and informants of the present research,8 however the fact that this
book, which includes two CDs of recorded examples, presents sixty current makam
definitions from a performer’s point of view in the English language (apparently for
the first time ever) makes it uniquely useful to makam enthusiasts unable to read in
the Turkish language.9
PARAMETERS OF THE STUDY
Because there are overlapping uses of performance techniques and nomenclature
within the whole sphere of Turkish musics I need here to clarify exactly what sort of
music we will be examining. All of the sound examples of performances as well as all
of the theoretical texts are intended to fall within the categorical realm of “classical
Turkish music” (klasik Türk mûsıkisî/musikisi/müziği—subsequently often referred to
by the abbreviation KTM in this text).
8
Except inchoate in Aydemir himself, whom see on DVD 1 tracks 10-12 and DVD 2 tracks 13-15, and
quoted in Chapter IV, below.
9
Or rather it may have been said to be unique in these qualities until the publication of this
dissertation, whose Appendix J is in some ways like the descriptive parts of Aydemir’s work. His
recordings differ from those I present here as Appendix L (8 DVDs) in that he has given particular
focus on presenting each makam’s characteristic “çeşni-s” (which he has had translated as “flavors”—
see Chapter IV below). I have not communicated with Mr. Aydemir since leaving Turkey in August of
2009, nor had I heard of the development of his book before Scott Marcus handed me a copy of it on
April 26, 2011; any resemblance between it and Appendix J of this dissertation (which was first
delivered to committee members Scott Marcus, Dolores Hsu, and Dwight Reynolds via e-mail on
December 2, 2009) is apparently coincidental, that is, it cannot have been the result of either author’s
knowledge of the other’s post-August 2009 work (though it is true that he and I had spoken twice of
collaborating on such a text).
13
The term “classical” is a Western import and requires some deconstruction here. It
appears to have been applied to this music only in Republican times (i.e., some time
after 1923, see Chapter II), before which it was generally referred to as “saray
musıkîsî” (“palace music”) in Ottoman Turkish and as “(the Ottoman/Turkish
iteration of) Oriental music” in European languages (e.g., from at least Fonton [d.
1793] through Yekta [d. 1935]).10 Between the evaporation of court patronage for the
music and the early Republican support for the spread of Western “classical” music,11
defenders of “palace music” seem to have applied the term “klasik” to that tradition in
order to distance it from the old regime and to make it appear parallel in
sophistication to Western “classical” music. The use of the term “müzik” (“müziği”
in the compound adjectival form) rather than the traditional “musıkî/musiki”
(“musıkîsî/musikisi” in their compound adjectival forms) is a further mark of
Westernization, the former term mimicking the French and German pronunciation of
the (originally Greek) term.12
10
See Neubauer 1985-6 and Yekta 1922 (1913) respectively. However we must note that while the
term “Oriental music” mostly did serve to cover specifically religious music also, the Ottoman terms
“dini musıkî” (“religious music”) or “tasavvuf musıikîsî” (“Sufi music”) would probably have been
kept distinct from inclusion in the term “saray musıkîsi” (“palace music”) even when that music was
performed at court.
11
To the detriment of “palace music,” see Chapters II and III; the early Republic supported only three
kinds of music in the new nation state: Western “classical” music, Anatolian and Turko-Thracian folk
music, and the mixture of the two in the “nationalist” manner of Bartók, Kodaly, et al. “Saray
musıkîsî” was to be eradicated.
12
The music has also been called “Turkish classical music” (Türk klasik
müziği/musıkisi/musikisi/TKM), or “Turkish art music” (Türk sanat müziği/TSM, e.g., see Signell
2008: 1, O’Connell 2000: 125-6, Gill 2006: 28), or rarely “traditional Turkish art music” (geleneksel
Türk sanat müziği/GTSM, see Sarı in Bayhan 2008: 205) or “traditional Turkish makam music”
(geleneksel Türk makam müziği/GTMM, according to Daloğlu, q.v. in Bayhan 2008: 283; see also
Yarman in Bayhan 2008: 141-2), both in Turkey and in ethnomusicological literature.
14
In any case the adoption of the term “classical” does not refer here to a discrete period
in music history, as the term (sometimes) does in Western art music (i.e., roughly
1750-1820), it is not intended to recall ancient Rome or Greece as foundational (as
European Renaissance and Enlightenment use of the term does), nor is its “classical”
designation meant to imply the music’s confinement to the maintenance of a
canonical repertoire (although that function is also included within the KTM music
culture)—the taksim genre alone would disqualify such a definition. See footnote 12
for names other than “klasik Türk müziği” applied to this music, but I was advised by
several of my informants to call it this; several of them made the subtle (and perhaps
newly conceived) distinction that it was not a “classical” music that happened to be
Turkish, but rather a Turkish music that is “classical.” They also pointed out that the
next most popular alternative term Türk sanat müziği (“Turkish art music”) is often
used to refer specifically to a lighter, “pop” version of makam music and was
therefore inappropriate (see also Gill 2006: 29).
In this text I have respected these informants’ rhetorical distinctions without insisting
upon them, except for consistency’s sake in this document, and therefore refer to the
music in question as “classical Turkish music” (or “KTM”). The polemical
deconstruction of the term “classical” in recent ethnomusicological literature has
perhaps been less intense in studies of Turkish musics than in, say, Indian and
Indonesian musics (where post-colonial interpretations are more appropriate); still,
see Signell 1980 passim, and Feldman 1991: 74 regarding ideas about what is
15
“classical” about “classical Turkish music,” and Powers 1980 (esp. 11-12) for a list of
criteria that qualify a music as a “Great Tradition” parallel to what the Western
intellectual tradition calls “classical.”13 In any case let me reiterate that the term
“klasik Türk musıkîsî” (or “musikisi,” or “müziği”) is a designation commonly used
among my informants (and among other musicians in the same tradition, and its
aficionados) as well as in Turkish-language texts that I used in this study, and that the
music thus referred to is the intended field of study in this dissertation.
In choosing my informants it has been necessary also to define KTM’s close musical
neighbors—musics that to some degree reciprocate influence with it, and yet also
define its borders. The two main musics in this category are regional folk (halk)
musics (see Markoff 2002) and urban popular musics in makam (certain genres of
which span the same period as this study; see O’Connell 2002, Stokes 2002 and 1992,
Karakayalı 2002, Beken 1998; see also Signell 2008: 10).14 In their function as
contributors to KTM, folk musics have generally provided genre-forms (e.g., longa,
zeybek, mandıra, oyun havaları, the fourth hane of a saz semaisi being in 7/8 et al.
time, etc.) and playing techniques (particularly for ud and kemençe), while urban
popular forms have been the breeding grounds for occasionally borrowed stylistic
inflections (especially those conceived of as “Western/romantic,” “Gypsy,” and
13
I must note, however, that he opined therein that no Middle Eastern music (including Turkish
music) conformed to all his criteria; in contrast I interpret KTM as in conformity with them.
14
Mevlevi religious music, particularly in the form of ayin-s (the music of the “whirling dervish”
ceremonies) and ilahi-s (hymns), has been for centuries so integrated into the KTM tradition (see
Signell 2008: 5 and 12-18, Erguner 2005, Feldman 1996) that I will not treat it here as separate,
although only two of the recorded examples are specifically in the context of an ayin/sema ceremony
(see DVDs 5/50 and 8/77).
16
“Arab” in origin; see Signell 2008: 11, Ayangil 2008: 441-3) and the playing
techniques associated with them (arpeggios, harmonized parts, driving rhythms,
metered taksim-s, etc.). In their function as delimiters of the KTM tradition they are
often used rhetorically in criticisms of musicians perceived to be straying from core
aesthetic principles, usually in the form of ad hominem epithets such as köylü
(villager, bumpkin; see Ederer 2007), çingene (a disparaging term for
Romany/“Gypsy” (ibid., see also Seeman 2002) and “piyasa musician”—one whose
career is in the marketplace, the implication being that they are “in it for the money”
and not to preserve and enrich the art form (see Beken 1998, Stokes 1992, Gill 2006:
82-9). While it may be said that certain of my informants in some ways and at some
times participate in these other musical realms (and certain of them criticize each
other for such participation, even cautioning me in some cases to exclude other
specific informants from the study on that basis), all informants have undergone some
formal education in the makam system, whether from school/university/conservatory
or in a one-on-one, orally transmitted meşk tradition,15 or both, and identify
themselves as “classical musicians.”
15
Meşk, from the Arabic mashq, refers to a model example of calligraphy that a master would write in
charcoal, etc., over which a student would then write in ink with a reed pen (Dwight Reynolds, p.c. by
e-mail 6/5/2011); metonymically it came to mean “practice, repetition” in the Ottoman language and,
later, in modern Turkish. It is the name for the traditional oral/aural transmission of makam music;
such an education is usually centered upon a student’s memorization and constantly refined
performance of exemplary repertoire under a master’s close supervision. Often lasting a dozen years
before the student “graduates,” the relationship between master and student—and therefore the “meşk”
between them—is in a sense lifelong. For detailed information on meşk, see Behar 2006 (1998),
O’Connell 2000: 120 fn. 5, Gill 2006.
17
Another (and similarly locally contentious) factor in my choice of informants
revolved around the issue of “mastery.” Whereas much of the scholarly literature
(e.g., Signell, Stubbs, Yahya, Akkoç, Yarman, et al.) focuses on the work of a very
few established and broadly recognized “masters” of the tradition, my intention here
was not to represent or reify a category of “best” musicians (as deserving as certain
artists may be of special attention); it was rather to represent the knowledge and
application of makam theory in the taksim genre by serious musicians in as wide a
range of representation as an engaged and attentive listener may have heard in
Istanbul during the ten months I researched there, given the above-mentioned
qualifications regarding a broadly mutually-defined fidelity to the KTM tradition—
that is to say that, despite conflicting rivalries and tastes, all participants would likely
agree that all the others are “legitimate” musicians in the makam music tradition.
Several of them are recognized masters, most are well known in the KTM world, but
some are simply working musicians without particular acclaim. Most of them
concertize regularly (or did before retirement); some consider themselves primarily
professional musicians, others primarily as teachers, and a few (whose main source of
income is not performing—particularly instrument makers and those whose musical
lives revolve around Sufi religious practices) consider themselves semi-professionals
or even dedicated amateurs (see Feldman 1996: 501, cf. Nettl 2005: 180, 227). A list
of all their names and contributions to this project may be found in Appendix A.
18
I must also say a few words about the instruments represented in this study, and
explain the virtual absence in it of the sung “improvisational” genres (gazel, kaside,
etc.; see Feldman 1993, O’Connell 2003). My original intent had been to record only
performers on the five most common classical instruments—ney, tanbur, (“classical”)
kemençe, kanun, and ud (see photographs in Appendix E)—and to include classical
“improvised” singing equally among them. To the instruments, however, I came to
add yaylı (bowed) tanbur, violin (keman), and in one instance, clarinet (klarnet), all of
which are associated with a lighter, cabaret-oriented form of classical music (and
probably therefore are considered marginal amongst strictly classical performers),
because I found players who knew makam well and made taksim-s on them often as
sophisticated as the other instrumentalists’ examples.16 As for singers, after the fifth
or sixth time being told that “no-one really sings gazel/kaside anymore,” or that all
the singers of them are retired, or even having my invitation to record them humbly
declined by several singers who apparently, at times, do sing them, I decided that a
study of improvised singing in classical Turkish music should be the province of a
separate and dedicated research (which, due to the advanced age of its apparently few
remaining exponents, ought to be undertaken soon, if at all; see O’Connell 2003), and
I excluded it from the present study.17 Nonetheless, for reference one recorded
example, in the context of a “light classical” concert, is provided on the
accompanying DVD (DVD 8/84).
16
Many of the performers of these more marginal instruments also play a more conventionally
classical instrument, but decided for whatever reason to record for me on the former.
17
Pace Bektaş (2005: 1), Ayangil (2008: 441-4) et al., for whom classical Turkish music is
“essentially” vocal in nature.
19
A further delimiter on the research is the time period in question. In a tidier world I
would have liked to use the sort of periodization that fits nicely in a title, for instance
“the twentieth century,” or “the Republican Period” but while both of those are
mostly covered herein, all of my live recordings are necessarily from slightly later
than the twentieth century, and many of the major shapers of today’s makam theory
and taksim performance practices slightly precede the Republican Period. Some
Turkish theorists and music historians refer to this time period as “modern,” but apart
from the term’s unbounded vagueness it carries also some hefty European
Enlightenment baggage, and is sometimes used in Turkey to refer to particular
compositional and performative sub-styles of KTM. Since my samples begin with the
earliest mass-produced recordings (of 1910, in the Ottoman Empire), and because
virtually every aspect of both makam theory and taksim practice has been subject to
mass mediation, it would also be accurate to say that this study encompasses “the age
of mechanical reproduction,” but since my focus is not on the effects of mass culture
per se, and does not draw on Walter Benjamin’s famous critique employing that
phrase, I have resisted its powerful cuteness and chosen to settle on the more prosaic
yet accurate “1910 to 2010,” representing the period between Tanburi Cemil Bey’s
earliest commercial recording with the Blumenthal/Odeon label and the year in which
I finished the data-gathering aspect of the project.
It needs also to be noted that, although many of the musicians involved in this
research came originally from—and may have been musically educated in—other
20
parts of the country, my fieldwork was conducted entirely in the city of Istanbul. On
various occasions a certain sub-set of my informants expressed to me the opinion that
“classical Turkish music” is and always has been in effect really only the music of
this city, but despite the logic and even appeal of their arguments (which appear to be
implicitly reified in the works of other ethnomusicologists, such as Signell and
Stubbs; see also Feldman 1996: 504-5 fn. 1 and 8), that appears to be a narrative in
the minority among practitioners of the art today, even within Istanbul, despite the
city’s current centrality to KTM performance, recording and broadcast.18 The reasons
my fieldwork was confined to this city are more practical in nature; firstly it is
because my time was limited such that getting sufficient recordings in Istanbul—
which is without dispute (local or otherwise) the current center of classical Turkish
music—prevented extended research trips to other cities (e.g., Konya, Ankara, Izmir,
Edirne, Bursa, et al.—and it is certainly an urban musical phenomenon), and secondly
because of the widespread opinion—including among performers from these other
major urban centers—that there is no significantly divergent school of makam theory
or taksim praxis to what is typically found in Istanbul itself.19 I would be supportive
nonetheless of further research on the classical Turkish music scenes in those cities,
and mean no disrespect to the hundreds of no doubt perfectly qualified and talented
musicians therein, but for this study it would have been both impracticable and
unnecessary.
18
That is to say that most players think of the music as more broadly “Ottoman” or “Turkish” rather
than associated specifically with Istanbul (or any other specific place, for that matter).
19
But see comments by Ü. Ensari and A.N. Benli in Chapter IV regarding regional “accents” in
playing styles.
21
Finally, there is an issue we might frame as “the ethnographic interface” issue, that of
how I came meet the people with whom I worked on this research, of how I presented
myself and the project to them, and how we seemed to understand each other. With
the exception of one person, everyone I worked with initially was someone I had
known for several years from previous projects. Some of them I knew as teachers,
others as academic or performance colleagues; all of them I already considered
friends. I was subsequently introduced by them to other would-be informants, and
later these others introduced me to yet newer acquaintances, and so on; that is to say
that there was no “cold calling” to find informants.20 As a result, some sort of
reputation, recommendation, or at least tacit approval would seem to have preceded
me before each instance of fieldwork itself was undertaken. Altogether I thus met
about 70 persons who formed my pool of potential informants; finally the 34
performers whose taksim-s are recorded here are simply those whose schedules and
mine synchronized sufficiently to make that aspect of the research come together. But
even this sample seems to me both large enough and random enough that I have no
reason to think that any school of thought regarding the subject went unrepresented
(though there are several musicians I regret not having worked with), despite having
met them all through chains of mutual acquaintance. I am reminded by Münir Beken,
however, that there is inherently a kind of filtering process—both in my ultimate
selections of research consultants and in each artists’ self-selection—in favor of the
20
Dr. Bülent Aksoy, to whom I introduced myself after a talk he gave at an Istanbul cultural
foundation (having first read work of his on classical Turkish music in 2005), was the one newly met
informant in the study to whom I was not introduced by a mutual acquaintance.
22
sort of person who would likely respond to questions about music theory in the
rhetorical terms framed by conservatory-oriented theory; he noted that it would be
possible to find performers of the same or similar repertoire whose main venues of
expression were bars, mosques, and synagogues (for instance) whose rhetorical frame
might well differ (p.c. 6/6/11).
I presented the project to all potential informants as an investigation of performers’
knowledge of makam (specifically as applied in taksim-s), making clear that I thought
that such knowledge is an important and valid resource for understanding how the
Turkish makam system works, and pointing out that much of this information
appeared to be absent in the understandings of the makam system presented in music
theory texts of the twentieth century. I framed my desire to work with them as an
invitation to add their voices to a more accurate representation of Turkish makam
than had yet been documented, and one that had the potential eventually to lead to the
reform of the “official” theory. Many of my informants went to college, and may be
academics and/or teach graduate students themselves, and most of them clearly did
not overestimate the ability of a doctoral dissertation to change a field of study
overnight; I hope I made as much clear also to those I invited to participate in the
study who are not involved in academia. Still, the feedback among nearly all of the
musicians with whom I spoke about the project was not merely positive, but often
quite enthusiastic and hopeful. Many performers unfortunately not presented here
initially agreed to participate but could not do so due to the exigencies of life as a
23
professional musician in Istanbul, but the musicians who do appear here were explicit
about their understanding of the nature of the project, of its potential “reform” aspect
(and yet also of the limited influence a dissertation might have), of my appreciation of
their agency, and of me as an “agent of their agency.”
Having given previously the definitions of makam and taksim, we will now move to
Chapter II to take a look at their central place in the history of classical Turkish
music.
24
CHAPTER II: A BRIEF HISTORY OF MAKAM AND TAKSİM IN TURKEY
MAKAM
As for the deepest antiquity of the music that would become the makam tradition we
can say little; although it is clear that there were highly developed musical systems
throughout the ancient Near East and Mesopotamia from at least the fourth
millennium BCE (see Dumbrill 2008a, b and c; Franklin 2007 and in press, Kilmer
1971, Farmer in Wellesz 1957), the gap in historical records of any continuity
between the last iterations of these and the earliest references to foundational pre-
Islamic art music traditions is yet to be filled or explained.1 Documents from the
Abbasid court at Baghdad—such as those by Yaḥyā ibn ‘Alī al-Munajjim (ninth
century) and Abu l-Faraj al-Iṣfahāni (ninth century, through whose Kitāb al-Aghānī
we have information on yet earlier musicians, such as Yūnus al-Kātib [eighth
century]; see Shiloah 1981: 29, Farmer 1929, Wright 1966, Wiet 1971)—serve as our
earliest sources of information regarding the modal system that would be developed
from eight aṣābi` (“fingers”) modes into what we know as the maqāmāt or makam-s.2
1
Except elliptically by way of supposed ancient Greek influence (e.g., in Sachs 1943, Feldman 1991:
90; cf. Franklin in press, Farmer 1929: 48-62 and 1957: 250-1). Cf. Feldman 1991: 110, and see also
Shiloah 1981: 26 and 29, Ertan 2007: 34. Wright discusses evidence for a certain pre-Islamic music but
seems to frame it as a specifically Arab music in Mesopotamia rather than as possibly a Mesopotamian
music having roots previous to or separate from the arrival of Arabs in the area (see 1966: 42-5).
2
Such transformation occurred over centuries by way of the twelve shudūd or parda-s and six awāzāt
(primary and secondary “melodic modes,” respectively) of Ṣafīuddīn’s time (subsequently to include
tertiary shuàb), to later angham and alḥān (here, something like “melody types”), and only later to the
now more ubiquitous maqāmāt, see Shiloah 1981: 32, Feldman 1996:197 and 219-20, see also Ertan
2007: 39. Note During’s opinion that “aṣābe‘” [sic] was merely what the Arabs called the Sassanian
Persian “dasātīn” (lit. “necks”) modes (1994b).
25
The term “maqām” was apparently only first applied to this musical system in the late
thirteenth century,3 but the system had been developed continuously as the basis of a
pan-Islamic court music—theorized as the ìlm al-mūsīqī (“science of music”), with
practiced variants heard from Western China to Portugal—by the time the Selçuks
had established themselves as the first Turkic and Islamic dynasty in Anatolia in the
eleventh century. Not long before, the Selçuks had left their home steppes near the
Aral Sea to conquer Khorasan and Greater Persia (including much of modern-day
Iraq), setting up a capital at Isfahan where in a short time they had intensified their
adoption of Persian high culture, and politically co-opted the (already quite
Persianate) Àbbasid caliphate at Baghdad, and from this time they established the
modal music described (at least theoretically) in the ìlm al-mūsīqī as their official
court music (see Hodgson 1974, Canfield 1991, Wiet 1971). From this time the
Selçuks (and afterward, their Timurid successors in the east) set up the cultural,
religious, political and musical models upon which their Ottoman successors in
Anatolia would later pattern the style of their dynasty (see Feldman 1996: 39-44 and
494).
This “science of music” (that is, the theoretical development of this court music)
benefitted from the intellectual fervor present in early Àbbasid Baghdad. This was
3
In Iran, according to Neubauer, in 1300 CE; later in Turkey, though not in the Arab world before the
eighteenth century (2000: 324); cf. Shiloah 1981: 34-5 regarding the term’s use in ibn al-Akfānī and
al-Khaṭīb al-Irbilī ca. 1329 in what is today northern Iraq (possibly what Neubauer meant by “Iran”),
but whose works are taken to distinguish a “Persian” revision of Ṣafīuddīn’s shudūd. Cf. Kutluğ (2000:
vol. I, p. 73) who claims Abdülkadir Merâgî (1360-1435) as the first to use the term “maqām” in a
musical sense; Feldman has the term in wide use in the Islamic world “…since the 15th or 16th
centuries,” 1996: 15, 198-9. See also Marcus 1989a: 326-7 for still other references.
26
the center of medieval Islamic high culture and not only had a thriving music scene
(see al-Munajjim, al-Iṣfahāni in Farmer 1929, Wright 1966) but was at times the
locus of prodigious translations of Sassanian and ancient Greek texts into Arabic (see
Gutas 1998 passim, Farmer 1930 passim). Of the latter, texts on the theory of music
by such lights as Pythagoras, Aristoxenus, Aristotle, Euclid, Nichomachus, and
Ptolemy are understood to have been highly influential upon Islamic music theorist-
philosophers such as al-Kindī (d. 873), al-Fārābī (d. 950), ibn Sinā (d. 1037), and Ṣafī
al-Dīn (Ṣafīuddīn) Urmawī (Turkish: Safiyüddin Urmevi; d. 1294) (see Farmer 1930:
325).
In order to avoid a string of ungainly footnotes here, let me briefly interrupt the
historical narrative to add a few thoughts on the above theorists, their contributions,
and modern scholarship regarding the music at this point. Firstly I wish to point out
that, at least in the writings of their time and place, there was little effort to
distinguish these scholars by what we would call “ethnicity.” Particularly in the
Turko-Persian tradition, Islam was attributed a universal nature, people were
generally socially identified by their religion rather than by language or geography
(though their surnames may be ethnonymic or indicate a regional affiliation), and
language use followed a division of labor not strictly reflecting native origin: Arabic
was generally used for science, religious subjects, and jurisprudence; Persian was the
language of literature, poetry, and high society; and Turkish was used in the
administration of the military (see Canfield 1991, Ikram 1964, Ertan 2007: 53 fn. 5).
27
We, too, might have passed over the issue of these individuals’ ethnicity except that
later claims regarding the “Turkishness” of certain of them—particularly al-Fārābī,
Ṣafīuddīn, and the fourteenth and fifteenth century composer Abdülkadir Merâgî—
will figure in the history of makam music in Republican Turkey (see Feldman 1991:
94-5, Ertan 2007: 35 and 53 fn. 10, and below). As for their specific contributions to
music theory, I will leave these to be explained as they become pertinent to this study,
but suffice it to say here that especially al-Fārābī’s application of ancient Greek
terminology and Pythagorean mathematics to the music, and Ṣafīuddīn’s definitions
and arrangement of the tones to be used, and his foundation of the “Systematist
School” of music theory (see Chapter I, fn. 5), set the theoretical boundaries of later
makam musics as they would persist into the Ottoman musical sphere, with a few
significant alterations,4 between the thirteenth and nineteenth centuries, with
continuing relevance to this day.
In regard to modern scholarship of the last hundred years or so (at least in European
languages) concerning proto-“maqām” music, I only wish to point out that although
such “early Islamic music” has usually been presented under the rubric of “Arab
music,”5 certain factors recommend against thinking of it strictly as such,6 and we
4
E.g., see Shiloah 1981: 35 regarding fourteenth-century revisions to Ṣafīuddīn’s classifications of
shudūd and awāzāt, Feldman 2007-9 on the nineteenth-century expansion of the tonal system. See also
Wright 2000: 10-11, Ertan 2007: 53 fn. 11; Marcus 1993: 39.
5
Arab music was, after all, the subject of most of these scholars’ work, e.g., D’Erlanger, Colangettes,
Farmer, Shiloah, Racy, Shehadi, Touma, Sawa, et al.
6
For instance the confluence of: the lack of evidence for a “pre-Islamic” Arab music tradition
approaching the sophistication of even the earliest iteration of the “’Islamic’ Great Tradition” (Shiloah
1995: 2-3, 20), including a consistent rhetoric in Arab sources regarding the simplicity (in fact the
28
may preface our return to the historical narrative by noting that the Selçuks, Timurids,
and early Ottomans considered it specifically to be a Persian iteration of a “universal”
music tradition (see Feldman 1996: 494).7
As the Isfahan-centered Selçuk Empire disintegrated over the twelfth century its
power base was moved to the Sultanate of Rum in central Anatolia, where their ruling
élite continued to patronize the Turko-Persian cultural tradition (and its music) until
shortly after the mid-thirteenth-century Mongol invasions. The disintegration of
Mongol sovereignty in the area soon thereafter resulted in the power vacuum that
opened the way for Osman to establish the eponymous Ottoman (Osmanlı) dynasty
there in the early 1300s. As mentioned, the Ottomans initially patterned their imperial
musical “inferiority”) of “pre-Islamic” Arab music in terms of the music they learned in Baghdad
(ibid.); ample acknowledgment of Arabs “borrowing” Mesopotamian and Persian musics to refine their
own (ibid.: 1-2, 6-8, and 20-21); in the early Islamic period in Arabia proper “…most of the musicians
belonged to the conquered nations… most were Persians” (ibid.: 11-12); the fact that the first four
hundred years of Islamic-era development of the music occur on the site of Mesopotamian musical
traditions the earliest iterations of whose theory, tunings, modes, instruments, etc., not only bear
remarkable resemblance to those employed in the “Great Tradition” but were documented
continuously for centuries beginning as early as 3100 BCE (though unfortunately not well documented
in the centuries just previous to the Arab invasion; see Dumbrill 2008:a, b, and c; Crickmore 2008,
2009a and 2009b; Franklin 2002 and 2007)—that is, some 3,800 years before Arabic-speaking people
arrived in the area (Versteegh 1997: 94); once within the Islamic period there is much documentation
of Persian and (later) Turkish influence upon Arab music and yet relatively little in the other direction
(see Feldman 1996: 25, 220, and 37-194, cf. Neubauer 2000). Pace Colangettes and the valiant Farmer
(see Shiloah 1981: 8, and Farmer 1929, esp. Ch. 3; 1940). I do not mean to say that the scholars
mentioned here and in the previous footnote claim the music as exclusively Arab (for instance, see
Shiloah 1981: 20 fn. 2, and 26 [but cf. 1995: xv]; Wright 1978: 2 and 9; cf. Ertan 2007: 34); only that it
is in texts on Arab music where most material on the “early-Islamic-era” iteration of this music is to be
found, which an incautious reader might mistake as a reason to discount documented non-Arab
influences and/or to overestimate Arab influence upon other branches (see also Farhat 1990: 4).
7
Rhetoric regarding non-Turkish elements of the heritage of classical Turkish music does not today
point as directly toward Persia (see Chapter IV) but we may note that this understanding appears to
have been normative throughout pre-Republican times, for instance as expressed by the Ottoman
Empire’s (and subsequently, Turkey’s) first modern musicologist Rauf Yekta “…il serait nécessaire
d’admettre qu’il existe des différences essentielles entre la musique arabe et la musique turco-persane”
(1922 [1913]: 2947).
29
style on that of the Selçuk’s version of the Turko-Persian tradition, and patronized the
arts accordingly, at first drawing on musicians and theorists from the neighboring
Timurid and Safavid courts (Aksoy 2005).8 Feldman (1990) posits the late-sixteenth
century as the point marking the formation of the characteristic social organization of
Ottoman music, and he divides the music’s history into four periods demarcated
below.9 It is clear from treatises of the time, especially Cantemir’s Kitâb-i `İlmü’l
Mûsiki ‘ala Vechü’l Ḥurûfat (“The Book of the Science of Music According to
Lettered Notation”) of 1700, that the first period marks the emergence of an Ottoman
music culture distinct from Persian court music (whether by “Persian” we mean
Safavid or Timurid; see Feldman 1996: 494, Popescu-Judetz 1999: 9):10
Four Major Periods of Ottoman Music History (selon Feldman)
1580-1700—A structure emerges in which three levels of participation in courtly
music are present: 1) at court itself, in which instruction, composition and
performance are supported through official palace service—this included many
8
Feldman places particular emphasis on sources idealizing the court of Turko-Mongol Timurid sultan
Husein Bayqara of Herat (present-day Afghanistan) as the fifteenth-century model for the patronage of
music and (Persian language) poetry particularly (i.e., directly rather than through Selçuk influence,
see 1996: 39-47), followed by a shift toward imitating the Safavid Persian court in the sixteenth
century (ibid.: 494). Although after 1453 the Ottoman capital and cultural center would be
Konstantiniyye (that is Constantinople, later called “Istanbul”), the cities of Söğüt (1302-1326), Bursa
(1326-1365), and Edirne (1365-1453) had each previously served as capital of the Empire.
9
The history presented here under those sections draws heavily from Feldman’s 1990 Grove/Oxford
Music Online article “Ottoman music,” though only direct quotations are specifically cited. See the
same article for information on notable composers and performers, changes in the instrumentarium at
court, and for developments in and of various Ottoman music genres.
10
Feldman calls this work by Cantemir (about which more appears below), “[the locus of] the most
influential theory of Ottoman music” (1990), but notes that “Ottoman Turks never fully accepted the
historical uniqueness of their musical repertoire or of their musical structure…” 1991: 105, and see
below. Note that Cantemir is known in Turkey as “Kantemiroğlu” (i.e., “son of Kantemir”).
30
foreign experts (whether volunteer, captured, or given as presents from other courts),
2) amateur musicians among the bureaucratic élite, and 3) specialists in religious
music and recitation: hafiz-es (who have memorized and can recite the Qur`ān),
müezzin-s (who recite the five-times-daily call to prayer), dervish zakir-s (i.e.,
performers of the Sufi zikr ritual), and neyzen-s (masters of the ney flute, associated
with Mevlevi mysticism). “Towards the end of the period free urban musicians,
including non-Muslims, were hired by the court, while the role of foreign experts
declined” (Feldman 1990).11 The şarkı song form was introduced, as were the cyclical
suite genre fasıl, and the similar ayin (used in the Mevlevi “whirling dervish”
ceremony, known by the same name or as sema`), and it is from the end of this period
that we have the first mention of taksim (about which more below), which was the
featured part of the new fasıl-i sazende or “instrumental suite,” comprising taksim(-s),
a peşrev, and a saz semaisi.12 Mevlevi lodges (tekke-s) became an important site of
musical transmission throughout the Empire during this period (see Neubauer and
Doubleday 2007-9).
1700-1780—Ottoman music’s greatest period of change and development, especially
during the vaunted Tulip Age (1703–30) under Ahmed III. Feldman notes, “There
was a great increase in the number of urban musicians, including non-Muslims,
11
See also Feldman 2001 passim, and 1991: 90 and 100 on the prominent role of non-Muslim
minority musicians in Ottoman music throughout its history.
12
Feldman also notes that “[A] similar composed cycle for the synagogue was first composed in
Edirne, from where it was spread to other Ottoman cities by Jewish composers such as Avtalyon (d
c1570) and Aharon Hamon (d c1690)” (ibid.). It may be of interest to note that this and the above
genres all still exist in some form today.
31
indicating a wide acceptance of makam art music by much of the urban middle class”
(ibid.).13 Mevlevi şeyh Kutb-u Nay Osman Dede, the Armenian tanbur player
Harutin, and Moldavian Prince Dimitrie Cantemir (about whom more below) all
invented systems of musical notation,14 and the latter is noted for revolutionizing the
composition of the peşrev, breaking down its smaller subdivisions and “allowing
more developed connections between successive sections of the melody” (ibid.).
Furthermore the tempos of compositions were decreased and melodies became
longer, more dense and intricate, and the subsidiary modes (such as terkib-s, see
below) were used from this time as nominal modes, blurring the distinction between
them and the “primary modes,” the makam-s. This period is also marked by the
increasing interaction between Greek Orthodox cantors, the Mevlevi dervishes and
the Ottoman court.
1780-1876—A pivotal period in Ottoman music; it began with the reign of Selim III
(r. 1789-1808), himself a notable composer and inventor of new makam-s, who
surrounded himself with musical virtuosi including his teacher Tanburi İsak (from
13
I would note that there was not a “middle class” as we know it today, but two groups that would
become one in the early Republican era: the aforementioned “bureaucratic élite” (including minor
nobility), and the merchant class, which from the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 until the 1950s
consisted largely of the urban non-Muslim minorities: Greek, Armenian, Jewish, Genoese and
Venetian (see O’Connell 2000: 122 fn 8; Kinross 1977: 112-22; Shaw 1976: 59-98).
14
It must be noted that none of these systems of notation (nor the personal one of Ali Ufki in the
1650s) came into widespread use, nor was any notation used during performance in Ottoman music
before the late-nineteenth century (Wright 1992a: xi; see also Signell 2008: 2-3). Whatever their value
at the time, however, we owe the preservation of hundreds of pieces to those who did use these
systems to transcribe the contemporary repertoire, which also included pieces from earlier times, and
which—the transmission of repertoire having traditionally been oral/aural—might otherwise have
disappeared. See Chapter III, and Ayangil 2008 passim for a history of Western notation in Turkish
music.
32
Istanbul’s Sephardic Jewish community), the founder of one of the two traditional
tanbur-playing styles extant today.15 “The general scale made a definitive shift from
the medieval Iranian 17-note system with neutral (2·5 comma) tones, to a broader
system featuring single comma tones,” and “[T]he distinction formerly made between
independent (makam) and subsidiary (terkib) modal entities was abandoned, leading
to the “open-ended” modal system of modern Turkish and (Ottoman) Arab music,
with many new terkib-s [sic: makam-s?] being invented” (ibid.).16 But Selim was
overthrown and assassinated by a Janissary rebellion led by his cousin Mustafa IV in
1807-8, who was himself almost immediately overthrown and assassinated by his
half-brother Mahmud II (r. 1808-1839; see Kinross 1977: 433-7). Mahmud was quite
reform minded, and Western Europe was the source of his models for modernization,
including in music. In 1828 he brought Giuseppe Donizetti (d. 1856, brother of the
Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti) to serve as Instructor General of Imperial
Ottoman Music, heralding the decline of Ottoman makam music at court in favor of
opera, chamber music, and marches (see Aracı 2002 passim, Deringil 1993: 6-9,
O’Connell 2000: 119-20),17 though he himself did compose Ottoman şarkı-s and was
a patron of Mevlevi composer İsmail Dede Efendi (Feldman 2001). Mahmud’s son
and successor Abdülmecid (r. 1839-1861), an even more ardent reformer, kept
15
See Feldman 2001 regarding other sultan composers. See also Gill 2006: 30-4 regarding this period.
16
In referring to this “open-ended” system Feldman is referencing Powers (see Powers 1980: 427),
meaning by it that new makam-s, free from a hierarchy of modal entities, can be invented and accepted
into the system (see also Feldman 1996: 219).
17
The latter genre we may view ironically, since European marching bands had developed directly
from the mehter of the Janissaries, which Mahmud abolished (and massacred) in 1826 (Kinross 1977:
456-8; Shaw 1977: 20-1). Donizetti’s immediate predecessor (1826-1828) appears to have been a
certain Frenchman known as Monsieur Manguel (see Ayangil 2008: 415).
33
Donizetti at court, and after the composer’s death hired another Italian musician,
Callisto Guatelli, to replace him, both men having been given the highest non-noble
rank of Paşa (Abdüldmecid was apparently “passionate about opera,” see Aracı 2002:
54, Deringil 1993: 9). Abdülmecid’s (brother and) successor, Abdülaziz (r. 1861-
1876) was a renown pianist and composer of Western classical music (though he also
wrote şarkı-s, see Feldman 2001). Makam music was maintained in Mevlevi circles,
and in secular classical music the aforementioned şarkı song form became dominant,
especially following the lead of prolific şarkı composer Hacı Arif Bey (1831-1885);
although şarkı-s are composed within the makam system, they are the Ottoman
musical form most similar to Western art song (which may have contributed to their
popularity). But there were also attempts at “harmonizing” makam music in Western
tertian harmony and otherwise fitting it to the Western music theory and techniques
brought by Donizetti and Guatelli (O’Connell 2000: 120; Ayangil 2008: 401-2; Gill
2006: 30-4).
1876-Present Day—Court patronage for makam music having atrophied (see
Pennanen 2004: 3-7, Ayangil 2008: 401-2, Feldman 1996: 15-18), classical musicians
of the day split into two factions: those aligning themselves with the more musically
conservative dervish orders (such as did Rauf Yekta Bey, the founder of modern
Turkish musicology) and those who found an audience in the wine-houses (meyhane-
s) and nightclubs (gazino-s) owned by members of the urban Greek and Armenian
minorities (see Feldman 1990, Ederer 2005, Beken 1998, O’Connell 2000: 120 and
34
136; see also Tekelioğlu 2001: 95-7, Aksoy 2002). The meyhane/gazino musicians
were largely successful because they fused courtly music with contemporary popular
urban music in a way that greatly added to the sophistication of the latter, though,
from the point of view of the dervish-oriented musicians, tarnished and threatened the
former in the process.18 Feldman notes of this period, “The musical roles of minority
groups had begun to change by the mid-19th century. However, on the whole
musicians from minority groups found more scope in the gazinos for their activities,
as they lacked the support of either the dervish orders or high bureaucratic positions”
(1990; see also Aksoy 2002).19 The major instrumental composers of the time were
Refik Fersan (1883–1965), and especially his tanbur teacher Tanburi Cemil Bey
(1873–1916), the latter of whom made such a great impression upon the art of taksim
that we will deal with him specifically in later chapters (see Chapters IV and V).
One area in which both factions of musicians would come to participate was in music
education. A private conservatory called the Dâr’ülelhân (House of Melodies) was
established on the European side of Istanbul in 1914, teaching both Ottoman and
Western musics; its organization was taken over by the Municipality of Istanbul in
1923, which renamed it the İstanbul Belediye Konservatuvarı (Istanbul Municipality
18
But Feldman notes that, “Şevki Bey (1860–91), while at first a performer at the court, contributed a
considerable repertory of şarkı for the gazino which were later claimed by classical musicians” (1990).
19
Here Feldman is referring to Greek, Armenian and Jewish musicians, but from the 1960s onward
gazino and other club/cabaret music increasingly became the domain of Romany (“Gypsy”)
instrumentalists (Ederer 2005, Seeman 2002, Beken 1998); this type of music is now known as fasıl,
named for the cyclical suite genre which, over this period, came to consist of a peşrev, several şarkı-s,
and a saz semaisi played in a “Gypsy” style and not necessarily all in the same makam (see Signell
2008: 12, 18, and 113-5, Feldman 1991: 75-7 and 89-90; see also Chapter I [pp. 16-17] above).
35
Conservatory) in 1926; this was incorporated into İstanbul Üniversitesi in 1986 as the
Devlet Konservatuvarı (State Conservatory), ten years after the foundation of the first
federally sanctioned conservatory of the Republican era, the Türk Musikîsi Devlet
Konservatuvarı (Turkish Music State Conservatory) within İstanbul Teknik
Üniversitesi in 1976 (see İstanbul Ü./anon.; Ayangil 2008: 418-22; Gill 2006: 71-7).
In a parallel course, another conservatory called the Anadolu Musiki Cemiyeti
(Anatolia Music Society) was opened on the Asian side of the city, changing its name
to Darülfeyz-i Musiki Cemiyeti (House of Abundance Music Society) the following
year, and incorporating with the municipality in 1923 to become the Üsküdar Musiki
Cemiyeti, still in existence (see Üsküdar MC/anon., O’Connell 2000: 127 fn. 11).20
The other main medium in which we see both factions of musicians participating
(though not often together) is that of electronic recordings. Hundreds of 78 rpm
records (taş plak in Turkish) exist of major performers from around 1910 onward,
meant for sale as entertainment, but for us documenting the music of an Empire about
to end (see Ünlü 2004).21
As disruptive for makam music as was the end of court patronage, and the end of the
Empire itself after many years of war, it had yet to contend with the active attempts to
extinguish it that would form part of the early Republican agenda to modernize and
20
For more on transformations of early Republican music education institutions see Tekelioğlu 2001:
95, Ayangil 2008: 418.
21
The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire is a long and complicated tale that I will not attempt to retell
here, but suffice it to say that after losing a series of wars, it ceased to be an imperial monarchy in
November of 1922, then to be a state in July of 1923. After a successful war of independence on the
part of what remained of the Ottoman army, the Republic of Turkey was officially proclaimed on
October 29, 1923 (see Kinross 1977, Shaw 1977, Deringil 1993).
36
“Turkify” the nation. The Republic’s first president, Mustafa Kemal (later given the
surname “Atatürk”), wanting to eradicate what he saw as a hotbed of reactionary
politics, shut all the Sufi tekke-s (“lodges”) and medrese-s (religious schools) in 1924-
5, resulting in the severe curtailment of the traditional musical transmission
undertaken by Mevlevi and other orders (which is why they became so involved in
the secular institutions of music education mentioned above; see O’Connell 2000:
134, Ergüner 2005, Signell 2008: 12, Tekelioğlu 2001: 95). Ideologically fuelled by
the nationalist writings of sociologist Ziya Gökalp, nationalists attacked Ottoman
music (now called “classical Turkish music” by its defenders; cf. Gill 2006: 39,
Feldman 1996: 16) as being insufficiently Turkish (see Gökalp 1918, Berkes 1959,
Feldman 1991: 98-100, Ederer 2005: 121, O’Connell 2000: 122; also Ertan 2007: 33,
Tekelioğlu 2001: 94, 105). Their arguments partook variously of the ideas that the
music’s origins were: Greek (i.e., from Pythagoras, or the Byzantine Church, or
both); Arab or Persian; polluted by the contributions of its many well known Greek,
Armenian, Moldavian and Jewish composers; or merely that its status as “Islamic
music” placed it in a pre-modern and anti-nationalist category (see Feldman 1991: 85;
Ayangil 2008: 401-2). These arguments appeared plausible since,
…prior to the twentieth century, the Ottoman Turks never fully accepted the
historical uniqueness of their musical repertoire or of their musical structure,
preferring to balance the particularism of history with the generalism of myth.
They persisted in viewing an early fifteenth century Azerbaijani [i.e.,
Abdülkadir Merâgî] as the “founder” of their own music, despite the evident
gap which separated the modes, compositional genres, and performance
practices of his time and place and theirs. When the absurdity of describing
current musical practices on the basis of fifteenth century theory was pointed
out by Cantemir in 1700, Turkish musicians accepted the new musical theory,
while simultaneously retaining the mythological lineage of their music. The
37
Turkish lineage of music saw the Muslims as the heirs of Pythagoras and the
other Greek philosophers, an attitude which they shared with many European
travellers [sic] in the eighteenth century (Fonton/Martin 1751; Bohlman: 150).
In order for the Turks to consider themselves part of the Great Tradition, it
was essential for them to minimize the degree of musical originality which
they had demonstrated between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, and
which had led them in certain directions which were somewhat different than
the other members of this tradition. (Feldman 1991: 105)
Musicologist and Mevlevi dervish Rauf Yekta was apparently able to answer the first
wave of such nationalist criticisms22 (e.g., Necib Asım Bey’s 1893 articles in the
newspaper İkdam, Halil Bedii Bey’s virulent opposition to “alaturka” music, and Zeki
Bey’s call to eliminate “quarter-tones” in Turkish makam music in favor of the
“universal” Western system; see Feldman 1991: 98-101, O’Connell 2000: 127-8,
Tekelioğlu 2001 passim, Ayangil 2008: 420, Gill 2006: 41 and 73). But twenty years
later a new and more organized wave of attacks came, to which neither Yekta nor his
erstwhile partner Dr. Suphi Ezgi responded (Feldman 1991: 98-101).23 The official
state radio company (which had a broadcast monopoly until 1994, see Ederer 2005:
131, Tekelioğlu 2001: 105) banned classical Turkish music from broadcast in 1934
and much of 1935 (see Tekelioğlu 2001: 105, Shaw 1977: 384-8, Kinross 1969: 439),
22
This despite Yekta’s thoughts on the music’s origins: “According to the monograph of Raûf Yektâ
Bey entitled Türk Müziğ̆i (The Turkish Music) written in 1913, the Turkish scale was the diatonic
major scale that Fârâbî had taken from the Ancient Greeks and which had been preserved without any
change by Arabic, Persian and Turkish theorist and musicians” (Ayangil 2008: 423). Cf. Yarman 2007:
19-23. See also two of Yekta’s responses to critics in Yarman 2007: 139-44, and a heated exchange on
the subject between him and the westernizing composer Osman Zeki Üngör (ibid.: 145-52).
23
In their defense, Feldman notes that they were rather busy; he credits Yekta with transcribing for the
first time “[V]irtually the entire vocal repertoire of the period preceding him” from his teacher Zekâi
Dede, taught him orally by his master, İsmail Dede Efendi (d. 1846); Ezgi was similarly transcribing
“the bulk of the instrumental repertoire known today” coming through the lineage of Tanburi İsak (d.
1814) through Oskiyam (d. 1870?) to “several musicians of the later nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries,” (ibid.: 87-9). Considering the dissolution of the oral tradition after the closing of the
Mevlevi tekke-s these must be considered acts of major importance in terms of preserving the
repertoire known and played today.
38
and “[A] complete ban was put on monophonic music education (that is Ottoman-
originated Turkish music) in public and private schools in 1927” (Tekelioğlu 2001:
95; see also Yarman 2007: 12-15, 138). Conservatories focused their curricula on
Western music (İstanbul Ü./anon., O’Connell 2000: 127 fn. 11 and 130 fn. 12 and
133), but interest in classical Turkish music continued (see Ergüner 2005, Feldman
1991: 100-1).
It fell finally to musicologist Hüseyin Sadettin Arel to understand the nature of the
attacks and answer them effectively in his 1940 book Türk Musikisi Kimindir?
(“Whose is Turkish Music?”), in which he combines his “scientific and modern”
restructuring of classical Turkish music theory (which would make him to this day
the dominant music theorist) and a reimagining of the music’s mythos, in which
“authentic” Central Asian Turkic folk melodies formed the melodic basis of makam
music,24 and a panoply of the music’s early theorists—including the aforementioned
al-Fārābī (now “Farabi”), Safiyüddin Urmevi, and Abdülkadir Merâgî—are presented
as ethnically Turkish (Feldman 1991: 100-1, O’Connell 2000: 123-4; see also Arel in
Yarman 2007: 153-4).25 Arel seems to have won the argument: in 1943 he was
appointed director of the İstanbul Belediye Konservatuvarı, his theory became the
standard in Turkish music education (see Chapter III), his mythos (whatever its
24
As Feldman notes, there was not much evidence to support this, but therefore not enough to dispute
it either (ibid.: 101). See also Signell 2008: 150 on Arel giving the impression that there is no
difference between Turkish folk and classical musics (and cf. Markoff 2002).
25
Cf. Farhat 1990: 4-5, where, conceding the possible Turkishness of Fārābī, he claims “Safiaddin”
and “Marāqi” as Persians.
39
factual accuracy) is widely repeated (ibid., Signell 2008: 7-8, Yarman 2007: 16-8),
the state came to found its own classical Turkish music ensembles (e.g., the Ankara
Radyo Korosu 1938, İstanbul Radyo Korosu 1943, İstanbul Devlet Klasik Türk
Müziği Korosu 1976), and as noted above, instruction in classical Turkish music
became part of the state university curriculum in 1976.26 Feldman notes that it was
only from 1976, and especially after 1980, that the dominant official rejection of this
“Ottoman” music for ideological reasons began to change (1996: 16). Now we will
turn our attention back to the late seventeenth century to examine the history of
taksim, specifically.
TAKSİM
Moldavian prince, polymath, and sometime Ottoman courtly hostage Dimitrie
Cantemir’s music treatise Kitâb-i `İlmü’l Mûsiki ‘ala Vechü’l Ḥurûfat (“The Book of
the Science of Music According to Lettered Notation”) from around the year 1700 is
a landmark in several respects, though we will only deal with a few of them here.27 In
it he is the first commentator on the music of the Ottoman court to demonstrate that—
as evidenced by major changes in genre, instrumentation, and modes, as well as by
26
For more recent official support of makam-based musics, see Stokes 1997: 682, where he asserts,
“Nostalgia [i.e., for Ottoman cultural forms] is now a matter of state policy.” Ayangil also details many
of the struggles between “traditional” and “modernizing” musicians of these times in regard to the
adoption of Western notation (2008: 416-22).
27
For analytical transcriptions of music in the text in modern Western notation, along with
commentary on aspects not dealt with here, such as his notation system, rhythmic cycles, tones in use
in his time, etc., see Wright 1992a and 2000. For a modern Turkish translation of the original, see Tura
2001. On the man himself, see Popescu-Judetz 1999. Note that Cantemir is known in Turkey as
“Kantemiroğlu.”
40
differences in general performance and pedagogical technique from those of
contemporary students of Iranian musicians formerly at court)—it was clearly no
longer the “Persian music” his contemporaries were used to calling it, that is, that it
had become a uniquely Ottoman music (Feldman 1993: 11-13, 21 and 1996: 494;
Popescu-Judetz 1999: 9).28 But for our purposes this text is most important for
containing the first mention in the Muslim world—and the first full description, with
a transcribed example—of the then rather new taksim genre, which subject forms the
centerpiece of the text (ibid.: 8).29
Feldman (1993: 3) notes that there seem to have been a few genres of unmetered, at
least partially improvised music in the Islamic music world before the sixteenth
century (e.g., nashîd, istihlâl) but that taksim as a genre (using the same term whether
sung or played) seems to have emerged in the early seventeenth-century Ottoman
court, possibly derived from the aforementioned genres and/or from the tajwīd/tecvid
form of Qur‘anic recitation and/or from the (metered, pre-composed but mainly
pedagogical) kâr-i natik (sung) and küll-i külliyât peşrev (instrumental) genres (ibid.:
17-23;30 see also Feldman 1996: 276-7 and 495-6, and Signell 2008: 121-4).
28
Whatever the causal relationship, if any, this seems to have coincided with a general trend among
the Ottomans to “re-Turkify” court culture, using the (nonetheless quite Persianized) Ottoman
language, for instance, rather than Persian proper, a move that apparently shocked the still highly
Persianized (and Turkic) Mughals in India (see Titley 1983: 159).
29
It must be noted that although Cantemir most often uses the word “taksim,” he also uses, and notes
the use among other musicians, of the term nağme (an otherwise generic term for melody, or even for
makam) for the same phenomenon (Feldman 1993: 24 fn. 7).
30
Feldman also notes: “[T]here is good reason to believe that the concept of genre, which developed
in the late 16th to early 17th century and which remained in place thereafter for over three centuries,
41
Whatever its derivation, the earliest known reference to the word “taksim” (in a
musical sense—it is the normal Arabic and Ottoman word for “division” or
“distribution”) is to be found in fifteenth-century Turkish mecmua anthologies with
the meaning “a section setting the first verse block” (Wright 1992b: 316), only
appearing clearly with the meaning that we attribute it today in a kaside poem by
Ottoman poet Neşâtî in 1638 (Feldman 1993: 7; see also 1996: 274-6 and 280).
Although the genres that Feldman mentions as precedent to the taksim appear to have
been chosen by him on the basis of their use of modulation as well as “performance-
generation,” there is every reason to suspect that some form of performance-
generated, non-modulating (i.e., single-makam) prelude existed to introduce or
intercede between pre-composed pieces of repertoire in a single makam before the
invention of the taksim as a modulation-oriented, standalone genre. Today the term
“taksim” may refer to either a single-makam or modulatory performance, as well as to
one that either introduces (or bridges) pre-composed repertoire or stands alone as an
independent genre.31 But as Cantemir describes it, the main characteristics of the
original taksim are that it was:
enshrined the secularization of the central genre of religious music, the Qur‘ānic chant, in the form of
the taksîm improvisation” (1996: 23).
31
Several informants mentioned to me the idea that “taksim” had historically been called “âğâz,”
“agaze,” or “âğâze” (Persian “beginning, commencement”), and although Feldman does not note it,
there are several uses of this term in his 1993 Ottoman Sources on the Development of the Taksîm that
may be interpreted as pointing toward a non-modulating, pre-taksim, musical introduction using that
name (see pp. 14, 18, 19, 23; but cf. Doğrusöz n.d. on other historical musical understandings of
âğâze). I have to wonder if a distinction between repertoire-dependent, single-makam introductory
“taksim-s” and independent, modulation-oriented “taksim-s”—a distinction assumed by Cantemir (see
below), unmentioned by Feldman, and subsumed today under the overall definition of “taksim”—was
once manifest as a distinction between “âğâze” and “taksim,” respectively.
42
• unmetered
• unaccompanied (except perhaps by a drone on the tonic)
• performance-generated (i.e., that it neither be pre-composed nor quote pre-
composed pieces)
• demonstrates a codified melodic direction and a hierarchy of tones (see below
in regard to “seyir”)
• and—receiving the most emphasis—that it serves as a medium for showing
“consonant” (hiss-i ünsiyyet) modulations (ibid.: 5-6 and 1996: 278, Cantemir
Ch. 7 in Wright 2000: 375-88, cf. Marcus 1989a: 755-776 and 1992 regarding
modulation in Arab music)32
Feldman notes that what Ottoman repertoire we know of up to that time—including
the three-hundred fifty some pieces Cantemir notated himself in the same text—had
very little modulation in it; excepting the aforementioned and relatively rare küll-i
külliyât peşrev and kâr-i nâtik song form.33 Additionally, only the third hane (section)
of an ordinary peşrev might show a limited amount of it (1993: 6, 16). Modulation, in
Feldman’s reading of Cantemir, was essentially the domain—and in some sense also
the raison d’être—of taksim.
32
Feldman notes these (excepting the quality “unaccompanied”) as the defining characteristics of
taksim in “modern Turko-Arabian” music (1996: 276), but see Chapter IV herein regarding the use of
melodic material learned from pre-composed repertoire in Turkish taksim-s today.
33
Feldman also mentions in this regard the older Persian/Transoxanian kolliyât, probable ancestor of
the kâr-i nâtik (ibid.: 20).
43
Here I must take a moment to explain what is meant by “modulation” in this case.
Clear in the prose and examples of Cantemir (e.g., see quote in Feldman 1993: 18),
modulation here refers to the use—within the context of a performance demonstrating
a single makam—of makam-s other than the main one and/or (especially) terkib-s
(subsidiary melodic modes or modal fragments) before returning to the main makam
to finish the performance. Feldman notes that Cantemir had no specific word for
modulation (other than for the kind that was also a transposition, şedd),34 and that the
modern Turkish word for it, geçki, seems to be an invention of the twentieth century
(ibid.: 15).35 Herein, I think, lies part of the possible confusion; the word geçki does
indeed now mean a modulation of the sort Cantemir described, but when the synonym
geçiş (both words coming from the root geç, “(to) pass”) qualifies the word taksim—
i.e., a geçiş taksimi (or, rarely, a geçki taksimi)—its meaning is that of a different
sense of the English word “modulation”; this refers to a taksim that begins in one
makam and ends in another. This is a practice that was apparently unknown in
Cantemir’s time.36
34
But note Wright (1992a: xxv) on the term terkīb-i intiķāl (“transitional sub-mode”) in reference to
modulations in a subsection of pre-composed peşrev-s; Feldman does not seem to interpret it as linked
to modulation, specifically (see 1993: 12).
35
The word also appears in the forms “keçki” and “ğeçki” in early-twentieth-century texts, see Ezgi
1935-53: 282.
36
Feldman notes this period as remarkable for the introduction of new cyclical suite genres (fasıl-s),
which by definition begin and end in the same makam. He especially points out the fasıl-i sazende
(“instrumental suite”), which was apparently the main vehicle for the art of taksim for hundreds of
years (ibid.: 5, 14, 17, and especially 22, where he credits taksim as the catalyst for the creation of the
instrumental fasıl). There is no evidence in Cantemir’s work for the practice of beginning in one
makam and ending in another. The distinction between the two kinds of modulation is seemingly a
matter of confusion in Feldman 1993: 14-15.
44
It is quite possible that the concept of a modulation of the “geçiş” sort was invented in
the late-nineteenth or early-twentieth century, when many of the performance
traditions regarding the fasıl suites were abandoned or reconfigured (see Signell
2008: 113-5, Feldman 1991: 76; cf. Ayangil 2008: 412).37 For clarity’s sake in this
dissertation I will refer to geçki-s either by that term or as “internal modulations,” and
for taksim-s that begin in one makam and end in another I will use the Turkish term
“geçiş (taksimi).”
Finally, on the subject of modulation in taksim, Cantemir gave examples of what he
considered to be the ideal taksim (although he noted that only one or two musicians
could perform it, Cantemir VII: 63/Feldman 1993: 18-9): the taksîm-i nağme-i
külliyât-i nağamât (“taksim of the melody/makam of the compendium of
melodies/makam-s”) or taksîm-i küllî (“compendium taksim”38)—taksim-s that run
through the entirety of the makam system; the eighteenth-century French dragoman
(diplomatic interpreter) Charles Fonton noted that such taksim-s could last for “whole
hours” (ibid.: 15, 21). For Cantemir this was the apex of the art of taksim, and an
index of a musician’s knowledge of the system; it apparently served as a goal for all
musicians (ibid.: 18). A comprehensive understanding of the techniques for making
37
I should say that I heard many “old fashioned” fasıl-s performed, both vocal and instrumental,
during my ten months’ research, but the term “fasıl-i sazende” (and its Modern Turkish version
“sazende faslı”) is virtually unused, even among musicians aware of its history (probably because the
word fasıl is now associated with cabaret music, see O’Connell 2005). An exception is the 2008
İstanbul Sazendeleri CD Sazende Faslı – 1, the music on which nods to the classic format without
reproducing it (cf. Feldman 1991: 76).
38
These are Feldman’s translations of the phrases; Marcus would prefer to substitute the word
“entirety” for the word “compendium” above (p.c. December 2010).
45
modulations seems therefore to have been a crucial component of musicianship at the
time.
Regarding the spread of the taksim genre throughout the Middle East there seems to
be a lacuna in the literature (Feldman 1993: 1 [and footnotes 3 and 6], 4; 1996: 278),
though after noting that it was not accepted in the Maghreb or Transoxania Feldman
states, “[I]n Syria and Egypt it came to co-exist with the cyclical waslah, but by the
later 19th century it became increasingly dominant over the composed forms” (1993:
10, cf. 1996: 512 fn. 93). Cantemir noted the differences between seventeenth-century
Ottoman and Persian “taksim-s” (ibid.: 11, and see Farhat 1990: 19-20), and most
writers on Arab taqāsīm are vague on the subject, focusing on its undisputed
importance since the early-twentieth century without pinning down an origin story
(e.g., Racy 2000, Shiloah 1981).39 However, it is clear that there were developments
of the taksim genre closely following Cantemir’s time that had important implications
for the Ottoman art of makam as a whole, and it is possible that these understandings
of makam spread outward from Istanbul along with the genre in subsequent centuries.
Whether or not that is the case, I would like to ask the reader to note that it is only
from the late seventeenth century that we are able to see the dynamic “feedback”
relationship between the definitions of makam (and moreover, of specific makam-s)
and the practice of taksim, a genre apparently disproportionately influential in this
39
Marcus notes that taqāsīm are no longer featured in art music performance in the Eastern Arab
musical sphere, and with some exceptions have not been for some twenty years or more (p.c.
December 2010).
46
regard, and to recall that this dynamic is essentially—ever respecting the agency of
the art’s active performers and theorists—one of the main subjects of this dissertation.
One aspect of our late-seventeenth-century examples that I wish to discuss is the use
of the subsidiary modal units known as terkib-s (from the Arabic for “compound,”
“combination”) and their gradual absorption (and transformation) into normative
makam-s.40 As will be remembered from the previous descriptions of melodic modes
of medieval theory, there had traditionally been a hierarchical distinction made
between “primary” modes (e.g., the twelve shudūd or parda-s) and “subsidiary” ones
(e.g., the six awāzāt). These seem to have been continually re-imagined and
developed to suit local variants and nomenclature,41 but the hierarchical principle
remained intact; it was manifest in the music of the seventeenth-century Ottoman
court mainly as (primary) “makam-s” and (subsidiary) “terkib-s.”42 But here a new
40
Cf. tarākīb in Arab music, Shiloah 1981: 36-40; Marcus 1989a: 785 fn. 1.
41
E.g. see Shiloah 1981: 35 regarding ibn al-Akfānī and al-Khaṭīb al-Irbilī; Feldman 1993: 19 on
Merâgî’s six âvâz and twenty-four sho`ba; Farhat 1990: 20-1 regarding later Persian versions (which
he nonetheless daringly discards here). See also Simms 2004 regarding such hierarchies in modern
Iraqi maqām music. Regarding varied nomenclature (though not modal hierarchy) cf. Mashāqa’s quite
diminutive alḥān (Smith 1847, Ronzevalle 1899), and the aforementioned âğâze in Kirşehirli’s
fifteenth-century Kitab-ı Edvâr (Doğrusöz n.d.).
42
This is how Cantemir described the system; see Feldman 1996: 238-4 on other writers’ terms for the
hierarchical units. Terkib-s, at least in this seventeenth-century Ottoman context, seem to have been
short melodic fragments or pitch-sets that were thought to be lacking in certain (unspecified) qualities
that categorically distinguished makam-s (perhaps sufficient tones in common with the basic scale,
rules regarding melodic movement, a sufficient number of pitches, etc.). One aspect that did not
remain in the hierarchical system (for Cantemir, at least) was the number of modes and sub-modes;
rather than a neat accounting such as “12x and 6y,” there appear to be a profusion of seventeenth-
century Ottoman makam-s and terkib-s, though their exact number seems elusive. In one place
Cantemir transcribed a taksim of his that supposedly went through the whole system, covering “thirty
six makams and terkîbs” [sic] (plus two transpositions; Feldman 1993: 15, but how many are makam-s
and how many terkib-s is not clear here); later Feldman counts forty-three such entities in a “küll-i
külliyât melody” (a kind of pre-composed peşrev? Ibid: 19), but notes that if we were to have only
Cantemir’s Collection (i.e., that part of his treatise comprising transcriptions of contemporary
47
twist arises; Cantemir indicates (both explicitly and in his hundreds of transcriptions)
that the terkib-s were used mainly in taksim-s; some only sparingly and others not at
all in the composed repertoire.43 We must note that this raises questions about how
old these terkib-s were, and about their actual relationship to previous kinds of
“subsidiary modes,” and furthermore, if they were very old and yet do not appear in
the composed repertoire of previous centuries, does this not imply the previous
existence of an “improvised” genre in which they were used and therefore
remembered? Feldman opines, “The taksîm did not exist in the 15th and earlier 16th
century, so the terkîb systems must have functioned more directly in composition at
that time” (1996: 262). And yet they do not appear prominently in the notated
repertoire, either; how and why, then, were they used or even remembered before
their deployment in taksim-s in the seventeenth century?44
However these questions come to be resolved, it is certain that the eighteenth century
is remarkable in the history of Ottoman music for the sudden proliferation of new
repertoire) we would think the music of the time consisted only of the nineteen makam-s and nine
terkib-s represented (ibid.: 16). Wright puts the total in Cantemir 1700 at as high as 90 modal entities
(2000: 29).
43
See Feldman 1993: 3, 16, 22 and 1996: 235, 288-94; also 1993: 12 regarding the term “terkib” used
in the different sense of a subsection of a peşrev (cf. Wright 1992a: xxv), and 13 where Cantemir uses
it in describing Persian pedagogy, in which it has the meaning akin to today’s “guše” (cf. Farhat 1990:
22).
44
There is the possibility that such terkib-s had been tucked away in as-yet undiscovered theory
treatises, but there is stronger evidence that musicians of the fifteenth through nineteenth centuries
were not very attentive to such literature, anyway (see Appendix G). I infer from Feldman above that
the most likely hiding place were the aforementioned “pedagogical” küll-i külliyât peşrev and kâr-i
nâtik song forms, though these were apparently relatively rare.
48
makam-s, especially of mürekkeb (“compound”) makam-s,45 for the disappearance of
the hierarchical distinction “terkib” (and other equivalents, see Feldman 1996: 238-
44) and for internal modulation becoming normative in most makam-s, and newly
included in pre-composed repertoire, all of which Feldman claims certainly to have
been the effect of (ever-increasing) taksim performance upon pre-performance
composition, upon definitions of particular makam-s, and upon Ottoman makam
music generally (1993: 17, 22-3).
Apparently yet another novelty of Cantemir’s time is the concept referred to today as
“seyir” (Arabic “walk, motion, procession” via Persian as “journey” or “progress”),
which in the current musical sense refers to a complex of codified instructions
regarding melodic movement and a hierarchy of pitches (and in the case of mürekkeb
makam-s, of requisite internal modulations) that are applied to each makam (see
Signell 2008: 48-65). Feldman claims that “Cantemir’s treatise is the earliest source
for the codified melodic progression, called seyir (“progress”) in later Turkish music”
(1993: 6) and writes, “The term [seyir] came into use in the late eighteenth century,
but the concept seems to have become established during the course of the
seventeenth century” (ibid.: 4; see also 1996: 255-8), though Wright, citing
D’Erlanger, asserts that “the first mention of a scale with a specific direction and
contour in Arabian music occurs in the eleventh century, and the second in the
45
“Mürekkeb” is from the same Arabic root as terkib, rakkaba, “to combine.” Compound makam-s
(i.e., makam-s formed by combining several pre-existing makam-s) had existed since at least since the
thirteenth century, and apparently had a similar function; cf. Shiloah on that time: “The category of
murakkabāt allows for the expansion of the category of principal and secondary modes and offers
diverse possibilities for transformation within the system” (1981: 33-4).
49
thirteenth” (1966: 36), and Shiloah speculates that something like it may have been
inherent even in the definitions of the shudūd of Ṣafīuddīn’s time (1981: 32, but cf.
Feldman 1996: 257-8).46 In any case, for Cantemir (who applied the terms hükm
[“domain”] and hareket [“movement”] to his descriptions of this phenomenon) it
appears to be something intrinsic to his understanding of Ottoman—but not
contemporary Persian—music (Feldman 1993: 4, 1996: 262-7).
In his 1996 work Feldman describes seyir as an attribute only of modal entities per se,
but in his 1993 piece on taksim he had, I think unintentionally, opened an interesting
question as to seyir’s primary affiliation in Cantemir’s time: in certain parts of his
1993 Ottoman Sources on the Development of the Taksîm he describes it in such a
way that it implies that seyir was an attribute of taksim but not yet of makam-s per se
(pp. 3, 4, 9, 22), while in other parts it seems to be an attribute of makam-s (and
therefore of taksim; pp. 6, 9, 17). If the first of these is correct then it follows that the
origin of today’s state of the art—in which each makam is considered to have its own
seyir —would have developed from the agreed-upon codification of “seyir-s”
invented by taksim performers. However, if the second is correct—and even if there
were something like “seyir” associated with individual makam-s previous to the
seventeenth century—the demonstrated influence of taksim on makam-s vis à vis
46
I do not know whether Feldman knew of and simply disagreed with the cited Wright and Shiloah
works (he had cited many of their other works in his 1996 book, but not those), however, he wrote,
“Not only was Cantemir the first writer in Turkey (or elsewhere in the Middle East) to create a term for
melodic progression, his treatise contains the earliest written seyirs. As noted by During (1988:160),
the characteristic elements of seyir were never mentioned by Safi al-Din Urmawî, or by the other
Systematists” (1996: 257).
50
repertoire creation (mentioned above and clearly seen in the treatises of Hızır Ağa
and Abdülbaki Nasir Dede in the eighteenth century, and Haşim Bey in the nineteenth
century, ibid.: 17, 22) still meant that seyir-s subsequently had to be expanded or
revised. That is to say, if one starts playing or composing in a makam that has a
certain seyir but then (internally) modulates to another makam that has a different
seyir, and subsequently to yet others, then the overall seyir of a makam for which
such internal modulations became normative would presumably call for a rethinking
of its basic seyir.47 This would in any case result in the same effect: newly created
seyir-s in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries associated with specific makam-
s.48 Feldman has this to say about modern taksim and seyir in his 1993 conclusion:
The taksîm genre as it is known in the twentieth century, both in its Turkish
and Arab forms is essentially a vehicle for the expression of melodic
progressions (seyir) and modulation within the makam system. The nearly
simultaneous appearance in seventeenth century Turkish sources of the taksîm
genre and the terminology for expressing seyir, as well as an increasingly
47
As we shall see in later chapters, however, today seyir is often disregarded during modulations.
Regarding this phenomenon in terms of the evidence Cantemir has provided, Feldman on the one hand
remarks upon the stability of seyir-s from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries (though giving
only the oldest, best established makam-s as examples, 1996: 237) yet on the other hand notes that “the
[terkib-s qua] compounds often display peculiarities of melodic movement which cannot be explained
by any of their constituent modal elements,” (ibid.: 238), and that frequent alterations in (pitches and)
melodic movements characterize (one type of) the new compound modes (ibid.: 241). He also notes,
“The more elaborate [post-seventeenth-century] melodic progressions could not be expressed without a
more fixed position for terkîbs which emphasized different tonal centers and melodic movements”
(ibid.: 261).
48
Parenthetically, an Arab sense of maqām definition also relies on the concept of seyir (see maqām
definitions in D’Erlanger 1949 beginning p. 118; see also Marcus 2007: 23-39 [regarding maqām Rast]
and 2002b especially pp. 40-2 [regarding maqām Bayyāti]); however from a Turkish perspective
current Eastern Arab maqām music would appear to have lost or rejected many seyir-s and therefore
many maqām-s. For instance both I and several Turkish musicians I know have noticed that Arab
musicians generally identify as “maqām Bayyāti” the following Turkish makam-s: Uşşak, Beyati, Basit
Isfahan, Neva, Tahir, Gülizar and Hüseyni, and perhaps even Muhayyer—the differences between
these mainly amounting to differences of seyir—while makam-s Uzzal and Hümayun are similarly
lumped in with “maqām Ḥijāz” (D’Erlanger 1949: 228-304 [maqām-s on the note “re”] gives us the
resources to report these as “lost or rejected” rather than never-existent in Arab maqām music; see also
Marcus 2002b: 40 regarding Mashāqa noting such a confusion in Syian maqām in the 1880s).
51
developed practical application of seyir in composition, suggest that the
development of codified melodic progressions had a major effect on the
creation of taksîm. (ibid.: 22)
While the latter part of the statement is no doubt true, the idea that the taksim genre is
currently “essentially a vehicle for the expression of … seyir” (and modulation) may
depend on the level of specificity an artist gives the definition of the term “seyir”; as
we shall see in Chapter IV, many musicians perform taksim-s using an apparently
simplified understanding of seyir such that it consists only of the information
regarding whether a makam begins around its tonic, upper tonic, or dominant tone
before traveling eventually to rest on the tonic—hardly enough information to fulfill
Feldman’s expectations here. Compound makam-s (i.e., those with required internal
modulations) necessarily have more complex melodic paths though they, too, may
merely be assigned a single “melodic direction” in accord with this simple paradigm.
Furthermore, taksim-s today may not necessarily involve any sort of modulation; if
both seyir and modulation may be reduced to their minimal expression in today’s
taksim-s, then what are we to make of Feldman’s assertion? Let us now take a closer
look at the taksim genre and its performance contexts in the current classical Turkish
music world, with an eye toward at least understanding the conditions under which
we may evaluate the importance of such aspects as seyir and modulation to the genre.
I should make clear first that, while making good taksim-s is a highly valued skill and
is in some sense a primary mark of musical competence, there are no musicians who
52
perform only taksim; the mainstay of performance, whether professional or amateur,
consists of giving interpretations of a fairly fixed (if also quite broad) repertoire,
usually presented heterophonically in group settings. Taksim-s made in public
performances are generally short (lasting around 1-2 minutes) and occur either as an
introduction to a piece of repertoire in the same makam (called a giriş [“entry”]
taksim, or if played—always on a ney flute—to introduce a Mevlevi ayin, a baş
[“head”] taksim (also around 1-2 minutes in length, though possibly longer). They
may also be used to connect two pieces of pre-composed repertoire; if these pieces
are in the same makam it is called an ara (“between”) taksim, but if the pieces are in
different makam-s the taksim is a geçiş (“passing, modulation”) taksim.
In less formal concerts, especially those including arrangements of folk tunes (türkü,
etc.), a mid-song, metered taksim (i.e., one accompanied by percussion and/or
instrumentalists playing an ostinato pattern) might also be found, and here it is more
likely than usual that more than one performer will give a taksim, one after the other
(though generally not more than 3 persons total), before returning to the original
piece. In the mid-twentieth century, artists such as Niyazi Sayın, Necdet Yaşar, and
İhsan Özgen revived the müşterek (“cooperative, common”) taksim in which two or
more performers “share” the taksim in turns between performers. A similar sort, the
beraber (“together”) taksim, in which players perform simultaneously, was
essentially another mid-twentieth-century experiment in counterpoint, but did not
53
catch on (İ. Özgen, p.c. 5/27/09).49 Standalone solo taksim-s, usually longer than the
above-described ones but not often exceeding 10 minutes, are more often played in
the private domain, i.e., amongst groups of musicians for each other’s enjoyment, and
for students and invited aficionados (cf. Signell 2008: 13); such taksim-s may appear
on performers’ commercial albums, but rarely in public performances.
As the voices of current performers will tell us in Chapter IV, the ability to make a
fine taksim is the pride of every KTM instrumentalist, and the genre serves as a
medium for showing off one’s own performance technique and makam knowledge, as
well as for evaluating those characteristics in other performers. Although the art of
making a taksim is not explicitly taught in either conservatory or the oral/aural
pedagogies, every music student is expected to listen closely to many taksim-s by
acknowledged masters (both live and on recordings), learning to analyze them “on the
fly” and to memorize what they are able to in order to incorporate the techniques
heard into their own taksim-s. But performers are also aware of what would seem to
be a “feedback loop” between KTM audiences and the performance and recording
venues for taksim-s that has gradually caused problems regarding taksim performance
over the course of the twentieth century: perhaps beginning with the 3- to 3-and-a-
half-minute time limitation of the 78 rpm record, there has been a tendency for the
programmers of radio shows (and later, television shows) as well as the organizers of
public concerts to place ever increasing limits upon the duration of taksim
49
See also B. Aksoy 2004, in which he claims that Mesut Cemil Bey invented the beraber taksim.
54
performances, such that even the one or two minutes taksim-s mentioned above are
sometimes cut to perhaps thirty seconds. In fact, if we include verbal introductions to
pieces and suites, which often exceed introductory taksim-s in length, the position of
the taksim in such venues is not even secondary to pre-composed repertoire, but
tertiary to it. For the most part, players would prefer the freedom to play longer
taksim-s if they feel it is appropriate in the moment, but as ud-ist Necati Çelik put it
to me:
[Today] the general listener [dinleyici; also “audience member”] thinks 3

minutes is long enough, four is a little long, five minutes is much too long. So
it’s very important for me to try to get in as much as I can in three minutes.
(P.c. 06/04/09)
That is to say, audience members’ expectations are seen by performers to have been
(adversely) shaped by their interactions with music through mass media and
repertoire-oriented concert programming such that the aforementioned sort of ten-
minute-long taksim-s that performers may play for each other in private (or that may
appear on a CD, given an indulgent record producer) is intolerably long. This longer
length of taksim is thought by many performers once to have been the norm for
taksim-s, or perhaps even an abbreviated length for them—indeed there is a
traditional but now little performed sort of taksim, the fihrist (“index”) taksim that in
length and number of modulations can be quite like the taksîm-i küllî mentioned in
Cantemir.50 But although this foreshortening of the publicly played taksim is
50
See Çimenli 2005 in the Discography for several recorded examples of fihrist taksim-s. This type of
taksim is characterized by a great many modulations, as though creating an “index” or “list” of
makam-s, returning finally to the original makam. It differs from Cantemir’s taksîm-i küllî in that there
55
generally framed as a loss, it may not be the worst: there is a general sense among
today’s performers that audiences have gradually also become less discerning about
the details of makam knowledge over the last century. This is often said by
performers to have resulted not only in a lessening of the audience’s ability to enjoy
taksim-s—to know a good one from a bad or mediocre one—but to have led younger
players to focus on spectacular playing techniques at the expense of all but a few
popularly favored makam-s, and even of the subtler details of these, including more
elaborate seyir-s and appropriate modulations. Overall, although taksim is still a vital
genre, it is also for many performers the locus of several worrying ideas of loss in the
classical Turkish music tradition (which is explored at length in Chapter IV).
This brings us to the conclusion of this chapter, which I would like to end by recalling
the historical importance of taksim as a catalytic force acting upon the makam system
as a whole, spurring in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a profusion of new
makam-s, modulatory possibilities, and concomitantly complex repertoire. I would
also like to draw a parallel between: 1) the ideas regarding seyir mentioned above in
the context of a taksim that modulates through the whole makam system; and, 2) my
earlier proposed conception of taksim performance as the praxis of Turkish makam
theory. In Chapters V and VI we will be able to compare these early ideals of taksim
with the praxis of the period between 1910 and 2010, but first we will examine in
is no attempt to play literally all the makam-s (which are much greater in number now than they were
in 1700).
56
detail what music theorists have had to say during those hundred years about
makam—though, as Feldman noted, they said very little about taksim (1993: 1).
57
CHAPTER III: ISSUES IN TURKISH MUSIC THEORY SINCE 1910
As mentioned in the Preface and in Chapter II, the “official,” written theory of
classical Turkish music in the twentieth century has been a creative project ever beset
by pressures to “modernize” in line with Western European models (see O’Connell
2008, Bayhan 2008, Tekelioğlu 2001, Ayangil 2008). I will not expand much on the
politics of the struggle in this chapter, but while reviewing the content of the theory
presented here, we must keep in mind that it was formulated in response not only to
the history and state of the art (which a theory ideally might be), but also to these
specific extra-musical pressures.1
One aspect of the advent of contemporary theory, however, must be remarked upon in
this regard: that it was created—under government pressure—in order to provide a
new pedagogy suitable to training in the newly instituted Western-style conservatory
system, that is, effectively to replace the traditional oral/aural model of transmission
known as meşk (here “practice, repetition”; see Chapter I, fn. 14; see also Behar 1998,
Gill 2006).2 This change in educational venue meant that the information that
1
Cf. Marcus 1989a: 795-800 regarding descriptive, prescriptive and speculative aspects of (maqām)
theory, and their application to Eastern Arab maqām theory of the twentieth century; cf. d’Erlanger
1949: 1.
2
The meşk system being, of course, the means by which all of the early twentieth-century theorists had
learned makam music. See also Ayangil 2008: 402 and 416 on late nineteenth-century performers’
struggles to preserve meşk in the face of the spreading use of Western notation. Cf. Osman Zeki
Üngör’s 1926 anti-meşk rant in Yarman (2007a: 145-7). See also Gill 2006: 76 and 81. See also
Marcus 1989a: 123-157 and 790 on changes in both theory and pedagogy in early twentieth-century
Egyptian music. In fact the whole issue might be re-framed in the context of a drive to make literacy—
perforce of a Western-shaped sort—a tool by which to vanquish traditional oral/aural culture, a subject
unfortunately beyond the scope of this study.
58
previously might have been learned in an apprenticeship lasting decades needed to be
fit into a three-to-five-year, classroom-oriented curriculum. After the nationalism-
oriented criticisms of makam music given in the previous chapter, the most popular
complaint about it seems to have been that makam theory was too complex for
students to learn (see Tekelioğlu 2001: 100-103; cf. Marcus 1989a: 143-5 and 790).
Obviously it had not been so difficult that the music was ever abandoned at any point
over the previous centuries, but with the exigencies of the new pedagogy the music
theorists of the early twentieth century strove for an unprecedented level of
simplification and standardization. As we shall see, these are issues with which
current theorists are still dealing,3 but let us first look at the creators of today’s
normative music theory.
Wright notes a break regarding content and format in theory treatises by the end of
the fifteenth century (Wright 2000: 10-11; see also Feldman 1996: 20-9). Previous to
this they had mainly consisted of restatements or refinements of Ṣafīuddīn’s intervals,
tetrachord structures, and modes described in alphabetic (properly “abjadic”—see
below) notation; afterward these were abandoned in favor of repertoire collections (if
often only of lyrics) and note-by-note prose descriptions of the melodic movements of
the modes (Wright 2000: 10-11; see also Feldman 1996: 506 fn. 25, Yarman 2007b:
3
See especially Sarı in Bayhan 2008: 205-223, who seems to think the remedy has been worse than
the ailment, and Ayangil 2008: 444-5 on problems yet to be solved, and 420 regarding simplification
of the theory inherent in applying Western notation to Turkish music. See also Daloğlu in Bayhan
2008: 275-292, and Chapter IV on current performers’ ideas on the subject. Cf. Özkan 1984: 14 “There
is no use in either simplifying or complicating the rules of an art to an excessive degree” (Bir sana’atın
kurallarını aşırı derecede basitleştirmekte de, zorlaştırmakta da fayda yoktur).
59
44, Akdoğu 1989b, Ayangil 2008: 405; cf. Mashāqa in Ronzevalle 1899). Just before
the twentieth-century theorists we will concentrate on, Haşim Bey’s 1852 Mecmu’a-
yı Kârha ve Nakşha ve Şarkiyyat (reprinted as Haşim Bey Mecmuası in 1864)—just
the sort of song (lyrics) collection containing word-by-word descriptions of makam-s
that Wright describes—appears to have been the most widely read theory-oriented
text in the Ottoman music world (Akdoğu 1989b, see also Wright 1990: 237).4
Akdoğu here also notes that Haşim Bey included for the first time a comparison
between Ottoman and Western “notes” (i.e., intonation systems), and writes that
despite the text’s mistakes and misunderstandings regarding that subject, it filled a
certain (rhetorical) need (see also Yarman 2007a: 7). Perhaps this is an early
indication of the pressures upon Turkish musicians to formally define makam music
in terms of Western standards; in any case it seems to have heralded an interest in
redefining exactly those aspects of the music that Ṣafīuddīn’s “Systematist School”
had emphasized between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries: interval sizes,
tetrachordal entities, and descriptions of makam-s in musical notation (at this point,
variations of European staff notation; see below, and Ayangil 2008 passim; see also
Feldman 1996: 201, cf. Marcus 1989a: 790). These were the concerns of the theorists
who laid out the fundaments of today’s music theory: Rauf Yekta Bey (1871-1935),
Dr. Suphi Ezgi (1869-1962), and Hüseyin Sadettin Arel (1880-1955, with the
assistance of physics professor Salih Murad Uzdilek, 1891-1967), as well as the less
4
Though see Ayangil 2008: 402, and Uslu (no date) regarding the blossoming of late nineteenth/early
twentieth-century “educational guides devoted to teaching makam theory and solmisation.” Yekta
noted that before his first publication (in 1898) “musical literature did not exist to speak of” (1922
[1913]: 2982). Note that Feldman asserts that Haşim Bey “…plagiarized much of [Cantemir’s]
treatise” for the 1864 work (1996: 32).
60
influential Abdülkadir Töre (1873-1946) by way of his student Ekrem Karadeniz
(1904-1981). We will approach their contributions—and afterward, current theorists’
revisions of them—thematically according to these aspects of theory.
INTERVALS
Excepting the break mentioned above, one of the most persistent features of music
theory treatises, whether in the eighth century or the twenty-first, has been the attempt
to fix the tones that the makam system uses, and to explain and justify their
relationships—their “intervals”—in a logical form. The reason for continually
renewing this endeavor is another persistent aspect of makam music: the fact that the
majority of actual performers in any given period seem never to have accepted the
theorists’ interval designations literally as a delimiting factor of their total note
choices (see Sawa 1989, cf. Sayan, Sarı, and Yener in Bayhan 2008, Marcus 1989a:
161-240 and 1993a). In fact it appears as though historically it was simply understood
that music theory, as a branch of knowledge informed by philosophy and
mathematics, existed in a domain of the ideal (which often allowed music treatises to
include speculations about astrology, cosmology, ethics, medicine, etc.; see Ertan
2007: 34-5; Crickmore 2009b: 53; Marcus 1989a: 797), while the note choices of
actual musicians existed in another, more practical domain, one that tolerated a great
deal of variation and idiosyncrasy. From time to time the divergence between them
would come under critique, and when it grew great (and there being no practical way
61
to enforce musicians’ conformity to theory) a theorist would arise to adjust the theory
somewhat in order to justify (or perhaps hoping to rectify) performance practice (see
Sawa 1989, Tura 1988, Öztürk in Bayhan 2008: 89-138).5
It may be seen as within a continuation of this trend that composer, ney and tanbur
player, and musicologist Rauf Yekta explained the tones and intervals of classical
Turkish music in his entry on Turkish music for Lavignac’s 1922 Encyclopédie de la
musique et dictionnaire du Conservatoire.6 Initially writing against the assertion of
Belgian (comparative) musicologist François-Joseph Fétis that Turkish music—
supposedly like Persian music—utilized a 17-tone scale (and also against unnamed
critics in Turkey asserting that the music used the Arab 24-tone equal temperament),7
5
In this dialogue it is not always easy to tell who is positioning himself as primarily a theorist and who
as primarily a performer (though many were both): compare (ninth-century) al-Fārābī, “Those things
that a theorist has put forward, if they should clash with the practices and applications of performers
and musicians, are wrong; these theorists are in error, and are not performers” (in Tura 1988: 74) with
(seventeenth-century) Cantemir’s contempt for the too-practical “theorists” of his day (see Wright
2000: 12), with (twenty-first-century) Ayangil on unreconciled versions of intervals being at the root
of the issues vexing the adoption of Western notation (2008: 414).
6
Originally written (in French) in 1913; Akdoğu (1989b) notes that it was translated into Ottoman in
1924, unfortunately just before the Republican alphabet and language reforms, and that as a result of
its linguistic inaccessibility it was never widely read in Turkey. Yekta’s influence came mainly as a
result of his work as the head of the Committee of Establishment and Classification (Tesbît ve Tasnîf
Kurulu) of the Dâr’ülelhân (and later of the İstanbul Belediyesi Konservatuvarı), overseeing scientific
research and publishing from 1926 until his death in 1935 (Ayangil 2008: 422-4, Yarman 2007a: 15,
Feldman 1996: 220).
7
It would seem that Yekta—who at some point had apparently translated Ṣafīuddīn’s two major works
(see Öztuna in Arel 1991 [1943-48]: VII)—had misunderstood Ṣafīuddīn’s 17-tone division of the
octave (see Yarman 2007a: 44-7); Yekta attributes the notion of 17 tones to a misreading of a diagram
on the part of European theorists (Yekta 1922 [1913]: 2972). As for the charges regarding the “Arab
24-tone Equal Temperament,” these critics made such assertions from an ideological standpoint in
opposition to KTM generally (see Yarman 2007a: 14, and in Bayhan 2008: 142); it is not clear that 24-
tET was at that time the standard in the Arab music world: compare Mashāqa (in Ronzevalle 1899)
with Marcus 1993a and 1989a: 161-240 and 820-31. Note that Yekta did not explicate the entire 17-
tone scale described by Fétis (against which he was arguing, above), but Rouanet (also in Lavignac
1922, see pp. 2715 and 2739) described it as “15 one-third-tones and two demi-tones,” i.e., five whole
tones that are each divided into three equal parts, and another whole tone divided equally into two
62
Yekta laid out the system as a 24-tone, unequal, untempered scale that had been used
by all European and “Oriental” musics since ancient times and was first theorized by
Pythagoras in the sixth century BCE. He asserted that the music theory was based on
this Pythagorean tuning using the reference pitch yegâh (D),8 however he also
noted—and described his understanding of the system in terms of—alternative, non-
Pythagorean “approximate values” for certain basic interval sizes,9 stating that
“oriental theorists” accept these simpler ratios in favor of the “actual” (“juste”)
Pythagorean ones. This would leave the impression that while claiming an “actual”
connection to Pythagorean theory, Turkish music theorists generally understood a
system that is effectively a just intonation with at least a “limit of 5” (apparently by
schismatic substitution; see Yekta 1922: 2947-50, Wright 1990: 233).10 Yekta further
parts. Yekta however, presumed Fétis was referring (erroneously) to a system with “commas” (1922
[1913]: 2949 fn. 1), in which the interval “sol to la” had 9 commas and “la to si” had 7.
8
According to Yarman (2007a: 34), Yekta’s version was derived by a variant of the Pythagorean
method, measuring out 9 perfect fifths upward and 14 downward from the reference tone yegâh (D).
9
E.g., 10:9 instead of 65536:59049 and 16:15 instead of 2187:2048 (1922 [1913]: 2949), and 5:4
instead of 8561:8192 (ibid.: 2962).
10
(See Glossary for an explanation of just intonation—“limit” here means the highest prime number
by which either factor in a ratio of vibration may be divided.) Yekta never employs the terms “just
intonation” (“intonation [/gamme] naturelle” in French) or “schismatic substitution”—in fact we must
caution the reader that he uses the term “juste” several times to indicate “actual,” that is, Pythagorean,
intervals, in opposition to those we recognize as “just” in this sense. Yekta gives (and excuses) these
just intonation alternatives several times in this work; a clear example appears on page 2948, fn 3: “Je
tiens à rappeler pour le moment à mes lecteurs que les théoriciens orientaux ont accepté les valeur 9/10
et 15/16 comme valeurs approximatives du ton mineur et du demi-ton majeur: pour leurs valeurs
réelles, ils ont désigné les valeurs 59049/65536 et 2048/2187.” See a similar statement regarding the
“major 3rd” on p. 2962, and a chart of all the (5-limit just intonation) tones for KTM with which he
ends his article on p. 3064, stating “J’ai dû mettre de coté, provisoirement, le system basé sur la
conservation des intervalles justes [i.e., Pythagorean].” See also Yarman 2007a: 34 (on Yekta’s scale;
cf. Kutluğ 2000: vol. I, p. 69), 44-5 (on Ṣafīuddīn’s scale), and 15 fn. ii, from which: “It is understood
that, Yekta gained the rudiments on maqam theory – which would later lead to his systematization of
the 24-tone tuning – from the Sheiks of Bahariye, Galata and Yenikapı Mevlevihanes: Hüseyin
Fahrettin Dede Effendi, Ataullah Dede Effendi, and Celâlettin Dede Effendi respectively, who, we are
told, were themselves excelling musicians of Turkish Maqam Music” (see also Akdoğu in Arel 1991
[1943-48]: X).
63
asserted that this system was refined by the (“Turkish”) music theorist Farabi (i.e., al-
Fārābī, 872-950 CE), and was adamant that the system was in no way an equal
temperament (“En premier lieu, j’ai senti l’obligation de rejeter la gamme dite à
tempérament égal…” Yekta 1922: 3064), and therefore argued against the division of
a whole step into 9 (equal) commas, which inexplicably and without citation he
attributed to practicing European musicians (ibid.: 2964).11 (Despite this, the division
of a whole tone into 9 equal commas would become, through the later Arel camp,
normative in KTM, as it is today.) Yekta gained support for his interpretation of the
intervals in KTM from the imperial physicist Salih Zeki Bey (ibid.: 2983-4).
The personal and professional relationships between Rauf Yekta, Suphi Ezgi and
Sadettin Arel seem to have been complex;12 certainly they knew each other and each
other’s works well, worked together at the Dâr’ülelhân and its successor institution
the İstanbul Konservatuvarı (which would be called the İstanbul Belediyesi
Konservatuvarı from 1944), and agreed broadly on the goal of coming up with a new
11
Yekta later gives an 1885 quote from C. Saint-Saëns: “Nous calculons et connaissons les commas
ou neuvièmes de ton, mais nous ne les utilisons pas; les demi-tons suffisent à notre organization” (p.
2970); the question remains—whence did Saint-Saëns get the idea?
12
Most of what is written concentrates on their differences and disagreements, though Kutluğ
describes them in passing as “close friends” (yakın arkadaşlar; 2000: 436). Yekta thanks his “friend…
H. Saadeddin” in his Lavignac article (1922 [1913]: 2995 fn. 2). Akdoğu (1989b and in Arel 1991
[1943-48]: XI) have Arel publishing first (in 1910, though without much acceptance), later joining the
senior Ezgi and Yekta, who themselves soon split over disagreements about makam structure and the
base scale (see below), Ezgi becoming a follower of the younger Arel. Other writers (e.g., Ayangil
2008, Yarman 2007a) see Yekta as ever primary, with the (unequal) Arel-Ezgi partnership deriving its
main ideas from Yekta but unable to spread their “reformulated (to refrain from saying ‘plagiarized’)”
version (as Yarman would have it, 2007a: 16, see also Yavuzoğlu in Bayhan 2008: 161-182) until after
Yekta’s death in 1935. Having read the theory texts of all three men I must say I am unable to
distinguish what exactly Dr. Ezgi’s unique contributions may have been, whereas those by Yekta and
Arel are clear, as presented here.
64
theory, and of saving classical Turkish music from its institutionalized opposition, but
there were also disagreements between them regarding intervals and other aspects of
music theory. Arel (supported by Ezgi, and later also by the physics professor Salih
Murad Uzdilek, who measured intervals and calculated their ratios for the project)
proposed and propagated a system that, despite his defense of it as not at all derived
from the ancient Greeks, consists of 24 purely Pythagorean intervals, derived from 12
perfect fourths and 11 perfect fifths upward from a reference pitch (kaba çargâh,
written C, sounding the G below) (Arel 1991 [1943-48]: 40-1).13 While Arel did not
mention the issue of equal temperament in KTM, by advocating the ratio of 81:80 as
the (“practical”) size of the comma (as opposed to the “Pythagorean” comma, ibid.: 9
and see footnote) he implicitly prepared future theory to accept the division of the
whole step into nine equal (Holdrian) commas,14 indicating an equal temperament
with 53 commas to the octave, which, though an inexact fit with the Pythagorean
13
NB: Yarman (2007a: 33) characterizes this scale material as derived from 11 perfect fifths upward
and 12 downward.
14
The idea of a (musical) “comma” comes originally from Pythagorean theory, but rather than
Pythagoras’ comma of 23.46 cents (i.e., 23.46% of a tempered half-step), here the Holdrian comma
(Holder koması) of 22.64 cents is used (1200 cents ÷ 53 commas); this is understood as an
approximation of the 81:80 “syntonic comma” of 21.5 cents; see Yarman 2007b: 58, Özkan 1984, cf.
Yavuzoğlu no date. William Holder was a seventeenth-century English music theorist who wrote on
53-tone equal temperament and devised this special “comma” to denote one step in 53-tET. I have
heard this unit, and the term “Holder koması” used amongst Turkish theorists and theory teachers, but I
do not recall seeing it used in a theory text (other than a research paper, e.g., in Gedik, Bozkurt and
Savacı 2008). Note that Arel does not use the comma as a unit of measurement except to designate the
size of a single interval (koma or fazla), i.e., he does not say that the interval called “bakiyye” is “4
commas wide,” etc., though all his given intervals are so measurable. Also note that Arel is using
81:80 as a practical compromise; he gives the “true” (i.e., “Pythagorean”) comma size as
531441/524288 (1991 [1943-48]: 9); note also that the implicit substitution of the Holdrian comma for
the syntonic comma is a further compromise, one that I have not seen appearing in theory texts before
Özkan 1984 (and there only implicitly, see pp. 36-7 and 56).
65
intervals chosen, are apparently deemed close enough (see Yarman 2007a: 37-8).15
Arel’s interpretation of the 24 tones and their intonation values became a cornerstone
of today’s standard theory,16 and probably due to his success as a pedagogue in this
embattled field his theory started to become widespread after Yekta’s death in 1935,
becoming the standard perhaps by the mid-1940s. Challenges to his system were few,
largely unsuccessful, and often expressed only privately.17
But in terms of common practice, Arel’s system was a gross simplification (or an
idealized representation) of the total tonal repertoire in use, and recently the system’s
inadequacies have become the subject of debate in a more public forum. In March of
2008 the Turkish Music State Conservatory at Istanbul Technical University (the
country’s premier school for KTM) hosted an international congress with the aim of
rectifying the disparities between theory and practice, and whose proceedings have
been published (in both Turkish and English) as Türk Müziğinde Uygulama-Kuram
Sorunları ve Çözümleri—Problems and Solutions for Practice and Theory in Turkish
15
Curiously there seems to be a downplaying of the fact that the system is an equal temperament; I
could not find the term in Arel’s main publication (1991 [1943-48]) or in Ezgi’s (1935-53), and in
Özkan’s 1984 popular-if-flawed (see Akdoğu 1989b, cf. Yavuzoğlu in Bayhan 2008) Arel-based
theory text, the author presents the system as in opposition to the (Western) “tempered system,”
without explicitly mentioning that they are both equal temperaments (pp. 65-7). Özkan seemed to be
understanding “equal temperament” as meaning that all possible equally-sized intervals must be shown
for the system to be in an equal temperament; it is as though the black keys of the piano did not exist,
yet theorists were not ready to recognize that the white keys are still tempered in 12-tET (because there
are not 12 of them, equally distanced). Yarman notes that, due to the ubiquitous use of imported
Western tuning devices among kanun makers in Turkey, there is in effect also a 72-tET system in use,
if only for that instrument (2007a: 2 and in Bayhan 2008: 145).
16
The theory is usually referred to as either the Arel or Arel-Ezgi-Uzdilek (A-E-U) system; Yarman,
insisting on giving Yekta his due, calls it the “Yekta-Arel-Ezgi school” (2007a: 41). I will refer to it
below mainly as “Arelian theory.”
17
See Wright 1990: 224-5; cf. criticisms of Arel in Tura 1988: 58, 119-57, and below. See also Gedik
et al. 2008: 3.
66
Music (herein referred to as “Bayhan 2008”). Although the title implies a balance
between the two aspects, only one participant (M. Ayhan Zeren, pp. 21-46) explicitly
advocates that performers be prepared to change anything in their performance
(interval choices, though in response to an as yet undeveloped theory). The other
twelve presentations are concerned mainly with description rather than prescription
(or at least presume that their proposed remedies accurately reflect actual practice),
that is, they seek to change the theory in response to current performance practices.
The theory to be changed, of course, is the Arel-Ezgi-Uzdilek system, and the
introductory remarks by Berköz (pp. 15-17) make clear that rectifying its
inadequacies is the main reason for holding the congress. Of the thirteen papers
presented, ten of them address the intonation issue—that is, the choice of tones and
intervals—directly.
Before presenting their critiques and solutions, I must point out a rhetorical problem
in Turkish musical terminology: there are several words for “tone” or “pitch” that are
often used interchangeably but which have different semantic implications. Ton or
(more often) ses (literally “tone” and “sound” or “voice,” respectively) refer to
specific frequency of sound; perde (“fret” or “position”) refers literally to a position
on an instrument but metonymically for the name of a tone or position, whose pitch
may vary. Unlike Western music’s 12 pitches whose “names” run through the
alphabet from A through G, repeating at the octave, each of the accepted 24-per-
octave tones/perde-s of KTM (as well as others used but left out of Arel’s theory) has
67
a traditional name, which changes in each octave (see Appendix F). The crux of the
intonation issue is that in practice (both traditionally and currently) certain “perde-s”
represent fixed pitches while others refer to any pitch within a certain range between
nearest fixed ones.
Let us take the perde named segâh as an example: in the makam Rast, the tonic tone
rast is a perde with a fixed pitch represented as G, and its third degree is segâh, a
perde represented as B one-comma-flat (Bq). Now, whatever fixed pitch is assigned
segâh by theory,18 even within the makam Rast the “perde” segâh may at times be
played slightly flatter, and it is understood by all makam performers and theorists
alike that in the makam Beyati segâh (now serving as the second degree) is flatter
than in Rast, and that in the makam Uşşak it is played even lower, and lower still in
descending passages, and yet the name of the perde remains segâh and—whatever its
frequency—is still represented as Bq in the A-E-U system. There are several such
tones, some (as mentioned previously) named as perde-s by performers but ignored
by Arel’s theory.19 The implication can be quite serious: Signell mentions that wide
discrepancies in the interpretations of one of these unrecognized perde-s, “saba,”
18
I am refraining here from supplying frequency ratios for the following tones as even “official” ones
are bound to be contentious (and I, like most performers, gained my sense of intonation from years of
playing and listening rather than years of measuring and calculating); Yarman has both Arel’s and
Yekta’s segâh as the Pythagorean 8192:6561 from rast (2007a: 30-40), but understanding that Yekta
accepted it in practice as (the slightly flatter) 5:4. For other variants of segâh (and other perde-s) in
ratio form see Yarman 2007a, Akkoç 2002 and 2008, Karaosmanoğlu 2004. See also Feldman 1996:
206-17 regarding the historic instability of the named tones (with special attention on segâh) in makam
music.
19
In fact some performers call the “lowered segâh” tone “uşşak” (see Chapter IV and Appendix F),
which name does not appear in the theory.
68
seem to have been the reason for the Istanbul Municipality Conservatory Performance
Ensemble’s discontinuation of all repertoire in the makam Saba (2008 [1973]: 45, cf.
Wright 1990: 232 fn. 37).
In the ten papers presented in Bayhan 2008 that address the intonation issue, the
following solutions or comments were offered:
• M. Ayhan Zeren, Selçuk University (pp. 21-46)
o a new theory based on the “scientific investigation” of the intervals
must be made
 but it may leave in currently used notes “that no-one is
disturbed by”
o the theory cannot be based on the performances of a few past masters
o performers must change their intonation to fit this theory
• Can Akkoç, Institute of Applied Mathematics, ODTÜ Ankara (pp. 47-54)
o the theory should be based on the performances of a few past masters
o some perde-s should be understood as “pitch clusters” rather than
discrete pitches
 complains that Western ideals (inherent in Arel’s theory)
impose a “particle” idea on “wave” phenomenon
• Ruhi Ayangil, Yıldız University (pp. 55-69)
o proposes a 16-tone per octave system based on the late-nineteenth-
century notation of Emin Efendi
69
o fix all musical instruments so that they all produce the same pitches
• Erol Sayan İTÜ/TMDK (pp. 71-88)
o there should not be any indefinite pitches
 but there can be 3-comma-wide “glissando zones”
 24 tones is unacceptable
• he notes that performers and teachers actually use
whatever they like rather than Arel’s theory: 53 tones,
41 tones, 36 tones, 30 tones, 18 tones…
• recommends his own system of “30 sounds [tones] and
29 non-equal gaps [intervals]”
• Okan Murat Öztürk, 19 Mayıs Ü. Devlet Konservatuvarı (pp. 89-138)
o however it is worked out, the theory should unify classical and folk
systems [which currently differ, see Markoff 2002]
• Ozan Yarman, İTÜ TMDK (doctoral student) (pp. 139-160)
o presents his own 79 tones to use out of a 159-tone Equal Temperament
system (NB: 159-tET being three times the resolution of 53-tET)
• Nail Yavuzoğlu, İTÜ TMDK (pp. 161-182)
o divide the semi-tone into 8 equal parts rather than 9
• Ayhan Sarı, Fine Arts General Directorate, Ministry of Culture and Tourism
(pp. 205-223)
o unify classical and folk systems
70
o theorists like the sound of their own voices shouting “Eureka!” while
performers move on beyond the concerns of the theorists
 therefore it does not matter how or whether the theory is
revised
• Sabri Yener, Erciyes & Ordu Universities (pp. 250-274)
o the current 53-tET theory is fine because performers will do whatever
they do whether or not it conforms to a theory
• Yavuz Daloğlu, 9 Eylül State Conservatory (pp. 275-292)
o (his main issue lies elsewhere, but notes that “53 tones or 79 has
nothing to do with the tradition”)
At least in terms of the issue of intonation, this dizzying array of approaches to
“correcting” the “deficiencies” of Arel’s theory shows varying degrees of
responsiveness to performers’ understandings and practices: Ayangil, Sayan, Yarman
and Yavuzoğlu each present their own abstract systems having no clear reference to
performers’ praxis or preferences while Zeren’s is principally abstract but he is
willing to add to his system a few pitches desired by performers even if they do not fit
the mathematics of his model; Akkoç on the other hand is wholly responsive to
performers’ concerns, while Öztürk, Sarı, Yener, and Daloğlu seem non-committal as
to the source of a solution, voicing other conditions and concerns. The only clear
consensus is that there is something missing in the Arelian presentation of the tones in
use, and even that is not a problem for Sarı or Yener, who claim that performers do
71
what they do regardless of the details of a theory, so there is no need for a reform.
The congress (and the text) ends with a list of six resolutions (see below), rather
vaguely worded, two of which seem to bear on the intonation issue: 1) “After
evaluating the tone system models produced as directly related to the theme of the
congress in wider platforms, reflection of them onto education and applications in our
art institutions”20 (which I take to mean “we need to define the intervals and teach
them uniformly”) and 6) “Considering the solutions of problems in an integrating
approach that encompasses the common principles of Turkish music”21 (which I take
to mean constructing a theory that can represent classical, folk, and other Turkish
makam musics in one go).22
Whether or not their resolutions are put in place, the fact that such a congress was
held at all is revealing: it shows that music theorists are engaged with, and at least in
part responsive to, current performance practices rather than simply buttressing a
loyalty to Arel’s theory, or to theory per se. Yet we must see the congress and its
publication as representing a particular subject position within the Turkish music
world; the congress is also an attempt to maintain the relevance of an institutionalized
20
Their translation of, “Bu kongrenin teması ile doğrudan ilintili olarak üretilmiş olan ses sistemi
modellerinin daha geniş platformlarda değerlendirilerek öğretime ve sanat kurumlarımızdaki
uygulamalara yansıtılması.” (See below for a list of all six resolutions.)
21
Their translation of, “Sorunların çözümüne Türk müziğinin ortak ilkelerini kapsayan bütüncül bir
yaklaşımla bakılması olarak belirleniştir.”
22
To readers interested in current research on KTM intonation issues I would recommend Yarman
2007a, Akkoç 2002 and 2008, Karaosmanoğlu 2004, and works by Gedik, Bozkurt, and Savacı (whose
2008 paper see in the Bibliography).
72
pedagogy that on the one hand was at the forefront of the battle to save the music
from the early Republic’s Westernizing zeal, and on the other hand achieved success
by being absorbed by the state education apparatus on the basis of Arel’s simplified
and Westernized theory. But implicitly the congress—and especially Sarı and Yener,
the two authors who say that specific reforms of the intervals do not matter since
performers continue their idiosyncratic practices as they choose—are inverting the
“makam music is too difficult” argument noted at the beginning of this chapter; a
hundred years later it turns out to be the “simplified” theory that has proved too
difficult, while the knowledge embedded in performances practices, in all their varied
complexity, have remained, apparently sustained through the meşk practices that
conservatory education was expected to replace.23 It must be noted (before we move
along to the promised alternatives to Arel, then onward to issues of makam structure
and notation), that despite claims from within the conservatory that meşk is dead (see
Chapter IV, and Gill 2006), private study with an acknowledged master outside the
conservatory system (that is, engagement in a kind of “meşk”) was instituted as a
required part of conservatory education in the late 1990s.24
23
See Ayangil in Bayhan 2008: 59, “Most musicians who are practicing today, are not trained in
school…” Presumably they are learning through [faulty?] meşk practices. (I do not know that this is
true, especially in the KTM world, but that he should think so seems to reveal an institutional
defensiveness.) To be fair, it may not be that the Arel system per se is “too difficult,” but that students
are expected to learn it in addition to all they would have learned anyway—much of it contradictory to
Arel—had a new theory never been invented.
24
I have not been able to confirm the official reason for this requirement, but I have heard as rumor
that it was added because graduating students were being criticized—and denied professional
opportunities—by senior musicians because they were perceived as not having learned the “real”
details of the music. See also Gill 2006: 77; see also Yavuzoğlu in Bayhan 2008: 179 regarding meşk
being alive and working well.
73
Aside from those mentioned above in Bayhan, only one other intonation system has
garnered any significant attention during the twentieth century: that of Abdülkadir
Töre (1873-1946) as refined and presented by his student Ekrem Karadeniz (1904-
1981).25 Like all the modern-era theories mentioned, it is posited by its author as
being the true representation of the music as practiced, and consistent with the
tradition.26 In order to elucidate this theory Karadeniz created a system of “Turkish
cents,” a parallelism to Alexander Ellis’ measurement of intervals by “cents,” but
rather than the 100¢-per (tempered) half-tone/1,200¢-per octave gradation of Ellis,
Karadeniz divided an octave into 10,600 “Turkish cents,”27 and then presented the
intervals taught him by Töre as measured (or rather parsed—there seems to have been
no actual measurement) in their terms. There are 7 sizes of interval (as there are in
Arel’s system; see Arel 1991 [1943-48]: 3-16, and Appendix F below), 5 of which are
the same size and have the same names as Arel’s,28 and though this system can be
mapped onto 53-tone equal temperament conception of the comma (if we include the
“half-comma” as a unit of measurement), it differs also in choosing 41 tones per
25
Akdoğu, Ayangil, and Yarman all note that Gültekin Oransay (1930-1989) also recommended a 29-
tone system without developing or promoting it fully (see Akdoğu in Arel 1991 [1943-48]: XII,
Ayangil 2008: 436-7, Yarman 2007a: 75-8); also, Yavuz Yektay, music theorist and grandson of Rauf
Yekta, has attempted to revive the Yekta system (with some revision), as yet without much success
(p.c. 2/16/09; see also Yektay 2009). Certain other post-Arel tonal arrangements are properly notation
systems rather than intonational ones; see Ayangil 2008: 429-34, and below.
26
John Morgan O’Connell notes that Töre had earlier in the century published a violin method in
which his system is not exactly that represented by Karadeniz (p.c. 2/26/2010), but I was unable to
obtain a copy of this document to make a comparison.
27
200 cents per Holdrian comma x 53 commas per octave = 10,600 cents.
28
Arel’s system includes intervals for an augmented second (of 12-14 commas) and a 3-comma “eksik
bakiye” (which nonetheless has no sign), which are absent in Töre-Karadeniz (see Arel 1991 [1943-
48]: 3-16, Karadeniz 1983: 10, and Appendix F below). Conversely Töre-Karadeniz adds two intervals
not found in Arel; one of 1.5 commas (irhâ) and one of 2.5 commas (sagîr) (see Karadeniz 1983: 10,
Ayangil 2008: 433-7, cf. Yarman 2007a: 78-85).
74
octave from a 106-tone equal temperament (i.e., twice as fine a resolution as 53-tET,
having 106 “half-[Holdrian-]commas” of 100 “Turkish cents” each).29 The Töre-
Karadeniz system also has several parallels with Yekta’s (see below), one of which is
intervals implicitly in just intonation (with a “limit” of 31 rather than Yekta’s 5—note
that neither of them used the term “just intonation”), and where Yekta qualified them
as being merely a matter of practice (i.e., he preferred to explain theory in terms of
Pythagorean intervals, see Wright 1990: 233) Karadeniz makes them normative.30
The Töre-Karadeniz system appears whole only in a single book, Türk Mûsikîsinin
Nazariye ve Esasları (“Turkish Music’s Theory and Essentials”), begun by Karadeniz
in 1965 but published posthumously in 1983. Yarman calls it “…the most
comprehensive system for Turkish Maqam Music thus far encountered” (that is,
before his own; see 2007a: 82), and Ayangil describes it glowingly before asserting
that it “found favour in the twentieth century” (2008: 433).31 Before giving my
impression of the favor it found, I should say that Karadeniz’s accomplishment in this
29
Note that Karadeniz’s smallest single interval is the koma; there is none named for a “half-comma”
per se (see Karadeniz 1983: 10, Ayangil 2008: 434).
30
Karadeniz gave only the sizes of his 7 intervals in terms of ratios, which indicate a 31-limit just
intonation system (31-limit meaning that the ratios’ numbers contain no prime-number factors larger
than 31) (see Karadeniz 1983: 10). Scott Marcus notes that this system would seem to be at odds with
the cent-oriented paradigm also given—they would appear to be two separate “explanations” of what
Karadeniz presents as the same intervallic material (p.c. Jan. 2011). It should be noted that
“Pythagorean tuning,” a term often thought of as being in opposition to just intonation, is itself a 3-
limit just intonation (Scott Marcus, p.c.). Oddly, Karadeniz “explains” the relationship of Western and
Turkish intervals as though the former were a just intonation rather than 12-tone equal temperament
(1983: 10), as had Yekta, regarding European monophonic (but not polyphonic) music (1922 [1913]:
passim, e.g., 2966); see also Kutluğ 2000: vol. I, p. 69. To be clear, normative Western classical music
has used a theory explained as exclusively in 12-tone equal temperament for around a century, and as
in a variety of other temperaments—to the exclusion of a whole-system just intonation—during the
previous four centuries (see Jorgensen 1991).
31
See also M. Bardakçı’s forward to Karadeniz 1983: “…the last and true heir of the Systematist
School” and, “…the best theory of our time.”
75
regard is all the more remarkable for his never having been either a professional
musician or an academic; in 1944, after being blinded in an car accident while
working in the countryside as a lawyer for the state tobacco monopoly, Karadeniz
became a bookseller in Istanbul’s Beyazit Sahaflar (a traditional bookseller’s market),
and learned music in his off hours as a dedicated amateur by way of a long meşk
apprenticeship with Töre (with whom he had begun studying in 1933). The book
evidently had a single, small print run, being out of print since 1983.32 But despite its
rarity many of the musicians I know—and, touchingly, a great many of the
booksellers I met—have at least perused a copy, and regard Karadeniz very highly,
though I met no-one who actually applies his theory to their practice or understanding
of the music.
Yarman (2007a: 82-5) and Ayangil (2008: 436) give various problems with the Töre-
Karadeniz theory to explain its lack of success (mostly regarding issues of notation
and transposition), but these seem no worse than those attending Arel’s theory, and
one cannot help wondering whether, given better timing and institutional connections,
Karadeniz’s system (or as he always insisted, Töre’s system—see Karadeniz 1983:
VI-XIV) might have become the normative theory for classical Turkish music.33
32
It took me 7 months of searching to find a copy for sale, and there was none to be had in Istanbul;
finally a copy was found and sent to me from a rare book dealer in Izmir. But I saw copies on the
bookshelves of several performers, and in the library of the Nasuhi Mehmet Efendi Dergâhı (a Sufi
“tekke” where weekly rehearsals of Mevlevi ayin-s are held; see DVD 5/50 and 8/77).
33
Perhaps particularly since Abdülkadir Töre came to Istanbul originally from “Kaşgar, Turkistan”
(today in China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region), a point that could have been employed
favorably in the Turkish ethno-nationalist arguments mentioned in Chapter II.
76
MAKAM STRUCTURE, CLASSIFICATION, AND “CİNS”: TRICHORDS,
TETRACHORDS, PENTACHORDS, AND OCTAVE SCALES IN KTM THEORY
Since al-Fārābī (d. 950 CE) wrote his Kitāb al-Mūsīqī al-Kabīr (“The Great Book of
Music”) theorists of (proto-)maqām musics have employed ancient Greek
terminology in their analyses (see Farmer 1978 (1930): 62-71), often including the
concept of the tetrachord, a delineation of intervals appearing within the span of a
perfect fourth. The structures of modal entities (shudud/maqāmāt/shuàb/terkib, etc.)
were traditionally described in terms of combinations of tetrachords (Turkish cins,
from Arabic jins, from Greek γένος), but in Turkey by the early twentieth century the
idea that the core scalar material of makam-s was composed of combinations of
tetrachords (dörtlü-s) and pentachords (beşli-s, a delineation of intervals appearing
within the span of a perfect fifth—both being “cins”) became prevalent.34
Despite the fact that many makam-s do not repeat at the octave (i.e., they use
tetrachords and pentachords above and below the central 7-tone “scale” whose cins-es
differ from those in this core “scale”), Arel and Ezgi insisted on a level of
34
See Feldman 1996: 220. The earliest reference I have seen to pentachords in Turkish music is in
Yekta 1922 (1913); though he claims therein that the ancient Greeks used them (p. 2995) it is unclear
whether or not he actually originated them himself, at least as applied to KTM. Shiloah implies that
they had once been in use even earlier than the thirteenth century, when Ṣafīuddīn employed them
(1981: 31; see also Shiloah 1981: 33, and Wright 1978). The modern Turkish description of makam
constructions in terms of one tetrachord and one pentachord seems to be at least partly a refinement of
the conception of the scalar aspect of a makam as an octave scale (see Akdoğu 1989b). Traditionally
(and in modern Arab maqām theory, see Marcus 1989a: 271-316 [especially 275-80]) this was
expressed instead by describing two tetrachords plus a whole tone, which could appear between the
cins-es (making the tetrachords “disjunct”) or above the higher one (making them “conjunct,” i.e., the
highest tone of the lower tetrachord is also the lowest tone of the upper tetrachord); the combination of
one tetrachord and one pentachord (in either order) spans an octave on its own, obviating that
distinction (or rather, they are all “conjunct,” without needing an extra whole tone to reach the upper
octave; see Kutluğ 2000: vol. I, p. 66).
77
simplification in which they portrayed non-compound makam-s as octave-bound
entities consisting only of one tetrachord and one pentachord (see Arel 1991 [1943-
48]: 17-24, Ezgi 1933: 32-48, Akdoğu 1989b, Kutluğ 2000: vol. I, p. 66; cf. Marcus
1989a: 512-537 regarding non-repetition at the octave in Eastern Arab maqām)—not
that melodies could not exceed an octave’s range,35 but that no cins-es other than
these two were needed to define a makam’s melodic material, regardless of octave.
Yekta disagreed with them, asserting that makam-s often need a tetrachord or
pentachord differing in quality from the two found in the central octave to appear
above or below that central octave. As explained in a quote from Yekta in Akdoğu
1989b where the latter is making Yekta’s position on this point clear:
Among the Turks even though the majority of makam-s [are established on] an
interval of a fourth equivalent to a tetrachord AS THEY ARE very often
ESSENTIALLY ESTABLISHED, they are also established on an interval of a
fifth equivalent to a pentachord [i.e., the lower cins of a makam’s central octave
may either be a tetrachord or a pentachord]. In practice merely this fourth and
fifth have not been SATISFACTORY and,36 with the purpose of adorning the
melody, have been completed/complemented, according to the octave [i.e.,
differing in different octaves] and the situation, by adding a [new] fifth or a
35
As mentioned in Chapter II, Ezgi and Yekta themselves transcribed nearly the entirety of the known
classical and Mevlevi repertoire of their time, which transcriptions are still in use; it cannot have
escaped their attention that the range of an octave if often exceeded in performance.
36
There appears to be a leap of logic here that is belied by both source texts (i.e., Yekta 1922 [1913]
and Akdoğu 1989b): in this context “this [mere] fourth and fifth” that have “not been satisfactory” can
only refer to the normative “tetrachord + pentachord” or “pentachord + tetrachord conjunctions” from
which the central octave material of makam-s are constructed, as he (and Arel and Ezgi) understood it.
It is as though there were missing from this quote a sentence explaining this. It is clear from Yekta’s
presentation of historical makam constructions and of the makam-s he himself presented in 1922
(1913) that he did not believe there was a time when makam-s consisted of a single tetrachord or
pentachord, or that it was possible to construct makam-s merely from two tetrachords or two
pentachords (these being the implications of the literal quote). The context in which Akdoğu presented
the above quote also clearly presumes that a qualitative expansion above and/or below the Arelian
“tetrachord + pentachord” or “pentachord + tetrachord” construction is what Yekta meant by this
quote. It is also clear that when he subsequently says, “by adding a [new] fourth or a fifth,” he means
adding a different cins than one would expect by merely repeating a “scale” at its octaves—otherwise
(since there was no potential reader of this quote who would not be familiar with repertoire that
surpassed an octave’s range) there is no reason to make the point.
78
fourth. In this way every makam in Turkish Music finds itself in a form having
the addition of a tetrachord or pentachord. (Akdoğu 1989b)37
Apparently this was one of the three major issues over which Yekta split from Arel
and Ezgi (ibid.; the other two issues are treated below). Presumably part of Arel’s
choosing this representation of makam-s (which became a normative aspect of KTM
theory) was the aforementioned strategy of simplifying music theory and causing it to
appear parallel to Western music theory. Both Karadeniz and Kutluğ (also giving no
reason) went even further and dispensed with cins-es altogether, assigning each
makam its own octave scale identity (Karadeniz 1983: 64-155; Kutluğ 2000: vol. I, p.
105-530).38
But the Arel-Ezgi-Uzdilek model, by imposing upon all makam-s this tetrachord +
pentachord (or pentachord + tetrachord) octave scale definition, also created for itself
several new problems regarding makam classification. One such problem is that there
are numerous makam-s whose lower “cins” has widely been understood as consisting
of only three tones, and several “cins-es” that span the interval of a diminished fourth.
37
My translation of “Türklerde, her ne kadar makamların çoğu tetrakorda muadil olan dörtlü aralığın
üzerine çok defa ESASLI SURETLE KURULDUKLARI GİBİ, pentakorda muadil olan beşli aralığın
üzerine de kurulmuşlardır. Tatbikatta yalnız bu dörtlü ve beşli ile İKTİFA edilmemiş ve nağmeyi
süslemek gayesi ile sekizliye, duruma göre bir beşli veya bir dörtlü ilave edilerek tamamlanmıştır. Bu
suretle Türk Musikisinin makamlarının her biri, bir dörtlü veya beşlinin ilavesiyle şekil bulur.” (See
also Yekta 1922 [1913]: 2995). Kutluğ had apparently not read this, as he reported Yekta as advocating
only disjunct tetrachords plus an internal whole tone as the way to span an octave (2000: vol. I, p. 65;
compare this with Yekta’s own descriptions of 30 makam-s, 1922 [1913]: 2997-3010). Akdoğu, who
more often agreed with Arel’s interpretations of theory over Yekta’s, nontheless refered to this as
“setting the system on a road to repair” (in Arel 1991 [1943-48]: XI).
38
Kutluğ does give the tetrachord/pentachord combinations for his 18 “basic makam-s,” by way of
explaining how Yekta and Arel presented them (2000: 143-205), but only sporadically for the other
201 makam-s in his book, though some cins-es he does give there are unorthodox (e.g. “nevruz” [see
2000: 388] and “nigâr” [ibid: 389]).
79
The lack of three-tone units (i.e., “trichords”) in Arelian theory make the former case
impossible to explain in those terms. Furthermore, a point of Arelian theory is that
“complete” makam-s—exemplified by the system’s 13 basit (basic) makam-s (see
Appendix B)—are constructed only of “complete” tetrachords and pentachords (i.e.,
those having only perfect fourths and fifths; see Arel 1991 [1943-48]: 17-27).
Therefore those makam-s that the theory comprehends as using a diminished fourth
must now be qualified as “incomplete”—literally diğer “other,” or eksik
“diminished”—although historically there seems never to have been a reason for
thinking of them as such.
Were the “incomplete” cins structures employed in only obscure makam-s there
presumably would not be much reason for opposition to or confusion around the
classification system, but in practice there is little correspondence between the
system’s 13 “basic” makam-s and those most employed by performers; for instance,
in the 100 taksim that I recorded for this study (whose makam-s were chosen by their
performers, see Appendix B), 7 of the 13 “basic makam-s” were never used as the
main makam,39 (though 41 taksim-s were made in the remaining 6 [“complete”]
“basic makam-s”). When we compare this with the 19 taksim performances made in
11 “incomplete” makam-s we see that the Arelian ideas of “basic” and “complete”
makam-s do not correspond to an implied superior status in terms of how they are
39
Some of them, however, appeared briefly as internal modulations (see Appendix K).
80
used in performance (see Appendix B).40
One partial solution to this makam-classification issue was hinted at (but not
employed) by A-E-U theorist İsmail Hakkı Özkan in his 1984 Türk Mûsıkîsi
Nazariyatı ve Usûlleri: trichords (“üçlü-s”), that is, the recognition of a unit of three
consecutive tones (see pp. 46-7). This would be consistent with many performers’
conception (see Chapter IV), except that rather than presenting those “incomplete”
makam-s that might use them as being composed of a trichord plus some other cins-
es, Özkan completely ignores his own recognition of trichords and presents these
makam-s in Arel’s terms of tetrachords and pentachords (e.g., Segâh p. 276, Irak p.
445, Bestenigâr p. 453, and many others; cf. Arel 1991 [1943-48]: p. 293, p. 179, p.
185, etc.) as Ezgi had done before him (1933: 32-39, Segâh p. 87, Hüzzam p. 127,
etc.) and Yılmaz after (2007 [1973]: 80-230).41 But the trichord seems not merely to
be an idea that no-one has bothered to develop: fellow A-E-U theorist Onur Akdoğu
publicly criticized Özkan for even bringing up the idea that Arel’s theory should
40
If we include brief internal modulations (which at times amounted to no more than 3 or 4 tones; see
Appendix L/DVDs passim), all but one of the “13 basic makam-s”—Neva—were represented in some
fashion in the recordings. It should be noted that although these 13 makam-s are still taught as the only
“basic” ones at the Turkish Music State Conservatory (TMDK, where I audited the introductory
makam course), Arel actually gave another four makam-s as implicitly “basic” in this sense (1991
[1943-48]: 45, 48, 50, 52); Kutluğ posits 18 “basic makam-s” (2000: vol. I, pp. 7-8) and Özkan
expands this to 19 (1984: 8). Karadeniz has them all beat: 57 of the 199 makam-s he presented are
categorized as “basic” (the other 142 being bileşik, “compound,” see 1983: XVII-XXI). See also
Feldman 1996: 229-54 on compound modal entities from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries.
41
One oddity here is that Özkan refers to trichords, tetrachords, and pentachords together not as “cins-
es,” but by the word çeşni (literally “a taste, sample,” in the sense of what a person is offering when
they ask if you would like to try the cake they are eating; see Özkan 1984: 41 and 46). We will explore
other musical meanings of this very multiply interpretable term in later chapters. NB: Shiloah,
referring to the use of “ajnas” (= cins-es) in Ṣafīuddīn’s Kitāb al-Adwār defines them as “small
collections of three to five adjacent pitches,” i.e., trichords, tetrachords, and pentachords (1981: 33).
81
include trichords (1989b and in Arel 1991 [1943-48]: XIV).
One reason for the importance of the issue concerns concepts regarding the
“dominant” tone of every makam. As mentioned in this text’s section on preliminary
definitions (page xxvi-xxviii), part of a makam’s definition includes a hierarchy of
tones. After the tonic (durak or karar), and in some cases the “entry tone” (giriş), the
most prominent tone is the dominant (güçlü, lit. “strong one”).42 Although, curiously,
in theory texts “güçlü” generally goes undefined—there is no definition of it in Ezgi,
Karadeniz, Özkan or Yılmaz—there is a widespread idea (made explicit in Arel 1991
[1943-48]: 27; see also Kutluğ 2000: 84) that the dominant occurs where the two
cins-es of a makam’s central octave overlap (thereby making it either the fourth or
fifth degree of the makam’s “scale”).43 That is, the highest tone of the lower cins,
being the same as the lowest tone of the upper cins, is where the güçlü resides. This is
borne out in the overwhelming majority of makam examples (for instance there is no
case where the bottom cins is a tetrachord and its dominant is the fifth degree or vice-
versa),44 and, significantly, this would be the case for virtually all makam-s if the
42
See Chapters IV and VI for ideas regarding multiple dominants in some makam-s.
43
Ezgi (1933) first mentions the dominant on p. 48 only to point out that there is a difference between
a makam and a mere scale, and on p. 49 to say that the dominant is the (perfect) 4th or 5th degree from
the tonic; otherwise he simply gives the dominant tone in each individual makam’s descriptions (pp.
50-270)—without special mention where the dominant is a tone other than the 4th or 5th degree (e.g.,
see p. 87)—as do the other authors mentioned; on p. 282, however, in regard to making modulations,
Ezgi notes the dominant—again exclusively as a makam’s 4th or 5th degree—as a kind of pivot point.
44
Though Yekta in fact did describe some makam-s thus; see his descriptions of Rast (1922 [1913]:
2997), Eviç (ibid.: 2998), Acem Aşiran (ibid.: 2999), and Hicazkâr (ibid.: 3000).
82
concept of a trichord cins were accepted (as, amongst many performers, it is).45 In
fact, though it has been ignored by theorists ever since, Yekta stated “the dominant of
Turkish modes is often their fifth, but not always, and this rule admits exceptions;
there are very characteristic modes whose dominant is the fourth, and others whose
dominant is a third from their tonic” (1922 [1913]: 2995). We might note (as
mentioned in footnote 41) that according to Shiloah “ajnas,” i.e., cins-es, had meant
for Ṣafīuddīn “small collections of three to five adjacent pitches” [1981: 33], and
further, that despite Arel’s usual insistence on the dominant being the tone conjoining
tetrachord and pentachord (1991 [1943-8]: 27, 33), his definitions of many of those
makam-s that performers today think of as including a trichord indeed give the third
degree as the dominant (e.g., ibid.: Segâh p. 293, Müstear p. 296, Hüzzam p. 298,
Nişabur p. 305; and implicitly in notated examples of compound makam-s that
include these, and like makam-s for which he names no dominant, e.g., Lâle-Gül p.
145, Irak p. 179-81, Bestenigâr p. 185, Segâh-Mâye p. 300, etc.).46
Another classification problem arises from the fact that Arel’s theory uses the term
“basit makam” (basic or simple makam) to define another, entirely different category
45
Exceptions regarding placement of the dominant might be: the makam Evcara, whose güçlü is
posited as the 8th degree (Yılmaz 2007: 151, Özkan 1984: 246) if not the expected 5th (as in Ezgi 1933:
250); and the makam Ferahnak, whose güçlü may be the 8th degree (Yılmaz 2007: 173) or the expected
3rd (Ezgi 1933: 256) or both (Özkan 1984: 478). See also the makam descriptions in Appendix J,
especially those of compound makam-s, whose construction may complicate the placement of the
dominant.
46
Arel gives no reason for this, but on p. 27 notes that one of the things that makes the tetrachord
(Saba) and pentachords (Segâh, Hüzzam, Ferahnak) that constitute the scales of these makam-s
“incomplete” is that they do not have their dominants on the fourth or fifth degree. He does not
mention the coincidence of their all having the third degree as dominant, or the fact that the concepts
of a Saba tetrachord or Segâh, Hüzzam, or Ferahnak pentachords are new introductions of his own
design.
83
of makam from that mentioned earlier. All makam-s in the A-E-U system are
classified as either basit (“basic, simple” whether or not they are one of the “13 basic
makam-s”), mürekkeb or bileşik (compound), or şed (also spelled şedd,
“transposition,” i.e., of one of the other sorts). This double use of the term “basic” is a
confusing aspect of the theory because many of these “basic” makam-s, due to
stereotyped internal modulations, are treated de facto as “compound” ones.47
Furthermore, most performers make a clear distinction between transpositions of
makam-s and all of the—for them distinct—makam-s that A-E-U theory classifies as
“transpositions” (see Chapter IV).
Although these issues around the composition of cins-es and their deployment in
makam classifications seem to be at the root of conflicting concepts of makam
definition (see Chapter IV), acceptance of the Arel-Ezgi-Uzdilek solution seems to be
a settled matter among today’s theorists: none of the thirteen participants in the
aforementioned 2008 “theory and practice” congress mentioned any such issue, nor
do more recently published music theory texts (e.g., Karadeniz 1983, Özkan 1984
except as noted, Kutluğ 2000, Yılmaz 2007 [1973]). In other words, at least among
current theorists, it is issues of intonation that merit theoretical remedies, not issues of
makam classification or of scalar analysis in terms of cins-es.
47
See Özkan 1984; cf. Akdoğu 1989b and in Arel 1991 [1943-48]: XIV, who, even more forcefully
than before, excoriated Özkan for presenting (or “developing”) makam-s in this way—i.e.,
acknowledging normative internal modulations—explaining that this was terrible for music education
in the conservatory and engendered a widespread fear of music theory among those wanting to learn
the music.
84
NOTATION
Compared with other Asian or Near Eastern music traditions, classical Turkish music
has an unusually long and detailed history of musical notation (see Feldman 1996:
20). Most Turkish music historians and theorists would begin this history from the
abjadic cipher notations of Ṣafīuddīn Urmawī (1216-1294) and Abdülkadir Merâgî
(1360-1435) (e.g., Kutluğ 2000: vol. I, p. 26, Özkan 1984: 20; see also Signell 2008:
2-3).48 There are Ottoman edvar-s (music treatises, often including notated repertoire
in abjadic notation) from the late fifteenth century (Feldman 1991: 94-5, Ertan 2007:
35), and several new notation systems were invented from the seventeenth through
nineteenth centuries,49 though notation was apparently not used during performance
or in practical pedagogy until the nineteenth century (Wright 1992a: xi; Signell 2008:
2-3; Ayangil 2008: 401-4). Part of the reason that notation was not used in this way is
likely that a major part of the music’s poetics (and aesthetics) is its heterophony, that
is, the idea that each player must play a unique version of a melody, rather than all
playing the same thing (as in Western classical music). There has therefore been no
reason for, or perhaps even a possibility of notating, a definitive version of the sort
deemed a requirement in the West; even today’s notated repertoire pieces are
48
Ebced is the modern Turkish version of abjad, a pronunciation of the first four letters of the original
Arabic “alphabet,” abjadic notation being one in which Arabic letters are used to represent musical
tones (see Yarman 2007b passim). In accord with the definition by linguist Peter T. Daniels the main
difference between an alphabet and an abjad is that the former has separate signs for all of its vowels
and the latter relies on separate diacritic marks to show vowel sounds (if a writing sample shows them
at all) (1996: 4).
49
E.g., those of Ali Ufki (see Ayangil 2008: 403-11), Dimitrie Cantemir (see Wright 1992a and 2000),
Hamparsum Limoncıyan (see Karamahmutoğlu 2009); for examples of foreign visitors’ notations see
Ayangil 2008: 412-14.
85
understood as models from which each player will create his or her own version.50
Western notation was first applied to KTM (expressly for use in performance and
pedagogy) in 1828, and over the next hundred years became the music’s standard
form of notation (Ayangil 2008: 401-3, 414-5). However, between the
aforementioned issues regarding intonation and the inherent limitations of taking a
notation system designed to represent 12 equally tempered tones and imposing it
upon a system of 24 tones of various unequal intervals, it was (and remains) a
problematic endeavor (ibid., passim, esp. p. 415).51 While notation per se has little
bearing on the subject of taksim, certain “solutions” to these problems have indeed
left significant marks upon performers’ understandings of the makam system. As in
this chapter’s previous sections we will begin by looking at how the early twentieth
century’s major theorists treated the subject, and end with critiques and suggested
remedies of early twenty-first century theorists.
Rauf Yekta apparently was not a great fan of Western staff notation and had created
his own notation system, but, recognizing that introducing it would be going against
50
This indeed is an “improvisatory” aspect of KTM; rather than the praxis of a performance theory, it
is the medium in which an individual’s artistry is developed and shown off. Note that I have framed it
above in terms of heterophony, but this dynamic is the same for solo interpretations of pieces as well,
i.e., no performer would consciously play a piece the same way twice, even if ostensibly reading from
a score. I have read only one theorist lament that modern notated scores cannot represent this aspect of
performance practice (A. Sarı in Bayhan 2008: 205-223), in the context of the notation system’s
imprecision being a limitation on the spread of KTM abroad, though he did not advocate abandoning
heterophony or personal interpretation as a remedy.
51
Arel acknowledged this very issue, but seemed to think that his system was the remedy (1991
[1943-48]: 64).
86
too strong a pro-Western tide, came up with a modification of the Western system,
which under his leadership of the Dâr’ülelhân and İstanbul Belediye Konservatuvarı
was used in all their publications until his death in 1935 (Ayangil 2008: 419).
Although he had taken the note yegâh (written D, today sounding the “A” a perfect
fourth below it)52 as his basis for determining the intervals used in KTM, he accepted
the traditional assignment of the makam Rast as the basis for the music’s main,
“natural” scale. For Yekta—following the Systematists (see Kutluğ 2000: vol. I, pp.
67-8 and 160), Cantemir (see Wright 2000: 17-8) and apparently in common with
Töre and Karadeniz (see Karadeniz 1983: 7-15 and Kutluğ 2000: vol. I, p. 69)—Rast
was in effect a transposition of an older version of the makam based on the tone
yegâh which had been transposed up by a perfect fourth in the fifteenth century (see
Appendix G). This makes Yekta’s understanding of Rast (in today’s “spelling”):
G A Bq c d eq f g
in which the sign “q” (“koma bemol” or “one comma flat,” see Appendix F) signifies
that the tone it modifies sounds one comma flatter than the tone represented by the
unmodified letter.53 It is worth noting that although it is clear from Yekta’s
description of the makam Rast that he understood the tone “fs” as being important in
52
See Yekta 1922: 2986; see also Ayangil 2008: 417 and 438-41, and Appendix F here, regarding the
cause of (if not really a reason for) this transposition.
53
See Appendix F for a full explanation of the intervals and accidental signs currently used in KTM.
As in our earlier discussion of intonation it is difficult here to pinpoint exactly which variation of the
“perde” is intended by these signs. Yekta understood the interval from G to B as being in a
q
relationship of 8561:8192 in a Pythagorean interpretation of the theory but as being “approximated” in
practice as a 5:4 relationship (1922 [1913]: 2962). Similarly he saw the relationship between G and e q
here as either the Pythagorean 32768:19683 or the “approximate” 5:3 (ibid.: 2986). In today’s parlance
we would say that “B ” means “B one comma flat,” and that “e ” means “e one comma flat,” but we
q q
must note that Yekta did not use the comma as a unit for measuring other intervals, and that he
therefore would not have thought of these tones in that way.
87
the execution of the makam, he understood Rast’s normative seventh degree to be the
“f” shown above (see 1922 [1913]: 2997. NB: Kutluğ asserts that the 7th degree has
been understood as being fs in ascending passages since at least “the time of Sultan
Murad II” [r. 1421-1451]; see Kutluğ 2000: vol. I, p. 160).
Since Yekta considered this the “natural” scale, it followed that it should be written
on the staff without accidentals, its “signature” looking like that of C major in the
West but with different values for the lines and spaces, however Arel and Ezgi argued
with him over this—advocating the scale of a makam other than Rast as the music’s
main one (see below)—as well as over the intervals of the makam Rast’s scale.54 I
have treated the issue of definitions for Rast makam separately in Appendix G, to
which I invite the reader, but continuing the present narrative; apparently Yekta, Ezgi,
and Arel came to a compromise, as evidenced in publications of repertoire such as
İstanbul Konservatuvarı Neşriyatı Mevlevi Âyinleri (Yekta 1931), in which Rast
remains the main scale, but is notated with only one accidental (fs, see p.52), Rast’s
6th degree having been changed from dik hisar (eq in today’s notation, e|/ in Yekta’s
notation) to hüseyni (e, one comma higher), and the previously incidental seventh
degree (fs) definitively replacing the “minor seventh” (f) as normative.55 Curiously
54
See Akdoğu 1989b regarding the argument between Yekta and Arel-Ezgi per se, and Yarman
2007a: 39-40 for the problems arising from Yekta’s system, of which the argument presumably
consisted; as previously mentioned, Akdoğu (1989b and in Arel 1991 [1943-48]: XI) has these three
differences—makam-s as octave scales, the main scale, and the “natural” notes of the staff—as the
causes for the split between the two camps.
55
I have found no explicit reference to this change of Rast’s tones in their writings. Arel wrote as
though he had forgotten or never known Yekta’s version of Rast’s 6th degree (see 1991 [1943-48]: 63,
88
the makam Segâh—whose intervals had historically been the same as those of Rast’s
(though starting on its 3rd degree)—kept the “e|/” (see Yekta 1931: 328 and 1922:
3000).
Eight years after Yekta’s death, Arel became head of the İstanbul Konservatuvarı
(with Dr. Ezgi as the head of the Committee of Establishment and Classification, see
Ayangil 2008: 425; the name of the institution was changed to İstanbul Belediye
Konservatuvarı the following year, 1944), and there he implemented his own system
of notation, which rather radically dispensed with Rast as the main scale, replacing it
with what amounts to an invented makam, “Çargâh,” identical to the (written) C
major scale of the West, making the lines and spaces on the staff correspond exactly
to Western notation. Owen Wright explores the issue of this “makam” at length in his
“Çargâh in Turkish Classical Music: History Versus Theory” (1990: 224-444), to
which I direct the reader rather than rehearse its details here, but suffice it to say that
there had once been a makam called Çargâh, which had changed over the centuries
(without ever having been equivalent to the Western major diatonic scale), and which
and Akdoğu in same, pp. X-XI). The same “e ” note is still the 6th degree of the Töre-Karadeniz
q
version of Rast (the system’s main scale), albeit under the name “hisârek,” (see Karadeniz 1983: 85-6).
Note also that Yarman uses this tone in his descending version of the Acemli Rast makam’s scalar
material (2007a: 117). Kutluğ (2000: vol. I, p. 161) explains the technicalities of the issue at length and
comes down firmly on the Arel side of the argument, but ultimately his justification for it is simply that
this is the correct way of performing Rast (which, of course, is also the Töre-Karadeniz and Yekta
assertion, but with the other tone/scale/makam structure). On the next page Kutluğ quotes Cantemir’s
description of Rast, which mentions that its upper range may reach the tone “tiz hüseyni”; Kutluğ is not
using this as an argument for hüseyni (i.e., an octave below tiz hüseyni) being in the scale (which he
has already established), and it is not clear that the intonation that Cantemir assumed is the same as
that used today (see Wright 2000: 17-8), but this might imply that at least since the seventeenth century
the (or “a”) note called hüseyni has been normative in the makam Rast (as Feldman would also have it,
see 1996: 213-6). See Appendix G for further ideas on the subject.
89
had been, by the early twentieth century, virtually forgotten. Arel appropriated the
name, claimed to have rediscovered it as the diatonic scale (i.e., one constructed of
only whole steps and half steps) in KTM,56 applied it to the notation system as
explained, and he and Ezgi wrote a few compositions in it to legitimize the new
makam.57 (See further details regarding “Çargâh makam” also in Appendix G.) While
the new makam never caught on per se, the notation system built around it did, and it
has served as the main system for representing classical Turkish music (of all periods)
since the late 1930s.58
As with other aspects of the A-E-U theory, criticism of this notation was for decades
rather reserved, teachers, performers and theorists finding ways of working around its
56
The diatonic scale from the written note C, that is; two makam-s, certainly well known at the time—
Acem Aşiran and a version of Mahur—have diatonic structures with a “major” 3rd degree, but Arel
needed one that would not require accidentals on the Western staff, as both Acem Aşiran (on F) and
Mahur (on G) do. Yekta had noted that the equivalent of the European major scale was the makam
Acem Aşiran (1922 [1913]: 2948).
57
Incidentally this positioned the makam Buselik (formerly “Puselik,” the makam always listed
second—right after Çargâh—among the Arelian “13 basic makam-s”) as the “relative minor” of
Çargâh. Although Buselik is a legitimate makam of long standing, it has not in recent centuries been as
popular as the similarly structured Nihavend (cf. Arab “maqām Nahāwand”), played a whole step
lower (on written G, therefore requiring accidentals in Arel’s notation), but which since Arel’s theory
became hegemonic has been considered a transposition of Buselik.
58
Note that Ezgi (1933: 19) gives several accidental signs not currently in use while Arel’s, only
slightly stylized, are the normative signs today (1991 [1943-48]: 10). It is also worth noting that while
the signs “ ” and “ ” are drawn directly from European notation, neither of these theorists point out
e s
explicitly that they signify different intervals in KTM than in Western music (see Appendix F, and
Özkan 1984: 36-7). As the name of a pentachord/tetrachord, “çargâh” has become the standard name
for what in the Arab world is called àjam or jahārkāh. Yekta did not give names for his
pentachords/tetrachords per se, but referred to the makam Acem Aşiran as the analogue of the Western
major scale (1922: 2948), while Kutluğ refers to these cins-es as “nigâr” (see 2000 vol. I, pp. 298-302).
A propos of the reference to music of all periods, I would note that of the theory texts named here, only
Kutluğ 2000 treats each makam in its historical context, that is, notes during what period the definition
of a makam changed (as evidenced in notated repertoire). Although Kutluğ showed a preference for his
teacher Arel’s analysis, he is also the only of these authors to explain in detail and compare the
interpretations of early Systematists, Yekta, and Töre-Karadeniz systems as well as that of Arel, Ezgi
and Uzdilek.
90
limitations in regard to representing the aforementioned perde-s, but recently theorists
have voiced opposition, or at least desire for reform. Ayangil (2008: 44-5) neatly lists
many of the A-E-U notation system’s problems (many of which are intimately
entwined with intonation issues detailed above) and several quite diverse solutions
that have been recommended recently. Additionally, 6 of the 13 presenters in the
aforementioned Istanbul Technical University-sponsored “theory and practice”
congress comment on notation. Their recommendations in Bayhan 2008 include:
leaving it alone (Sarı pp. 205-223—again because performers will interpret any
notation according to their own idiosyncrasies anyway); re-introducing long-forgotten
late Ottoman notation systems such as Hamparsum’s (Akkoç pp. 47-54) or Emin
Efendi’s (Ayangil pp. 55-69); scrapping the Arel notation and—after having decided
on the intervals actually to represent—introduce new accidentals (Yarman pp. 139-
160); choosing different sets of accidentals to be able more accurately to represent the
music of different historical periods (Daloğlu pp. 275-292), and; keeping the
accidentals but figuring out how to further minimize their number to ease having
separate parts for each instrument (and for a conductor; Sayan pp. 71-88).59 In the end
the congress did not decide upon a new notation system to replace Arel’s, but did give
the following “suggestions for solution”:
1/ After evaluating the tone systems models produced as directly related to the
theme of the congress in wider platforms, reflection of them onto education
and applications in our art institutions. (Bu kongrenin teması ile doğrudan
ilintili üretilmiş olan ses sistemi modellerinin daha geniş platformlarda
59
Currently all players (and conductors, in the rare situations where there are any) read from the same
version of a score, regardless of transposition issues associated with specific instruments.
91
değerlendirilerek öğretime ve sanat kurumlarımızdaki uygulamalara
yansıtılması.)
2/ Instead of taking the main makam as Çargâh as in “Arel-Ezgi-Uzdilek”,

taking and accepting it as Rast. (Ana makamın, “Arel-Ezgi-Uzdilek”te olduğu
gibi Çargah yerine, Rast olması ve bu dizinin kabul edilmesi.)
3/ Taking A4/La = 440 Hz diapason as basis which is the standard that comes
along with the correspondence with the European notes. (Avrupa notası ile
uyumun beraberinde getirdiği standart A4/La = 440 hz diyapazonun esas
alınması.)
4/ Providing the unity in notation. (Notasyonda birliğin sağlanması.)
5/ Historical continuity and the update of tradition. (Tarihsel devamlılık ve

geleneğin güncellenmesi.)
6/ Considering the solution of problems in an integrating approach that

encompasses the common principles of Turkish music. (Sorunların çözümüne
Türk müziğinin ortak ilkelerini kapsayan bütüncül bir yaklaşımla bakılması
olarak belirlenmiştir.) (Bayhan 2008: 296-7)
Furthermore, Sayan suggests calling (Arel’s) “Çargâh” Çağdaş Makamı
(“Contemporary Makam”) and restoring the name Çargâh to the last historical
iteration of it before Arel, a transposition of Zirgüleli Hicaz on c/çargâh.60 I take
suggestion 3—let La = A 440—to mean that the new notation system to come should
be written at pitch rather than in the “bolahenk” transposition (KTM scores are now
normally transposed a perfect fourth higher than they sound; see Appendix F, Sayan
in Bayhan 2008: 71-88, and Ayangil 2008: 438-41). We will get a chance to hear
current taksim performers’ ideas regarding theory and notation in Chapter IV.
60
Though, as mentioned, many performers would likely consider it a distinct makam rather than a
transposition, which would simply be referred to as “Zirgüleli Hicaz on c/çargâh.” He does not address
the question of whether the “çargâh tetrachord/pentachord” would retain its nomenclature.
92
It seems to me that there may have been, at least from the late nineteenth/early
twentieth century’s zealous search for Western models as tools of modernization, a
false parallel drawn between alphabet reform and Western musical notation. The
Ottoman language had been written in a version of the Arabic abjad throughout the
duration of the empire (and in pre-Ottoman Turkish languages since the Turks’
conversion to Islam in the tenth through thirteenth centuries), despite the fact that
many of the sounds in the Ottoman (and also in the modern Turkish) language are
poorly represented by the Arabic signs (see Korkmaz 1998). As it turns out, the
variation of the Latin alphabet officially adopted for modern Turkish by the Republic
in November of 1928 is very well suited to representing its sounds, and this (in
conjunction with the first concerted effort at mass education) is credited with helping
raise the literacy rate from 20% to today’s 90% (ibid.). But in choosing Western staff
notation to represent the sounds of classical Turkish music, this logic may have gone
awry; while it is very probably true that the rate of musical literacy has risen
dramatically among musicians over the period during which Western notation and
mass education have been adopted, given all that we have read above it would be
difficult to argue that Western-style notation better suits the sounds of the musical
“language” than had an indigenous system such as Hamparsum notation (though it is
true that, unmodified, this notation requires previous knowledge of the makam system
to correctly interpret the signs).61
61
For instance traditional Hamparsum notation lacks signs to inflect certain tones; the correct
inflection is implicit in (knowledge of) the makam, which is always named. A performer reading a
piece—if he or she knows the makam—therefore knows how to interpret the signs correctly; a lack of
93
In any case, if expectations about the Western-style notation system per se have fallen
away, residual ones remain in their shape. For instance in the question-and-answer
session following Dr. Nail Yavuzoğlu’s presentation at the İTÜ theory-practice
congress, he laments that everyone knows who (North Indian classical musician) Ravi
Shankar is but no-one (outside Turkey) can name a classical Turkish musician; while
recognizing that there may be many reasons for this, he attributes some of the failure
of Turkish music to become more widespread in the world to stagnation in questions
of theory and notation (see Bayhan 2008: 177-81). Ironically, of course, North Indian
classical music, whether in India or abroad, relies almost entirely on what we have
called “meşk” for its transmission, neither precise notation nor theory-text study
being prominent in its pedagogy.
Before concluding this chapter, I direct the reader to Appendix D, which consists of
recapitulations of the entries on the makam Rast as they appear in the theory texts
mentioned above, i.e., those of Arel 1991 (1943-48), Ezgi 1933, Karadeniz 1983,
Özkan 1984, Kutluğ 2000, and Yılmaz 2007 (1973). These are typical of the entries
each author gives for every makam they describe. The opinions of several informants
as to what is left out of these texts, and/or what should be altered for or added to an
“ideal” theory book, can be found in Chapter IV. Additionally, I would again mention
that the discussion of the disagreements between Yekta and Arel regarding the scalar
such knowledge would lead to an incorrect “reading” (and performance) of the text. See Ayangil 2008:
445, Akkoç in Bayhan 2008: 51 regarding recommendations of a return to Hamparsum notation. See
also Gill 2006: 60.
94
material of makam-s Rast and Çargâh continues in Appendix G, below.
CHAPTER CONCLUSION
As we have seen, the invention of current classical Turkish music theory has been
fraught with problems and disagreements of both a technical and political nature (and
perhaps it would not be wholly inappropriate to infer that to some degree the word
“personal” could be joined to that list). The theory is a conjunction of a return to the
theoretical concerns of Ṣafīuddīn’s Systematist School and a society-wide experiment
in the Westernization-as-modernization paradigm. In some senses the project (in
which term I include both published theories—widespread or not—and arguments
raised by critiques of them) has given interested readers more information with which
to clarify the technical aspects of KTM than anything since Cantemir’s treatise of
1700, and there is no doubt that the “Yekta-Arel-Ezgi-Uzdilek” system, for all its
flaws, has been the framework for a new system of makam pedagogy that has
successfully supplemented (rather than replaced) traditional oral/aural learning for
most of a century; as Yavuzoğlu put it:
Would we be here if it were not for Arel? Would this conservatory exist?
Would there be [music] education? Yes, [it is true that] there is not one tanbur
or kanun that can be physically linked with [tuned in accord with] the system of
Arel.62 No matter … one way or another, the Arel system is the basis of this
62
This refers to the phenomenon, mentioned earlier in this chapter, that certain of the tones in Arel’s
system are de facto not used, while there are several other tones that are universally used but that are
not recognized by the theory. The instruments he mentions are fixed-pitch instruments tuned in accord
with practice rather than with Arelian theory.
95
education. It provided the continuity of this music.63 (In Bayhan 2008: 180)
He goes on to say, “My problem is different. My concern is that it should be
systematic from now on.” It is clear from the preceding talk that by this he means that
all the intervals used in the music should be accurately representable in the theory and
its notation, and there was little disagreement about that principle from his colleagues.
A desire within the conservatories for a “systematically” unified theory suited to a
unified pedagogy is self evident in the proceedings of the congress as well. But in
matters concerning the alignment of theory and practice, the example of Arel—and
for that matter of all the theorists of makam musics before him—may show us that
being “systematic” is never quite enough to fully capture the subtleties involved in
the performers’ application of the “rules” as they understand them; Arel was nothing
if not systematic, and in a sense his system got the music only as far as this 2008
congress. Even a meşk education (which Yavuzoğlu here acknowledges as a
pedagogy alive and well, p. 179) is in its own way systematic. There are so many
elements for the teachers to identify and analyze and translate into a teachable system,
and yet current students’ time and attention is more concentrated than ever before. It
must be acknowledged that both teaching and learning the music are daunting tasks
indeed.
63
Their translation of, “Bugün Arel olmasaydı biz burada olur muyduk? Bu konservatuar olur muydu?
Eğitim olur muydu? Evet Arel sistemiyle fiziksel olarak bağlanan bir tane tanbur yoktur. Bir tane
çakılan kanun da yoktur. Ama Arel sistemi bu eğitimin temelidir. Ne olursa olsun, öyle ya da böyle. Bu
müziğin devamını sağlamıştır.”
96
Knowing that these concerns are on the minds of educators, it always struck me as
curious that taksim is treated for the most part as a singularity; it is very seldom used
as a resource in theoretical analysis (though see Signell/Beken, and Akkoç in Bayhan
2008), and is not in any way (much less “systematically”) taught, either in
conservatory education or in meşk. Karl Signell elucidated (and endorsed) the means
by which taksim is learned thus: “I think memorizing repertoire by ear is useful, as is
memorizing taksims (but not writing them down). Then suddenly one day, the student
wakes up like Pinocchio and plays a real taksim without thinking” (p.c. via e-mail,
10/16/09). We will see many reiterations of this story in Chapter IV. Only one
theorist has written a whole book about taksim, Onur Akdoğu’s 1989(a) Taksim:
Nedir, Nasıl Yapılır? (“Taksim: What is it, How is it Done?”), which is little known
and not highly regarded.64 Even though taksim requires a very refined understanding
of “makam theory” to produce, current theory does not at all address how it is done.
We will recall from Chapter II that taksim was an engine for innovation and a
defining medium for making modulations at the genre’s inception in the mid-
seventeenth century (when a taksim might last an hour or more and pointedly
excluded “quotations” from pre-composed repertoire). It seems to me that it had to
have been some sort of systematically comprehensible if unwritten “theory” that
composers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries used to turn these taksim-
64
My sense of discretion regarding the relatively small world of classical Turkish music dissuades me
from naming the book’s detractors, but two music publishers, a music historian, and the single
performer I met who had seen the book all dismissed it as a thing not to be taken seriously.
97
making practices into the explosion of novelty in the repertoire, makam-s, and
modulatory practices that are characteristic of those two centuries. It is an ironic
inversion, of course, that today’s performers learn not an articulated theory of
modulation and other taksim-making practices (which both their theory and
pedagogical methods—even in the oral/aural realm—reject), but rather they are
simply asked to mimic the very eighteenth- and nineteenth-century repertoire that was
created by taksim-playing composers who rejected (rather than emulated) the
confines of the pre-composed repertoire of their own times (see Chapter II).
Although today it is apparently applied with less vigor than it was in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, a sense of personal agency in regard to the right to interpret
and express the details of makam music in unorthodox ways in the taksim genre is
quite alive among performers today; it currently constitutes a part of the overall
classical Turkish music culture that is considered both traditional and vital. In the
next chapter we will hear examples of my taksim-performing informants’ individual
ideas about the theories elucidated in this chapter, about what the greatest changes to
the music have been since 1910, and about the state of the classical Turkish music
culture generally.
98
CHAPTER IV: CURRENT PERFORMERS’ VIEWS ON MAKAM THEORY,
TAKSİM, AND THE STATE OF THE ART
In this chapter we will hear from current performers and professional music teachers
on their understandings of Arelian music theory, on various aspects of the art of
taksim, and on the state of the classical Turkish music culture, generally. Though I
shall be pointing out the specific information I wish to highlight in the quotes below,
many of these are extended slightly beyond the subject in order to show the context in
which a given respondent conceived his or her response.
PERFORMERS ON MAKAM THEORY AND ITS TEXTS
I should clarify first that most professional musicians give lessons to students (though
they may or may not charge for these lessons), and the “common language” of
musical rhetoric, whether simply communicating amongst each other or as used in
instruction, is the Arel-Ezgi-Uzdilek system, which they nonetheless often revise
according to their own interpretations at some point during a student’s advancement.
This is as true in a current conservatory education as it is in private lessons. While
aspects of other theorists’ ideas may be widely (if often not very deeply) known—for
instance those of Yekta and Karadeniz—the A-E-U system is generally quite well
known, and is used as the basis from which the fundamental concepts of the music are
defined and deviations from them are noted. And as A.J. Racy has pointed out, in
contrast to the Arab music world, classical Turkish musicians are generally prepared
99
to talk in great detail about the theoretical aspects of their art, “as though they carried
makam theory around with them in a briefcase” (from Scott Marcus, p.c. 9/24/09).
Their critiques of the A-E-U system are therefore based on the confluences and
contradictions discovered personally and in communication with each other during
the simultaneous applications of the A-E-U rhetoric and their own sense of a proper
understanding of makam music. This provides the setting for the section below:
responses to the questions, “What aspects of makam are not found in the theory texts,
how are current makam theory texts now used, and what would you put in an ‘ideal’
theory textbook?”
Turkish music’s most important features, so far, up to 2009, have not been
written in a theory book. There is not a book on the music that I’ve played.
There isn’t a theory book on the music that Cinuçen Tanrıkorur, Necdet
Yaşar, or [Tanburi] Cemil Bey played! You, as an American, have no [access
to] information, but even though you can read written notes well, and learn
technique, there is no good writing on Turkish music. And just [learning] from
what there is, you can’t learn to play… because you have to learn from a
master. (Professional ud-ist Necati Çelik, p.c. 6/4/09)1
Here is encapsulated perhaps the most typical attitude toward music theory texts
among experienced teachers and performing musicians today: that they are
inconsistent with performance practices, particularly as to the notated representation
of tones in use, and are insufficient to demonstrate the makam system without
correction and elaboration by a master. The same artist had been a little more specific
on the subject when he told me:
When they wrote the books what they wrote are rules [kurallar], but that’s not
it; that’s only rules. Maybe those who know the details find not writing about
1
All of the quotations in this chapter were originally recorded in Turkish and then translated by me
into English, unless otherwise noted.
100
them easier. But when I teach my students I teach details that can’t be found
in the writings, and there are many kinds. But I show them [what they need to
learn]. Meşk is what is needed here.2 (P.c. 12/1/08)
Such an opinion is very widespread in the KTM world, among both teachers and
students. As upcoming professional ney player Selçuk Gürez put it:
You definitely have to have a master-student relationship to learn this music;

it’s not in the books. (P.c. 1/7/09)
Inherently there resides in these answers a low expectation regarding textbook theory,
and a privileging of the oral tradition it was apparently intended to displace. Over the
course of this chapter we will see how such attitudes culminate in a general lack of
interest in calling for a reform of Arelian theory, despite many complaints about it.
Speaking more specifically about the deficiencies of current book theory, Yıldız
University lecturer and tanbur player Özer Özel disagreed with the standard Arelian
representations of a makam’s dominant while conceding a grudging support for
İsmail Hakkı Özkan’s 1984 Türk Mûsıkîsi Nazariyatı ve Usûlleri, the single most
popular KTM reference text (though it follows the Arelian understanding of placing
the dominant):
The idea that “every makam has its dominant where a pentachord and
tetrachord meet,” that’s just politics. The people who wrote the theory books,
they were barely musicians. It’s more like philosophy. Özkan is “the most
used theory book,” but it’s full of deficiencies; the makam signatures are
wrong and misleading, though the examples he uses are good except in that
regard. And the part on usûl-s [rhythmic cycles] is very good. But the
2
See Gill 2006 passim regarding conflicting ideas about whether (and how) “meşk” is currently
practiced.
101
dominant is where you first emphasize a tone; it’s not where a tetrachord and
a pentachord meet.3 (P.c. 3/18/09)
There were similar criticisms of the way Arelian theory presents the idea of makam
transpositions (şed-s); we may recall from Chapter III that there are several distinctly
named makam-s that, by virtue of sharing the same interval structure with other
makam-s, were deemed by Arel to be transpositions of the latter rather than makam-s
in their own right.4
Arel was wrong when he labeled so many makam-s as “şed-s” [transpositions]

of other makam-s—if it’s a transposition, call it by the name of the original
makam “on (the new note)”—those that have their own names are their own
makam-s, regardless of similarities with others. (Necati Çelik, p.c. 5/11/09; cf.
Arel 1991 [1943-48]: 317)
Mr. Çelik is here saying that, for instance, although Arel understood Nihavend
makam (on concert D/rast) to be merely a transposition of Buselik makam (on
concert E/dügâh), while it is possible to play “Buselik on (concert D/) rast,” that is
not truly the same makam as Nihavend proper—each is a distinct makam, wherever
the “scale” is placed. I found a general consensus for this idea: if a makam has its
own name, it should therefore be considered to have some distinguishing
characteristics from merely structurally similar makam-s.5
3
I found Arel’s formula for locating the dominant widely criticized, but would note that no other
informant shared with me Mr. Özel’s particular understanding of the dominant.
4
Arel named fourteen such entities, to be precise; see Appendix J.
5
There is an example in the DVDs (Appendix L) intended to show just this sort of difference: Mehmet
Emin Bitmez’s taksim-s in Nişaburek (DVD 3/25) and Rast on dügâh (DVD 3/27)—the artist made the
latter to show the makam’s difference from the former, though it must be noted that Arel did not in this
case consider either to be a transposition of the other (apparently because he considered Nişaburek to
be a compound makam; see “Compound Makam-s on dügâh” Arel 1943-48 [1968]: 220)—they are
otherwise similar makam-s with different tonics. Parenthetically, Marcus also deals with this issue in
regard to Eastern Arab maqām (1989a: 348-353).
102
For some artists it is not the merely technical aspects of the art that ought to be better
represented in theory text books:
Arel doesn’t say nearly enough about makam-s’ characteristics, and neither
did any of his followers, for instance that one version of a tone is used when
rising, and another when falling.6 Also, theory books should compare Turkish
practice and theory with those of the Arabs and Persians, acknowledging their
influence upon each other. But above all, the feeling is missing—each makam
has a feeling that must be expressed or it won’t work—that should be in a
theory book. The technical part—tetrachords and pentachords—is just part of
it; they have to have meaning as well. (Professional kanun player and private
teacher Agnès Agopian, p.c. 6/19/09)7
Here there is a disappointment not only in the Arelian representation of technical
aspects of the system, but in theorists’ avoidance of affective characteristics she feels
are inherent in makam definitions. Ms. Agopian was also concerned about knowledge
of the makam system being deliberately excluded from theory texts:
Yes, theory books are necessary, though it’s like taking single frames out of a
film. An important aspect to change is that it [book theory] shouldn’t hide
anything; the culture of masters jealously guarding any details about makam,
or for simplicity’s sake ignoring them, I mean, a master’s best material,
should end. The not-very-detailed theory books come from a heritage of
jealous teachers who didn’t want to share their best and didn’t want you to
learn from a book what you might learn from them instead, so they wouldn’t
lose power and prestige. (Ibid.)
It is difficult to say how such a phenomenon may have effected the works of Yekta,
Ezgi, and Arel in particular.8 However, it is true that the level of detail in typical
theory books did not increase dramatically over the course of twentieth century, and
furthermore it cannot be denied that teachers of the tradition (whether or not they
6
See more on this phenomenon (as cazibe/“gravity”), and on theory texts in regard to such intonation
issues below.
7
This interview was conducted in English.
8
Though we may note that Yekta himself commented on the reticence of masters to reveal certain
material “for fear that it would be misinterpreted by lesser musicians” (1922 [1913]: 2978).
103
refer to their teaching work as “meşk”) derive prestige and authority in no small part
not only from knowing the theory that is present in the books—all classical makam
musicians must be fluent in that—but in proportion to their ability to recall, pass on,
and apply in performance as much orally transmitted arcana about the system as
possible. This is especially true regarding special characteristics of individual
makam-s, which are precisely the aspects of the Turkish makam system that have
never yet appeared in a theory textbook.
From the point of view of the state-sponsored institutional education system—which,
we will remember from Chapters II and III, was created under the assumption that it
would replace the meşk tradition—this lack of detail in music theory textbooks would
seem not to be an issue of hiding information versus making it explicit, but rather
simply a pragmatic pedagogical solution. We may see it expressed as such in this
response to a question on the inadequacy of theory texts given by Şehvar Beşiroğlu,
kanun player and department chair in musicology of Istanbul Technical University
Turkish Music State Conservatory (İTÜ/TMDK):9
It is problematic, especially İsmail Hakkı Özkan’s book; there are so many

details, it’s not for the beginner. Everyone… before, there were no books! But
if you look at Arel’s lesson book, it’s easier. To learn the makam-s. He
explained very basically and very easily. But his students, Şefik Gürmeriç and
İsmail Özkan—very complicated, and you can’t [learn makam from them].
(P.c. 1/30/09)
Here, she is on the one hand acknowledging the insufficiency of current theory books
in terms of the total knowledge a music student needs to learn, while on the other
9
104
hand praising the simpler of these texts over the more complex, implicitly leaving the
missing details to an oral transmission imparted by teachers, in this case from within
the Westernized pedagogy of the state-sponsored conservatory (and therefore not
referred to as “meşk”).10
Returning to specifics, several informants noted the lack of information on
modulation in music theory texts:
Of course [modulation] is not in the books. How to get from one place to
another, what’s inside there. In the broadest sense, as a repository of things to
know, yes, they [theory books] are necessary. But to be useful at the
conservatory, it needs to be very [much more] broad. (Professional ney player
and private teacher Ahmet Toz, p.c. 6/18/09)
Though I will later show that Mr. Toz recognizes a describable means of remedying
this lack, here he does not mention it. In contrast, Necati Çelik speaks of “rules” as
the missing factor, regarding modulation, in theory books:
Going from one makam to another, there are hidden [or “secret”; gizli] rules,
rules that are not written. So, to go from Hicaz makam to Uşşak makam—
going to Uzzal, going to Hüseyni, going to…—these are not written in books.
There is a way [to modulate], and students learn it but it’s not in a book.
(Necati Çelik, p.c. 12/1/08)
It must be noted that Arel’s class notes from 1943-48 (published in 1968 yet even
now sparsely distributed) indeed do mention modulation, though his descriptions are
quite general and abstract (see pp. 127-40), and Akdoğu’s text on taksim (1989a),
though treating the subject, is even less “user friendly.” Perhaps because the
10
We shall see below another quote from Dr. Beşiroğlu explicating a detailed method of such a
transmission in terms of learning to make taksim-s; a method usually absent from normative “meşk.”
105
modulatory aspect of the makam system has never been formally systematized in
theory, and therefore has apparently from time out of mind been the province of the
oral tradition, complaints about the lack of information on modulation in such music
theory texts were not common among my informants. Much more so were complaints
regarding the Arelian system’s inadequacy to deal with the actual tones and intervals
in use, and with their representation in the accepted notation:
Our notation system is not sufficient. I would even say, we can write a poem,
but the feeling of the poet, we can not write. There’s a poet, Mehmet Rağıp
Ersoy, for instance [he very quickly recites a line of poetry, in a monotone,
devoid of emotion]; that’s what he wrote. It’s correct [recites more], but as a
poem… [recites again in a slow, deep, modulated voice conveying emotion].
It’s a different thing, that’s what it deserves. You know what I mean?” (Necati
Çelik, p.c. 6/4/09)
If this answer is itself rather poetic, he was also quite ready to give technical
examples of the same issue; in two previous meetings he had also given the following
comments on the subject:
Even though the theory books we have on hand give the notes, the tones we
really use we can’t write. Because there are insufficient signs for them. Like
in Hüzzam there’s between mi bemol [here, “e-4-commas flat,” as the perde
hisar] and fa diyez [“f-4-commas sharp,” as the perde eviç] [counts up in
groups of 4 koma-s] there are supposedly [i.e., according to theory] 12
commas. “Supposedly.” But actually, in performance, from the mi going up is
nine commas [i.e., from hisar to an unnamed tone three commas flatter than
eviç].11 Since many intervals are like that, you need good ears, one needs to
listen well. Learning that from a good teacher is needed. (Necati Çelik, p.c.
12/1/08)
11
It would seem to me that in fact many players play Hüzzam using the interval from “e 1-comma-
flat” (dik hisar) to eviç (but cf. Signell 2007: 74), a 9-comma interval that can be written in the A-E-U
system, though no theory book describes the makam’s tones in this way; also note that there is no
named tetrachord d-e -f -g in the A-E-U system (see Chapter VI and Appendix H).
q s
106
I present the above quote particularly because in the next chapter we will look
specifically at contested definitions of the tones in Hüzzam. Similarly we will revisit
the next quote’s idea of cazibe in future chapters:
Even when you’re playing in Uşşak, when you do the final cadence that note
gets quite low. It does “cazibe” [gravity, charm, attractiveness]. Cazibe; it
pulls you down, some notes. For example, in Uşşak, the second note, when
you go to the tonic, it’s flatter than normal. Sometimes [with] eviç or acem
notes, it’s the same thing. When you go in ascending melodies it’s sharper.
When they come descending, flatter. We call it “cazibe”: iniş cazibesi, çıkış
cazibesi [“falling gravity, rising gravity”]. (Necati Çelik, p.c. 1/16/09)
Although he was referring here to the alteration of a single perde (that is, contextually
choosing different pitch variations for a “perde” whose name does not change by
varying its pitch), in fact another common gesture attributed to “cazibe” would
simply exchange, for instance, the perde eviç for the perde acem in an ascending
passage and acem for eviç in a descending one (see Chapter VII and Appendix
K).The same sort of discrepancy exists between written notes in scores and the
pitches performers know to be correct in their stead, as was explained by retired
professional yaylı tanbur player Ahmet Nuri Benli:
Now, look—theory can’t get the feeling—I depend on my instrument… if

you’re listening while you’re playing, you’ll play right. Sometimes, in the
middle of a piece the notes [notated score] will say one thing but you know it
has to be inflected, so you play the right perde [i.e., not the one on the page].
That’s how we play. (P.c. 6/4/09)
In regard to the tones required by Arelian theory, I noted to Mr. Benli that the fret for
dik geveşt was missing from his yaylı tanbur (for more about which, see below). He
replied:
107
Oh, dik geveşt! In my whole life… in one thousand pieces you’ll find it in one
place. You can just do it with your finger [places a finger on a fret], then
[pulls the string to sharpen the tone]. There’s also dik mahur; in theory’s
account it’s there, but in reality it’s not there. I’ve never come across the need
for those perde-s [NB both “frets” and “tones”]. (Ibid.)
The implicit critiques of theory books here being firstly that they describe the
existence of tones even though they are practically useless, and secondly that they fail
to point out performance-oriented workarounds. Continuing his reply to encompass a
broader regard of music theory, Mr. Benli remarked, a little tongue-in-cheek:
Now, let me say, theory is one thing, performance is another. I mean, our
theory, since the old days it’s been needed, but—we used to say, “nazariyat
ekşitir; fasariyat ” [“theory is sour; nonsense talk” or “the sour thing about
theory is shmeory”]. That’s perhaps a lowly way to put it, but... If you’re
sitting at home and you want to know, “how does this makam go?” it [theory,
in a book] explains, it does explain. (Ibid.)
In answer to our first question—“What aspects of makam are not found in the theory
texts?”—we have seen critiques given in terms of: general inconsistency with
performance practices; poor notational capabilities; lack of information on
modulation; incorrect information regarding the placement of the dominant; incorrect
information about transpositions; lack of important affective information
characteristic of particular makam-s; discrepancies from practice regarding the use of
certain tones, and the intonational variations of others; and even a critique that such
“knowledge” is shaped to privilege masters’ hiding information rather than exposing
the reader to it freely.
108
Though his dismissal of the practical application of music theory was made in jest,
Mr. Benli’s last response does lead us into our second question, “how are current
makam theory texts now used?” The answers to this were mainly of two sorts,
depending on whether the respondent was primarily, like Mr. Benli, a player, for
instance:
[Theory books are] Like dictionaries, sure. It’s like a guide, or something to
help you remember. But you already know it, from listening. (Professional
multi-instrumentalist Sinan Erdemsel, p.c. 12/11/08)
or primarily an educator, for instance:
For the basics you teach the Arel system because there is no other system yet.
If there is somebody up to teaching a new system, he can try, but now it’s the
Arel system. We are putting our ideas also in the Arel system, our explanation
of the makam-s, and we are defining the makam-s [in accord with his theory],
but after that, when you are coming to the analytical level, we should use
textbooks to compare historically different versions of each makam … the
one book for comparing the centuries is Fikret Kutluğ [2000 Türk Musikisinde
Makamlar]. … Yes, these are the uses of theory books: comparing and
analyzing. I think. And this is important for the academics. For performers,
they don’t think about that, mostly. It doesn’t matter for them, but for teaching
I think you need that. (Şehvar Beşiroğlu, p.c. 1/30/09)12
In both cases, the Arelian theory available in current music theory texts is regarded as
basic and provisional, mainly used for reference. I should say that, although not very
widespread, there is some crossover between the practical and historical approaches
noted above; for instance historical information on the differences between makam
definitions as they changed over centuries (e.g., like that found in the Kutluğ text
mentioned above) is used by some performers when they are called upon to play
taksim-s in the context of centuries-old repertoire, in order that the taksim be
12
109
appropriate to the makam definition displayed in the repertoire. This is perhaps most
noticeable among players in “historically informed performance” ensembles such as
Bezmara and Lâlezar, who play older repertoire on reproductions of period
instruments.
The quotes above have addressed two of our original three questions, “What aspects
of makam are not found in the theory texts, how are current makam theory texts now
used, and what would you put in an ‘ideal’ theory textbook?” Some of the answers to
the third question are inherent in those given to the previous two; presumably any
new text would address such items as: insufficient accidental signs, information on
modulation, intonational variations and their deployment in “gravity” (cazibe)
maneuvers, tones used by performers but not recognized by Arelian theory (and vice
versa: tones recognized but never used), information on emotional or other affects
associated with particular makam-s, an expanded historical background for each
makam, as well as the basic Arelian information on tetrachords and pentachords,
seyir, etc., that form the musician’s common vocabulary. Most of my interviewees in
fact had no other specific recommendations, that is, the most popular answer to the
question “what would you put in an ‘ideal’ theory textbook?” was simply that there
was no pressing need to make such a reform of the texts; as alluded to earlier,
performers use them mainly as reference materials and teachers know what sort of
things to add and alter verbally during lessons (whether or not this process is referred
to as “meşk”), so a revision of music theory texts is not generally considered an
110
immediately important endeavor. Implicitly the assumption would appear to be that
even greatly improved music theory texts would not be used differently than current
ones are used today, that is, that theory texts have never been primarily used for
detailed and direct teaching and learning (for instance in the manner we usually infer
from the word “textbook”), and that the function of such texts likely would not
change despite improvements.13 However, there were a few responses, all from
teachers who also perform, and who would prefer improved music theory texts:
The theory book I would write would just be analyses of traditional repertoire.
Repertoire is where you find all the theory; it’s how you learn to improvise.
Throw out tetrachords, pentachords, scales; they’re just something theorist-
philosophers use, not something practical. Some makam-s have no such thing,
anyway; Segâh, Saba. Saba doesn’t even reach the octave—it has no scale,
and many makam-s don’t repeat the same tones at the octave; they don’t have
“scales.” But if there are pentachords and tetrachords, then there must be an
uşşak pentachord, and no hüseyni anything [i.e., cins type].14 (Yıldız
University lecturer and professional tanbur player Özer Özel, p.c. 3/18/09)
Here we see several important points: that repertoire is the more true repository of
theory than current theory texts; that repertoire is also the source for information a
student needs to learn to improvise (i.e., to make taksim-s); that there is a willingness
to understand makam structures outside of cins-oriented descriptions; and that the
Arelian insistence on makam-s not repeating at their octaves is contrary to the proper
understanding of certain makam-s. A similar privileging of established repertoire was
13
We must nonetheless contrast this attitude with the aforementioned enthusiasm with which
informants universally approached participating in my research as an opportunity to have their voices,
as performers, included in a dialogue about reforming classical Turkish music theory.
14
Whereas for all other tetrachords and pentachords in the A-E-U system their name is shared (i.e.,
there is a “rast tetrachord” and a “rast pentachord,” the latter being an upward extension of the former
by a whole tone), there is the singular case of uşşak—a tetrachord only—the upward extension of
which by a whole tone is called the “hüseyni pentachord” (there being conversely no “hüseyni
tetrachord”) (see Arel 1991 [1943-48]: 22).
111
expressed by neyzen Ahmet Toz, though he was even more specific about the type of
repertoire to use as exemplary:
My exemplar is instead [of Arelian theory] the Mevlevi ayin, in terms of

[seeing a makam’s] possibilities. It’s necessary for [learning] all the
possibilities. Where does theory begin? If I analyze a piece by a great
composer, all the elements I need are there. That’s theory. But at this moment,
the kind of theory that’s in books is the theory of songs [şarkı]; its forms are
short. As a composer I can write songs all day, but real works are something
else. (P.c. 6/18/09)
Here he is at once extolling the “theory” to be found in ayin-s, specifically, and
drawing a parallel between the supposed simplicity of Arelian theory and that of the
popular “şarkı” song genre (generally considered much less sophisticated than the
ayin).
Şehvar Beşiroğlu approached the idea of writing a music theory book by first placing
each makam into one of three makam families—Rast, Hicaz, and Buselik—in accord
with shared tonal material (as well as having a separate category for compound
makam-s; p.c., 1/30/09). The concept here is to facilitate learning each individual
makam in relation to a network of closely related makam-s. We shall see such an
understanding explored in following chapters of this dissertation through the idea of
“species relationships” between makam-s; such relationships existing between the
makam-s in which performers chose to play taksim-s for the recordings found in
Appendix L are also explicitly detailed at the end of Appendix J.15
15
Note, however, that within the latter appendix I have initially categorized makam-s according to a
different conception of their “familiar” relationships.
112
We see then that among those who did answer how they themselves would write a
theory book, the main differences from current theory texts were: privileging analysis
of traditional repertoire, and reorganizing the definitions of makam-s into “families.”
When we have also seen, beginning in the next chapter and throughout the rest of this
study, how performers use A-E-U rhetoric in analyzing their taksim-s, we will know
this striking contrast: that current performers “speak” (literally, that is, describe
makam in terms of) Arelian theory as a fluent language, but they place their faith for
the music’s survival in a separate oral tradition beyond the limits of the theory’s
faults, and whose texts are traditional repertoire rather than even the prospect of an
improved theory text.
CHANGES IN CLASSICAL TURKISH MUSIC 1910-2010
In the next section performers give their opinions on what they considered to be
important changes in the KTM world over the last one hundred years. I have
categorized these subjects as treating: mass media and the taksim genre, the loss of
makam-s, and changes in pedagogy. The first opinions concern issues around mass
mediation:
Well, starting with [Tanburi] Cemil Bey, on early recordings, the time was
limited. For instance on taş plak-s [78 rpm records] there were only three
minutes.16 Cemil Bey, in those three minutes, had to make both beautiful
melodies and show the makam well. Because Cemil Bey was a great master,
he did this very well. After that, on radio and television, the time got even
shorter; one to three minutes. Making an Uşşak taksim in a minute, to show
16
Actually, on average, these 78 rpm recordings were 3 and a half minutes in length, see Chapter V.
113
clearly the whole makam, they try to do a one, one-and-a-half-minute Uşşak
taksim. Therefore the typical one became smaller. It became broken/spoiled
[bozulmuş]. The ability to do a relaxed [rahat], free [serbest] taksim was lost.
Now very few people can make a long taksim. (Necati Çelik, p.c. 1/12/09)
This comment is ostensibly concerned only with the length of a taksim performance,
as is the next one, which Şehvar Beşiroğlu gave when I mentioned hour-long taksim-s
such as the küll-i külliyat described in Cantemir:
You can’t do that on TV! Not even on a CD [laughing]. It would take too
many CDs to properly play all the makam-s’ definitions. (P.c. 1/30/09)
Yet implicitly the issue of the taksim’s diminishing length concerns also the quality
of the performance—that is, the praxis—of the makam demonstrated in the taksim, as
was indicated more specifically in the following quotes:
And the fact they [ensemble directors, et al.] can tell you also, “you can do a
three minute taksim,” well… so, you’re obliged to be concentrated and make
something very concentrated. And all of that makes you have a certain kind of
taksim. (Agnès Agopian, p.c. 6/19/09)17
And more specifically:
Yes, taksim-s have been getting shorter since records, then radio and
television. And all the special characteristics of makam-s are simplified—the
TRT performers actually sound like the theory books! Too much so.18 (Selçuk
Gürez, p.c. 1/7/09)
Between the perceived simplification of the makam system in Arelian theory and the
pressure to simplify the praxis of makam-s inherent in these foreshortened taksim-s,
there is a general sense that the maintenance of the traditional Turkish makam system
17
This interview was made in English.
18
TRT, the government-run Turkish Radio and Television, has its own KTM ensembles and, having
had a monopoly on all broadcasting in Turkey until 1994, was largely responsible for shaping
programming and a uniform style of performance practices over the period of this study (see Gill 2006:
68-70, and Feldman 1996: 16 especially regarding the idea that in a sense, state-sponsored radio
replaced court patronage [cf. Signell 1980: 166]).
114
has been in a beleaguered state over the course of the one hundred year period in
question. We shall be hearing more on a common “state of loss” narrative in KTM
culture below, but one aspect of it pertinent to the comments above regarding the
effects of mass mediation is the concern that progressively fewer and fewer makam-s
are commonly played over recent decades, and that this threatens to result in a
permanent loss of makam-s:
Well, of course the old players knew many more makam-s than we use today.
There might’ve been a thousand. (Ahmet Nuri Benli, p.c. 6/4/09)
And similarly:
They’re reduced by half. I mean, what remains? Hicaz, Uşşak, Rast, Segâh.
Hüzzam. Nihavend, Buselik. And various combined [i.e., compound] makam-
s. There used to be known and used many more… (İTÜ/TMDK lecturer and
retired professional kemençe, ‘cello, and tanbur player İhsan Özgen, p.c.
5/27/09)
However, the causes of these concerns are not only changes in mass media and
concert programming; in the following two quotes we see the concern extended to
both pedagogical issues and to a diminished audience participation as well:
If you do [merely] four years of education you don’t know [complex, old/rare
makam-s like] Muhayyer-Sümbüle. Of course you start with the basic ones
because you start with Arel’s [system], so you know most of the basic ones.
You know some others like Segâh, Hüzzam, because those are really very
well known, but in four years you don’t have the time to go through all of
those. Second, you don’t have an audience. That wants it. Because if you have
meraklı [curious] people who really, who go to fasıl places and who desire
something really fine, refined and elegant and this kind of thing, then you will
not do [play] Hicaz again. You will do something more... [interesting, like]
Beyati-Araban; if you do, it has another taste. (Agnès Agopian, p.c. 6/19/09)19
19
This interview was made in English.
115
Below we will see opinions on the reasons for the lack or loss of audience interest,
but Ms. Agopian is first laying at least some of the blame for makam loss upon the
Western-style academic pedagogy, through which she did not pass, having learned
mainly from a single teacher in an oral transmission. Immediate below is a similar
lament by a lecturer at the country’s leading conservatory:
It’s a bad situation, things are slowly being lost. They [students, the younger
generation] don’t know makam-s, it’s hard to explain to them; you have to
learn detail, you have to play them [makam-s] a lot. You have to learn from
older, important musicians, but they [students] don’t do meşk—meşk is
finished. So they play Uşşak and Hicaz and that’s it. What can I say?
(İTÜ/TMDK lecturer and professional ud-ist Mehmet Emin Bitmez, p.c.
6/3/09)
But, predictably, he does not blame the academy for the loss; the implication is that
he would be happy to share the details with his students—in effect to “do meşk”
within the academy—if only the students would attend to such a level of detail.
Continuing, this artist described the situation as extending beyond the taksim genre
into the state of the art generally, and specifically to new composition:
No-one’s composing, no-one creates new musical pieces. Therefore they don’t
know. In order to understand it’s necessary to try/work [çalışmak]—how does
a makam work? A piece tells you. There are many examples, I’ll tell you, that
the kids don’t play. “Here: Hicaz” [i.e., they offer only Hicaz makam]. It’s
cold.20 [They play] Evcara, a lot of Hüseyni—because other makam-s, there is
culture in them, but in these it’s just the market [piyasa, i.e., music played
merely for commerce]. It’s easy. Or musicians, they play a lot of popular
pieces in these makam-s and they don’t learn the nice [hoş] ones, so they
don’t know. We play them; I play them always. But other musicians… for
instance we made a concert; Suz-i Dilara, Ferahnak, Yegâh, Şedd Araban,
then Beyati, Beyati-Araban [i.e., makam-s he considers rare]. Sazkâr—we did
20
The metaphor of temperature is widely used by musicians to refer to emotional affect; “cold” means
it does not move a listener or meet his/her approval (see also Beken 2003: 2). Conversely, the
aforementioned act of adjusting a perde’s pitch in performance (usually by lowering it slightly) is also
referred to as “warming” that tone (bir sesi ısındırmak).
116
both taksim-s and [pre-composed] works. People said, “Ah, [Sazkâr makam
is] very interesting. A little like Rast, but more interesting.” Sometimes [we
play in makam] Bestenigâr—a very nice one. You have to practice these.
Some people do, but for instance [names a certain popular player and his
group] don’t play them. It’s not right. Because everyone gets used to Uşşak,
Hicaz, Uşşak, Hicaz—then when you play them one of these [rarer makam-s]
they think, “Oh, that’s a cold makam.” It’s not good. But it’s necessary to play
[more complex makam-s] all the time. Putting them in their [audiences’] ears.
You went to these Altunizade [a concert hall] concerts; they know when they
come to these concerts they’ll hear different makam-s, in their characteristic
compositions. Yes; these audiences want them. (Ibid.)
Here, amongst more faith in the traditional repertoire, we see some blame for makam
loss placed upon the popular music market, though in the end there is a confirmation
that at least some of the general audience members do still value the rare and tasteful.
(Though it will take the rest of this dissertation for me to arrive at it properly, I will
be showing in the Conclusion a contradiction in the combination of expectations
shown above in saying that “no-one composes” in one breath and “repertoire tells you
how a makam works” in the next.)
This concern regarding the aforementioned loss of makam-s is widespread among
KTM musicians—even Arel was predicting the demise of many (mostly still extant)
makam-s in the 1940s (1943-48 [1968]: 315-6). However, the fact that the performers
who recorded taksim-s for this project were able to randomly choose the fifty-three
makam-s that appear in them in a sense belies that fear.21 Although it is true that this
number represents perhaps a quarter of all makam-s ever known in the Turkish
21
Note, however, that twelve of these fifty-three makam-s were only employed in internal
modulations, i.e., without full exposition of the makam-s per se (see Appendices B and K).
117
cultural sphere,22 it would be difficult to say whether there was ever a time when all
of them were in concurrent use; it would require further study to verify, but it would
seem to me more likely that between the limits of human memory, the rising and
falling of particular makam-s in popular taste, and the relative fluidity of makam
definitions (e.g., leading to mergers of formerly distinct makam-s, etc.) it has
probably been normative for there to be roughly thirty to sixty makam-s concurrently
in common use at any given time, with an (also) ever changing pool of “rare makam-
s” maintained at the periphery of orally transmitted knowledge (though in many cases
recorded in writing).23
In any case we will note that the issue of makam loss is very often entwined in my
informants’ rhetoric with the idea of a loss of details about specific makam-s.
The following excerpt from an interview with Necati Çelik on June 4, 2009
exemplifies such concerns; note the implicit critiques of the academy and of the
Arelian presentation of makam-s in terms of one pentachord and one tetrachord, as
well as complaints of inattentive students as culpable parties to the loss of makam-s
and their details:
22
Fikret Kutluğ—considered by many theorists to be the most historically complete chronicler/theorist
of Turkish makam—gave the details for 219 makam-s (the earliest of which ostensibly date from the
mid-thirteenth century CE) in his 2000 magnum opus. However note that Gedik et al. (2008: 4) report
that Öztuna (2006) claims that there have been approximately 600 makam-s, that details (other than a
name) exist for 333 of them, and that 70% of (all? Currently played?) repertoire consists of only 20
makam-s. (I have not seen the text to which they are referring.)
23
Such writings, whether as theory books or edvar-s (song collections), etc., exist covering virtually
all periods of Islamic-era maqām/makam music (see Kutluğ 2000; Wright 1978, 1992a, 1992b, and
2000; Ertan 2007). These are precisely the texts one would compare to verify, refine or refute my
assertion here (a project beyond the scope of the present research).
118
EE: So, compared to earlier times, what do people not know now; what sort of
thing is being lost?
NÇ: It’s deficient. Little details are always being lost. Both makam details… a
little earlier I said something, about modulating from one makam to another.
You get a group of students together and, for instance “in Acem Aşiran you
go to Saba, in Acem you don’t” isn’t the sort of thing that is being taught.
EE: Therefore the students play wrongly?
NÇ: It’s not wrongly [yanlış], it’s a deficiency [eksik]. Well, yes, always when
they play, they play wrongly, yes. It’s this deficiency—they don’t know it’s
wrong. Turkish music is being completely lost [kankaybediyor]. We are also
losing makam-s. I’m now 53, going on 54, I’ve been playing for 40 years. I’ve
been very lucky; I had very good teachers, I’ve gotten to talk with Turkey’s
greatest masters. We have conversations, just like you and I have been talking
for a year, I and Aydan [a student, also in the room] for a year—this is like
lessons. That’s meşk. The thing about meşk is, if you have a question you can
ask and we can clarify it.
EE: So in the conservatory, because it’s done in classes, they’re just learning
from the books, “this is the tetrachord, this is the pentachord…”?
NÇ: Of course, of course! As theory only. What do they say about Rast
makam? “Rast pentachord and a rast tetrachord; the tonic is rast; on neva you
make a…” that’s not the makam! That’s not Rast! It’s possible to put Nişabur
into it, but it’s not written anywhere, how will they learn that? Like, what can
you do in the meyan [development] section of Rast? That’s also important.
Really, it comes down to rast tetrachord rast pentachord is not Rast. … Today
young players say, “small details don’t matter.” So it’s getting impossible to
explain the difference between, for instance, Uşşak and Beyati, or Hicaz and
Uzzal (though Hicaz may have moments of Uzzal in it).24 They learn and then
think that knowing “one tetrachord plus one pentachord” is enough, but there
are 99 other things to know about a makam. … Over the years there’s this
kind of problem; “what’s the difference between Uşşak and Beyati? What’s
the difference between Isfahan and Beyati? These have the same tetrachords
and pentachords, so why are they different makam-s?” It all gets played like
Uşşak. That’s probably how it is with the Arabs, isn’t it?
EE: [I name six or seven Turkish makam-s and explain that Arab maqām
musicians I know call them all simply “Bayyāti.”]
24
As explained in Appendix J, there are numerous makam-s that are ostensibly quite similar (such as
those pairings mentioned above), being distinguished in praxis by sometimes quite subtle details.
119
NÇ: Hm. It’s not agreeable [hoş], of course. It might be this; you go to the
fruit seller and there’s all kinds of fruit there: apples, pears, oranges,
tangerines—they’re all together—there are bananas. If you just think “fruit,”
it’s all there, but if it’s in a single pile you can’t distinguish. If there’s a
separate box for bananas, a separate box for apples, a separate box for
oranges… it’s like that. It’s not all mixed together.
Such fluidity in the distinctions between makam-s is not without historical
precedent,25 but aside from the implications of this phenomenon regarding the loss of
individual makam-s, there is also a perceived danger to the richness of the makam
system as a whole:
There used to be known and used many more [makam-s], and they were
“constructive”—they told you about their structure. Now, makam, how shall I
say it? Various makam-s give you details, information, knowledge. Thinking
about them, you develop your mind. Because of this development, production
and performance must be different. The performance is different than before.
Because not knowing the details of the broader makam possibilities makes
playing even the few that people now “know” less rich than it was in the past.
(İhsan Özgen, p.c. 5/27/09)26
The interconnectivity of makam-s within the whole of the makam system is a concept
we shall explore further in following chapters but we can see here the issue of a threat
to such systemic integrity implicit in the widespread loss of makam-s—if the full-
potential richness of any single makam depends upon its relations to (potentially all)
other makam-s, then the richness of each makam is diminished by the disappearance
of any other. A drastic loss of makam-s or of makam details threatens to spiral into a
25
We may cite as examples the barely distinguishable historical differences between the “distinct
makam-s” named Araban, Beyati-Araban, and Karcığar on the one hand (see Kutluğ 2000, Vol. I, pp.
384, 357-9, and 186 respectively) and such a phenomenon as a single makam name covering several
variations that might otherwise be counted as unique makam-s (e.g., three versions of the makam
“Mahur,” ibid.: 438-41).
26
This portion of this interview was conducted in English.
120
compression of the whole system into only a few makam-s, whose details relate only
to each other.
Wrapping up this section (on mass media and the taksim genre, the loss of makam-s,
and changes in pedagogy over the period of study), the following quotes move us
from the perceived losses of makam-s and makam details themselves to criticisms
about changes in pedagogy to which some informants attributed such losses.
Now, in a normal school education, with 15, 20, 30, 40 students in a class, as
in the conservatory, the teacher explains something and they all leave class.
What did this one learn, what did that one learn? Who knows? Who
understood what? Maybe a student has a question but can’t ask it, because the
time has passed. Therefore, it’s not as relaxed as with meşk; meşk is one
teacher with one or a few students explaining it directly. A student can ask
many questions. Now that’s gone. There’s no direct directing [i.e., teachers
cannot be direct and know what each student needs]. There’s no chance for
that in school, for the student. The teacher doesn’t at all know who knows
what and who’s missing what. Therefore, the breaking of the meşk system—
learning certain things is necessary—of course merely in the theory, in the
books, it’s not in there! (Necati Çelik, p.c. 6/4/09)
In a sense this is a criticism of the (government-sponsored, academic) treatment of
KTM as a commodity subjected to a mass media-style pedagogy; inherently the
problem would seem to be an artificial need to push 15, 20, 30, 40 students through a
uniform system despite its inability actually to educate. The remedy is the pre-
industrial, pre-modern, small-scale oral tradition. The following critique by Agnès
Agopian also sounds this theme, and draws it toward the subject of our next section,
the narrative of loss and nostalgia in the classical Turkish music world:
AA: It’s not only learning dörtlü-beşli [tetrachord-pentachord], it’s “I play

some songs, now I can do it. I can listen to what the others have done and I
can do it.” Except it’s a long process. It’s like making nice food, it’s a
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different way of cooking. It needs to be on the fire for a lot of time. And then,
and then…
EE: And that’s why you think that, partly because of the institutionalized
educational system, that they’re not learning to make good taksim-s by way of
learning repertoire?
AA: Yes; my idea is that… all the things that were at the beginning of the
century have been completely, how do you say? Finished, I mean, completely.
EE: Gone.
AA: Yeah. First of all the way of teaching.
EE: Meşk.
AA: Yes, meşk. Second; to get this experience of taksim you need the scene,
you need to be on stage, you need radio, you need cemiyet [associations,
gatherings], you need private meetings, and an audience, of course. Yes! And
then there’s another element, which is that the way with meşk, the way to
educate the students, is to give him the elements to think. You know, you’re
not just an interpreter, you’re someone creating. You’re a creator, you’re
creating something. You’re putting things in the pieces that are not written.
You’re making taksim, you’re thinking about the music. And this was made at
the beginning [of the twentieth century], but now no, because if you say, “in 4
years you’re a musician,”—no, you’re not. This philosophy of life, especially
if you go for half an hour or three quarters of an hour for a lesson, it’s
impossible to give it. And so the whole process is down from all the elements
[each of the elements of the music culture has been debased]. (Agnès
Agopian, p.c. 6/19/09 [conducted in English])
Here the concern is a society-wide collapse of the infrastructure needed to sustain the
music culture, coupled with the loss of the kind of education system that encourages
personal creativity on the part of the artist. This description will serve as a bridge to
our next subject: the widely circulating narrative regarding “things lost since the fall
of the Ottoman Empire.”
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LOSS NARRATIVE AND THE END OF THE EMPIRE
A general nostalgia for the culture (if rarely for the monarchic politics) of Ottoman
times, repressed by the Republican agenda to modernize Turkey by looking to
Western Europe for models of progress, has been noted by political scientists and
historians (for instance Çınar 2005, and Bozdağlıoğlu 2003) as well as by
ethnomusicologists such as Signell (1977, 1980), Feldman (1991, 1996), Stokes
(1997, 1992), O’Connell (2005, 2002a), and Gill (2006).27 This nostalgia is perhaps
particularly strong in the city of Istanbul, and more particularly among persons whose
families have lived in the city for many generations. As mentioned in Chapter III,
classical Turkish music has been at times a site of contention between traditional
culture and a more strictly Westward and future-looking view of Turkish society, and
it is hardly surprising that there exists among some classical musicians a discourse of
nostalgia and loss that both interweaves with the earlier-mentioned “losses” within
the music culture (e.g., of meşk, the number of makam-s in use, makam details,
length of taksim-s, etc.) and moves out beyond them to form a general narrative of
classical Turkish music culture as a beleaguered bastion of refined taste and authentic
heritage currently undervalued in society at large and in danger of perdition.
In fact, the idea that this music would disappear within a generation seems to have
been a commonplace in the culture’s rhetoric for several generations, now (see
27
See especially Gill 2006: 48 regarding “performing Ottomanness.”
123
Signell 1980: 167, And 1984: 222-3, Feldman 1996: 16, Gill 2006: 97-103); I have
heard the same prediction many times in the last ten years, myself.28 The apparent
exaggeration of the rumors of its death notwithstanding, several informants had
something to say about loss in and of classical Turkish music that they couched
within the narrative of nostalgia regarding a lost Ottoman culture. It must be noted,
however, that this narrative is mainly being used as a medium for voicing criticisms
regarding the official Republican opposition to (or later, a perceived co-option of)
KTM, or regarding events that have taken place since the founding of the Republic
(in 1923) generally, rather than as an endorsement of empire, monarchy, or şeriat
(Muslim law, i.e., as civil law), or, despite a wide range of political views amongst
musicians, as a wholesale opposition to the (secular, democratic, economically
liberal) Republic.
For instance one version of this narrative was told me by neyzen-s Eymen Gürtan and
Selçuk Gürez. Both from longstanding Istanbul families, they participate with perhaps
20 other instrumentalists and singers in a weekly study and practice session centered
on mastering the ayin genre—the music for the Mevlevi sema or “whirling dervish
ceremony.” This group meets at the Nasuhi Mehmet Efendi Dergâh, a centuries-old
Sufi “tekke” in the Üsküdar section of Istanbul;29 the group very graciously accepted
28
Ethnomusicologist Denise Gill, who will be mentioning it in her upcoming dissertation “May God
Increase Your Pain”: Turkish Classical Music, Gender, Subjectivities, and the Cultural Politics of
Melancholy, alerts me that this idea has been circulating for at least two hundred years (p.c. 6/8/11).
29
A dergâh is the tomb of a saintly Muslim—this one being that of Nasuhi Mehmet (1648-1718), the
founder of the Nasuhi branch of the Cerrahi order of Sufism—although it had been a “tekke” (Sufi
124
me in their ranks, and I played lâvta with them weekly from January of 2009 until my
departure from Turkey in late August the same year.
The narrative that Gürtan and Gürez shared with me laments a “loss of culture” over
the last century in such a way as to conflate Ottoman heritage with the culture of the
city of Istanbul itself. In fact one hour-long conversation with them (of 1/7/09, which
I must condense here, rather than quote) began with the idea that classical Turkish
music is the music not of Turkey, nor of the Turkish people, but of Istanbul. It had
been created as a synthesis of Turkish, Byzantine, Arab, and Persian musics, and
performed, enjoyed and maintained continuously over the centuries by a multicultural
urban Ottoman society consisting of Greek and Armenian Christians, and Jews
(mainly Sephardic, but also Romaniote, Karaite and Ashkenazi) as well as the
dominant Muslim majority (especially by the Mevlevi and other Sufis).30 All of these
people, they explained, played music together, attended each others’ festivals and
ceremonies (both religious and secular), and shared in a unique culture—including
poetry, literature, cuisine, architecture, calligraphy and decorative arts, as well as
music. When, over the course of the twentieth century and for a variety of reasons,
Istanbul’s minority communities greatly diminished, and simultaneously the city’s
“lodge”) in previous centuries, officially all Sufi tekke-s had been shut down by the government in
1924-5 and it was not legal to refer to it officially as such.
30
We may note here that while there is a rhetorical recognition of historic interactivity with Arab
maqām music and especially of the heavy initial influence of Persian court music on early Ottoman
makam music, these are treated in this discourse as relics of the pre-Cantemir period (ca. 1300-1700),
as opposed to the more recently active roles of the Turkish, Greek, Armenian and Jewish participants
in the music culture. The Persian influence remains most conspicuously in Mevlevi religious hymns
that use the (Persian language) poetry of thirteenth-century mystic poet Celal ud-Din Rumi as lyrics
(despite the fact that very few musicians or audience members understand the language).
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population swelled from around 1 million to the current count of around 20 million—
a huge majority of them being “unsophisticated villagers” come from the countryside
(and by now, their descendants)—then traditional Istanbul culture was broken. Only a
few hundred people such as themselves are keeping it alive at all. Such was their
lament.
They, and several other musicians at different times, remarked that they regarded
me—whom in this context they saw as a cosmopolitan, multilingual, Jewish scholar
deeply involved in classical Ottoman/Turkish music, playing ayin-s weekly in a Sufi
tekke and living an assimilated life in one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods
(Üsküdar)—as more an Istanbulite than many of their own neighbors. For my own
part, especially regarding my involvement with the Nasuhi Mehmet Dergâhı/tekke, I
felt as though the musicians were discursively dusting off a long unused chair and
saying, “Come in, we’ve been expecting your return!”—I feel that my being Jewish,
particularly, was a major factor in such an acceptance; it enhanced their multicultural
discourse about the group’s activity and the “lost” culture it re-imagined. A couple of
diaspora-Armenian musician friends living in Istanbul whom I invited to the group
were equally welcome. It must be admitted that we were all in some sense performing
a mutually-supporting vision of the traditionally multicultural Istanbul we wanted to
live in; other Istanbul-s, so to speak, could easily be found right around the corner
that might not be as ideal.
126
This traditional multiculturalism was something the group generally viewed as a
characteristic of Ottoman, as well as Istanbul, culture (though it must be noted that
the shifts in demographics that caused the lamented state might well have also
occurred had the Empire persisted), and the loss of it was seen as at the root of the
impoverishment of classical Turkish music. Gürtan added that the general loss of old
Istanbul culture led to a diminishing of educated listeners, and of music education,
and that “advancements” in instrumental techniques (q.v. below) have been well
received by the new audiences because they are unable to tell if the artist’s makam
knowledge is good or bad, and therefore whether a taksim was clever or simplistic,
conservative or innovative.
Below is another example of the “loss narrative,” but this time from a performer who
did not believe in the authenticity of cultural continuity that was inherent in the
attitude of the men (and occasionally, women) participating in the Nasuhi Mehmet
Efendi ayin group:31
Agnès Agopian: Well, especially Turkish music is very… volatile? Is that

how you say it? If you don’t play it, the tradition goes away.
EE: Vulnerable?
AA: Vulnerable? No it’s not what I mean. It goes away very fast. Like, you…
for instance the Mevlevi tradition now is gone.
EE: There are still a few tekke-s where they do ayin-s and sema.
AA: Yes, but for me it’s not [real], because at that time [i.e., in pre-
Republican times] “tekke” meant very intellectual. High level education, high
31
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level people. They were… they knew of course how to write, they were hatat
[calligraphers], they were composing poems, they were playing music, they
were talking together and living together and, yeah, philosophy and a very
high rank style of living, and… thinkers. And now, of course they do it
[perform the Mevlevi “whirling dervish” ceremony], but it’s technique [that
they teach and study]. It’s not… and it’s not only the players. The dancers.
The dancers maybe, but the players are not [participating in traditional
culture]. Because the players are not at all… they’re playing other things and
they’re coming [to the tekke] for it [to play ayin-s for the “whirling dervish”
ceremony] and because they know the notes [i.e., notation; metonymically, the
repertoire] they play the notes and then they go home, and this is it. And for
me it’s not real. It is a way of life that’s lost. I think it’s the same thing for
gazino [old-fashioned nightclub (see Beken 1998)]. Now you have very few
people that can play fasıl correctly, because you don’t have gazino anymore.
(P.c. 6/19/09)
Here the loss is framed as practically irrecoverable, but worse still, the tradition’s
tormenters have not yet disappeared; later she added:
Well, I suppose you know very well that this music is the image of the old
regime and that it cannot be promoted… they were openly saying, writing in
all the papers, “we have three kinds of music you have to promote: folk music,
Western music and the mix of them.” And this is very clear, and there’s no
place for it [classical music]. But they succeeded, huh? They’ve been
murdering it very well! (Ibid.)
She also saw the negative effects of the imposition of modernity manifest in changes
in audience participation, and in artists’ motivation:
And then, you have no audience and no stage. Because… for instance, I‘ve
seen people gathering in homes and making fasıl who play for three hours,
five hours. Now that’s impossible. Now no-one has the time or patience to
listen to music for 5 hours at a time—after ten minutes they’re looking at their
watches and thinking about the next thing they have to do—much less 5 hours
in the same or similar makam-s, as in a fasıl [see also Signell 2007: 18]. The
fast pace of modern life doesn’t allow it. And the way that now they’re
becoming professionals in that way… they need money and they’re running
after money, and that everything that is not money is… you know? And this is
also very bad, because where is the music, then? So the whole thing is… the
whole cycle is broken. (Ibid.)
128
Here the systemic collapse of the music culture’s infrastructure is shown as
interacting with the general losses accompanying “the modern condition.” Such
laments are quite common; in the following one, the resulting general aporia is
extended to teachers and players in the tradition:
Now everybody wants everything fast and easy. They [today’s students] don’t
learn the value of service. They don’t even read books. And the masters have
been lost. Teachers don’t even know what to teach their students. It’s not
terrible—there are good tanbur players today. But they can’t agree with each
other, they don’t know what to show. (Ahmet Nuri Benli, p.c. 6/4/09)
More generally, there would also seem to be a kind of lack of confidence regarding
present players’ ability to live up to the examples of the masters of the earlier part of
our period:
The old masters were dying out by the 1950s, then there was a gap that was
filled by people making a new style of taksim: Necdet Yaşar, Niyazi Sayın,
Cinuçen Tanrıkorur, later İhsan Özgen—and this was a major change. Today
there are few people to fill the shoes of these masters. The younger
generation, including myself,32 isn’t as outstanding as they were in the last
generations. (Professional ud-ist and composer Osman Kırklıkçı, p.c. 2/19/09)
However, it is not merely greatness that is perceive as missing, but even individual
identity:
Players used to want to develop their own üslup or tavır [personal style], but
not now… you used to be able to tell who a player was on a recording after
just a few seconds, but now you have to look on the CD to see who it is.33
(Necati Çelik, p.c. 5/11/09)
32
I would guess that Mr. Kırklıkçı is in his late 40s or early 50s, as are the other members of “the
younger generation” whom he mentioned subsequently.
33
To be clear, I would note that I very much doubt that Mr. Çelik, who parenthetically is of the same
“generation” as Mr. Kırklıkçı, meant that he personally has not shaped a distinctive sound; he is here
referring to the generation after his own.
129
Understanding these sentiments as laments over changes in a broader cultural field
than the music culture alone, we may note that many classical Turkish musicians
demonstrate a conservationist-minded affiliation with Turkey’s Ottoman past through
their rhetoric (outright claims to legacy, continued complaints about the way early
Republicanism attempted to abolish their music and culture), in language choices
(e.g., by using institutionally discouraged Ottoman language terms and proverbs, and
by studying or claiming to study the [defunct] Ottoman language), by staging
concerts in conjunction with displays of other traditional arts (especially calligraphy,
paper marbling, shadow puppet theater, and Ottoman language poetry), and by
religious affiliation with once-banned Sufi sects (especially the Mevlevi, Cerrahi, and
Bektaşi orders), including participation in Sema (“whirling dervish”) rituals and to a
lesser extent music therapy (darüşşifa) groups. Whether used merely to shape an
aesthetic and poetic sense, as a strategy for protesting general changes of the
twentieth century, or as an enactment of a non-Westernizing, alternative form of
modernity, selectively nostalgizing Ottoman-ness is a normative activity in today’s
classical Turkish music culture.
Continuing within the subject of changes in the KTM world of the last one hundred
years, but moving back toward the technically musical, the next section deals with
performers’ ideas on changes in playing techniques, and in the sound and physical
construction of music instruments.
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CHANGES IN PLAYING TECHNIQUES
Our first quote on this subject imputes a causal relationship between a growing
preference for spectacular technique and the aforementioned loss of makam-s:
Whereas the art itself used to be about how few phrases one could use to
encapsulate the essence of the makam performed, recently it has become
about technical proficiency, flash: technique has been the focus, with a loss of
makam knowledge. There are hundreds of people who can do a Hicaz or
Hüseyni taksim, but very few who can play a good Pesendide or Rahat-ül
Ervah.34 (Semi-professional ney player and private teacher Eymen Gürtan,
p.c. 3/10/09)
Similarly:
The fact that technique was just, I would say, 50-50; was just half of
playing… of course, you develop the technique—if you have no technique
you cannot play. But this was just half of it. Because with technique [only]
you couldn’t do anything. But now it’s not the same thing. Now, technique
has… when I hear some… especially with kanun, when I hear some taksim-s,
I think that they’re taking me—the audience—for an exercise trial. They do an
exercise [verbally imitates a fast “dika-dika-dika-dika” kanun phrase], and
then again, in case I’m a little bit stupid [dika-dika etc.], and then again, a
third time to say that, “you see; it’s difficult and I can do it!” And there is no
melody in it, there’s nothing, there’s no link with the makam. (Agnès
Agopian, p.c. 6/19/09)35
Below, a more nuanced view of the same phenomenon marks a change in performers’
poetic approach:
The “sentence structure” changed from long ones to short. The style [üslup]
and mannerisms/expression [ifade] changed—previously players had been
more disciplined and “normative” [i.e., conservative], taking from
compositions, but later their approach became speculative, exploratory. They
[in older times] looked at the normative frame, the makam-s’ melodic
specialties, and their understanding of the main frame[work] of the basic
34
Hicaz and Hüseyni being relatively common and simple makam-s and Pesendide and Rahat-ül
Ervah being relatively rare and complex ones.
35
131
makam, more or less the same; they all copied from each other… they obeyed
the rules. Nowadays, interpretation is basic. Their interpretations used to be
more sophisticated, more refined and impressive. Now the details are
disappearing. According to detail, expression is maybe different. … Because
the details are lost, the playing is more expressive. Technique-oriented. (İhsan
Özgen, p.c. 5/27/09)36
This seems to imply a “feedback loop” between the aforementioned loss of makam
details and the proliferation of virtuosity for its own sake. But the playing technique
for ud, for instance, has noticeably become slower paced over the same period. At
one point during an interview with ud-ist Necati Çelik I remarked that the “old
fashioned” style of ud playing—that is, the style found on 78 rpm recordings from the
early part of the twentieth century—featured faster and more constant picking than
today’s style, and I wondered aloud if they generally made more modulations then
than now.
Certainly they made more modulations before. Everything has changed. The
whole style has changed. By playing slowly [as is common now] you take
your time with each part and there’s a completely different style of
expression. But the reason ud-ists on old recordings play so many notes so fast
is because of the time restriction of the medium; they probably played in a
more relaxed way when not recording. (P.c. 6/4/09)
I have also heard that the nature of early recording technology favored constant,
relatively fast playing because the resonance of the ud’s upper harmonics and the
duration of its long notes were severely attenuated in the medium; changes in both
recording media and in ud-s themselves (see below) have likely contributed to the
slower, perhaps more introspective ud style generally favored today. But,
36
This interview was conducted in both Turkish and English.
132
remembering Mr. Çelik’s earlier-quoted remarks regarding time constraints upon
taksim-s, we must understand that the overall situation he is describing is one in
which—for ud-ists, at least—taksim playing is at once more slowly done than in
earlier times, and is given less time than had traditionally been given for their
execution, a result of which is fewer modulations, and therefore implicitly less
complex taksim-s. Another time he had commented:
There are poets, and there are novelists. A poet, in four lines, can write as
much as a book. So how does a poet do it with these limitations? [Tanburi]
Cemil Bey, in three minutes, put three hours worth of music in a taksim. Since
not everyone can do that, it’s broken/spoiled [bozulmuş]. Am I clear? It’s hard
to do a long taksim. It’s like writing a novel. A novelist can describe a whole
scene in detail. A poet is more concentrated. I don’t mean that one can’t make
a good short taksim, but the art of making long ones has been lost. (P.c.
1/12/09)
Here the loss narrative is so pervasive that, regardless of revised playing techniques
apparently aimed at increased subtlety of expression, there is no other escape from the
loss and the conditions causing it but genius, and that too is in the past.
Several performers felt that there had previously been more focus on crafting
structured melodic lines in taksim-s than is generally heard today, as when Ahmet
Toz spoke to me of “little stories” that used to appear in taksim melodies, but that are
no longer heard (p.c. 6/18/09). Below Agnès Agopian tells a similar tale but
emphasizes that it was thus regardless of a player’s technical capabilities:
And there is something else, too, which for me is basic, it’s… at that time
[early-twentieth century] they were making taksim-s out of songs.37 So it was
a kind of… it was the beginning of the process of composing. So you have
37
This interview was conducted in English. I believe from the context that she meant to say “songs out
of taksim-s” rather than “taksim-s out of songs,” however see remarks on quotations from established
repertoire appearing in taksim-s below, and in Chapters V and VI.
133
melodies in the taksim… not now. They were thinking about, “OK, we have
learned this and that, and now, what is the [meaning of a] makam for us?”
And they’d play, it’s like a song, like, you have melodies and things, and it’s
not [a] virtuosity show, it’s just, what… with my technique, what can I say,
what can I do? And then you have melodies, and from those melodies they
were composing. They were taking some of them and composing, it’s a cycle
that never ends. (p.c. 6/19/09)
Again, this is a critique of an attitude that seems to treat playing technique as a
replacement for “meaningful” musical production rather than as a means of
enhancing it.
Before moving onward to a section on the effects of changes in musical instruments, I
would make note that some of the artists’ comments on changes in playing technique
were framed as pertaining to specific instruments:
And virtuosity makes them think that technique is the aim and not the way to
achieve something more important. If you listen to, for instance… kanun is a
very good example, because from the beginning of the [twentieth] century ‘til
now it’s a different instrument. Because kanun was not a very virtuosic
instrument, but you would do lots of things. They had a certain [limited]
technique, and through this technique they would do things that now they
don’t. Now they can’t even think about it. (Agnès Agopian, p.c. 6/19/09)38
And similarly:
On an ud, compared to a ney, you can play a lot more sentences. Ney plays a
lot fewer. Because it’s made for longer tones, and wants to sing in the most
meaningful and voice-like way. It wants to convey meaning. Therefore it
always says less than a plucked instrument. But it says more valuable things,
the ney. … The ney and the kemençe both have long tones. Even the tanbur,
when you pluck it, it rings. It can play both [a drone] accompaniment and the
melody, so it has that advantage. After that, the kemençe is more advantaged
than the ney, then the ney, then other instruments. (Ahmet Toz, p.c. 6/18/09)
38
134
Other changes in playing style were attributed to changes in the instruments
themselves, which is the subject of the next brief section:
CHANGES IN INSTRUMENT SOUND AND CONSTRUCTION
To me the biggest change was that the instruments started to sound like
themselves. The ney doesn’t even try to play like a tanbur, now, doesn’t play
tanbur melodies. The kemençe doesn’t do ud melodies. Like [ud-ist] Mehmet
Bitmez plays very ud-like melodies. … Every instrument used to take the
same stereotypes [beylik-s; stereotyped melodic fragments (see below)] from
other instruments. They took all the [same] understandings/interpretations
[anlayışlar]. (Ney player Ahmet Toz, p.c. 6/18/09)
Here is perhaps a curiously refreshing relief from the earlier theme of constant loss—
a change that is actually framed in positive terms! The ud seems particularly to have
done well for itself:
I can say this about the ud; they now make them to have a longer sound [i.e.,
more sustain], more like a tanbur, despite having a short neck—55
centimeters—so now they have a long sound [hums a long time on one tone].
Resonance. In the old times ud-s had a shorter resonance period, so it was
necessary to play a lot more with the plectrum. Today, plucking once, you can
make a little melody [using just the fingering hand]. The sound, the
frequencies, still ring. Therefore there was a change in the style [üslup]. The
first to do this was Cinuçen Tanrıkorur. He, being a lover of tanbur and of
Cemil Bey, played the ud such that it would sound like the tanbur. Therefore
he needed a longer resonance, like the tanbur whose long neck gives it a much
longer sound. He started to ask ud makers, “how can we make this short-
necked instrument have a longer sound?” Cinuçen Tanrıkorur mixed ud and
tanbur styles and came out with a new feel. So, because of this ud-ists didn’t
play any longer using the plectrum so much as in olden times, now it’s more
of the color of running water.39 (Ud player Necati Çelik, p.c. 6/4/09)
39
To hear this difference, compare earlier recordings on Kalan Records’ 2004 Türk Müziği Ustaları:
Ud to the later ones in the same collection by Tanrıkorur (CD 2, tracks 19-21). NB: Stanley Sadie
considered this development to be older than indicated here; see 2000 s.v. “Ùd.”
135
Ironically, however, the tanbur-s that such ud-s and ud playing techniques were
modeled on have apparently themselves undergone their own development in exactly
the opposite direction (providing us a return to the familiar strains of the loss
narrative):
Tanbur construction was changed; thinner tops ruined the sound. Now the
sound is thin, “wah-wah” instead of “tuuung”—it’s become cold. So tanbur
picking went from many notes for each stroke [i.e., the fretting fingers played
several tones for each pluck] to one note per stroke. Also, in the old times a
pick was a millimeter and a half thick. Ercüment [Batanay, his teacher] used 1
or 2. Nowadays they play with 5 millimeters thick. Today they play with too
thick a pick, and their position is too high. And now they [tanbur-s] come with
too many frets, also—Ercüment would just cut them off until there were 24
rather than 31 or 55 or whatever. Tanburi Cemil Bey had 27 frets, and others
then followed him, but he was a master; how are you going to make 55 frets
sound better than he did 27? (Yaylı tanbur player Ahmet Nuri Benli, p.c.
6/4/09)
For the most part classical instruments otherwise remained as they had been over the
period, though it is notable that Arel is credited with having invented the four-course
kemençe, and a family of these in four sizes, apparently to match the Western string
quartet (there is still some rivalry between enthusiasts of the two types). Moving
away altogether from the theme of “change” and on toward the subject of performers’
and educators’ thoughts on the taksim genre itself, the following section presents
quotes on what taksim means for these performers, and how they learned to make
them.
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PERFORMERS AND EDUCATORS ON TAKSİM
The following section is perhaps less focused than those above because while the
subject was of great interest for ethnographically contextualizing the research, the
prompt I gave performers—simply to “tell me about taksim”—was very broad. The
responses that came back turned out to concern: different sorts of taksim; what kind
of musical material can be in one; the genre’s place in KTM; whether the genre has
decreased in importance over the period; what makes a “modern taksim,” and what
makes an “ugly” one; taksim in regard to certain specific makam-s; regional
“accents” in playing taksim-s; and how performers learned initially to play taksim.
Quotes reflecting these concerns—some of them a bit long in order to show the
context of a train of thought on a subject—follow:
A taksim is both artistic and an improvisation, and—always!—it is a lesson. A

lesson for [other] people who want to play. Everything that can be done is in a
good one, so it’s a lesson. Therefore where a taksim is played is important.
For instance, when you’re starting a peşrev [prelude in a suite], it [i.e., a
taksim before the prelude] can be a little different, but when you’re playing a
peşrev for a Mevlevi ayin it can’t be different [i.e., have modulations not
found within the coming peşrev]. A taksim changes always according to the
piece it introduces. But is there a logic to it? There is. As a ney player I’ve
introduced many ayin-s thus; everyone knows they need to [refer to, quote, or
otherwise be in accord with the upcoming piece] but not everyone can do it.
Even more important, in the smallest of phrases, the most miniature melodies
are hidden. In a Nihavend taksim, a dance could be hidden, a zeybek [kind of
folk dance tune] could be hidden. One doesn’t say, “it’s a zeybek,” they don’t
literally play a zeybek, but in a taksim that can also be there. The most crazy
things. That thought is there, in the architecture of the taksim. A makam’s
being in Uşşak, as you know, should end on La, dügâh, but sometimes it ends
somewhere else. One might not agree with that, but Dede Efendi’s music also
has that. … But because people put in so many influences in their taksim-s
today, unfortunately, now it just becomes showing off. If they can do
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something with their instrument, they try to. But just one mini movement, one
tiny phrase, going from one sound to another, in a moment can move a taksim
forward. (Ahmet Toz, p.c. 6/18/09)
Here what shines through is the idea that a taksim should be both suitable to and
responsive to the repertoire surrounding it (though of course a taksim may also stand
apart from repertoire). I noted in conversation with Agnès Agopian that before this
research trip I had not realized the importance of repertoire to taksim making, nor the
centrality of it in musicians’ minds compared to the taksim genre, which I had seen as
central to the art form. She agreed that taksim is the “heart” of KTM, and opined that
“taksim is more important in Arab and Persian music”:
Turkish music is now, and always was, the most Westernized or Western-
influenced of the “Oriental musics,” and therefore taksim is less important
than repertoire. By the late-nineteenth century, after Donizetti [see Chapter
II], it is no longer a court music; already by 1910 taksim was not so important.
Because Tanburi Cemil Bey was a genius at it, so people asked him to play
them—and of course taksim is the musician’s pride! When Western music lost
improvisation it affected Ottoman music’s privileging of it, too; it being a
court tradition [had] strengthened the importance of taksim. We only have so
many recordings of taksim-s from around 1910 because there were a few
geniuses at it.
This comment was the only one I heard making any sort of link between Western
music and the taksim genre. When I wondered aloud why “improvisation” may have
ended in European art music but continued in Ottoman then Turkish art music, she
took the position that it was the normative state in a living music and, giving context
to the widespread worry that “no-one is composing in classical Turkish music,”
noted:
Improvisation stopped in the West not because Beethoven and Liszt wrote out
their cadenze, but from the time performer-composers stopped playing their
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own material—when the concert norm went from “Bach plus Mozart plus me”
to just a museum of other people’s old pieces. (P.c. 6/19/09)40
While Ms. Agopian saw a trend in which the taksim genre had been continually
diminishing in importance to the music culture as a whole, Şehvar Beşiroğlu
expressed a different view on the subject; in response to my question “has the
importance of taksim diminished [over the last 100-150 years]?” she answered:
No, for me it is the opposite. After Cemil Bey, especially, because he marks
the coming of the instrumental virtuoso. The idea of what a virtuoso is in
Turkish music and how to make such [taksim-s] on our instruments. Tanburi
Cemil Bey, and the others—[ud-ists] Yorgo Bacanos and Şerif Muhiddin
Targan, or [neyzen] Niyazi Sayın—these kinds of persons ... also, for a
virtuoso, you are limited by the repertoire [in terms of] showing virtuosity,
because the repertoire, you know, is not very complicated. There are some
complicated pieces, like very new pieces; [twentieth-century composers] Reşit
Aysu, Ferit Anlar… yes, maybe two composers, but not very many. Now
there’s [current composer and kanun player] Göksel Baktagir or some other
composers’ pieces. But the old repertoire, especially the instrumental pieces,
are very limited for showing virtuosity. Taksim is a way to show your ability
on the instrument. Yes, but for me it’s the opposite; before Cemil Bey it was
not as important, maybe they were equal, or maybe the repertoire was more
important. But after Cemil Bey taksim is now very important. It’s true that
there is less time for them on TV, radio, concert programs. But you can make
up for it on CDs. (P.c. 1/30/09)41
Here again appears the idea of the central importance of the canonical repertoire but,
newly, as something whose very simplicity invites the taksim to rise in prominence.
The question of the taksim genre’s prominence or importance cannot be answered
except in terms of change from previous standards, and the period of reference
therefore changes the answer; it seems to be much diminished from the hour-long
40
41
139
excursions described in Cantemir and Fonton (see Chapter II), but perhaps it has
indeed found better favor in the past 100 to 150 years than it had recently before.
Semi-retired kemençe and tanbur master İhsan Özgen, who is known as both a
faithful interpreter of the traditional style and as one of the major innovators of KTM
in the twentieth century commented not on changes in the esteem of the taksim genre,
but on the indigenous provenance of the changes that constitute a “modern” taksim:
For me “modern” means “non-normative.” In my opinion “modernity” is a

Western concept. They made it for themselves, according to their social needs,
so what might be called “modern” taksim-s may be simply contemporary, but
actually according to our own aesthetic, not necessarily Westernized. (P.c.
3/30/09)
This reminded me of a remark neyzen Eymen Gürtan made upon the relative
conservatism informing the classical Turkish music culture:
Europe and the West look to the future as an open, empty space while the East
looks at the future, then looks behind for guidance, takes a step, looks back
again... (P.c. 3/10/09)
I am reminded by this to mention that, unlike in Western classical music of the last
century and more, there has been virtually no interest among classical Turkish
musicians in experimenting with the music’s fundaments. Whereas Western art music
over that period was virtually a playground for incorporating into the traditional
aesthetic all manner of sound that had previously been considered ugly—through
extreme chromaticism, atonality and serialism; polymodality; found sound,
mechanical and electronic noise; static timbres and minimalism; newly created
140
“synthetic” instruments and the destruction or unorthodox use of conventional
instruments in performance, etc.—classical Turkish music still adheres to an aesthetic
that values classical ideas of beauty and rejects that which reflects classical ideas of
what is ugly. This will be an important factor in understanding “acceptable” and
“unacceptable” combinations of cins-es to be presented in Chapter VI, but at this
point we may merely note that part of the caution expressed in the last two quotes
regarding modernity and change come out of a position grounded in such a
conservative aesthetic.
Following this thought, I asked Necati Çelik during a conversation about the contrasts
and balances between traditional and newer influences upon taksim, “what would
make a taksim ugly or unacceptable?”
Firstly, it’s a matter of taste—virtually anything could work in the right

setting, or maybe you’d like it despite it being strange. For instance
[seventeenth-century composer] Benli Hasan Ağa wrote a Rast Peşrev that
starts with a nişabur çeşni—totally strange; it uses two notes outside of the
scale—buselik and nim hicaz. No-one else ever tried it, but it works. Or for
instance during [the holy month of] Ramazan there’s customarily a set of
prayers sung/read in Acem Aşiran,42 followed by ilahi-s [Sufi hymns] in that
makam, then another set in Eviç—quite distant [a modulation], a strange
transition, but you come to expect and even like it. But any change that is
shocking—like cold water poured over you on a hot day—that’s ugly. Like
modulations that don’t belong to the makam. For example, in Acem Aşiran
ninety-nine percent of the time there’s a modulation to Saba—even though the
books don’t say so—but in Acem there is almost never one; if you put one
there it will likely go badly, because it makes the performer look like s/he
42
Note that in some Islamic societies the question of whether or not music is legitimate or permissible
has resulted in the rhetorical segregation of secular “singing” and liturgical or otherwise religious
“recitation” (which might, to a person unfamiliar with the conventions, appear very much like singing).
But in Turkey—where this polemic has nearly always been resolved in music’s favor—such a
distinction is in any case blurred by the fact that in Turkish the verb “to sing,” whatever the context, is
expressed either by the verb söylemek (literally “to say”) or by okumak (“to read”).
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doesn’t know what s/he’s doing, and presumes that the audience doesn’t,
either. (P.c. 5/11/09)
Eymen Gürtan gave me a similar answer to the same question, stating that a taksim or
modulation is ugly when it disturbs the feeling established in the makam, particularly
if it surprises the listener “as though pulling away a warm blanket quickly” (p.c.
6/14/10).43
Moving on to look at performers’ ideas regarding the suitability of certain makam-s
for making taksim-s, the following artists reflected on ways in which they think of
certain makam-s specifically:
There can’t be a classical set [takım] in Nihavend. Because it’s a song [şarkı]
makam. Therefore a Nihavend taksim is required to be light [hafif olmak
zorundadır]. You know what I mean? According to the repertoire. According
to the way it’s used in the repertoire, that’s how you make a taksim in a
makam. Hicaz: anything can be in there. There’s no problem. Any kind of set
can be made. Light songs can also be played. But it can’t be in Nihavend. It
can’t be in Yegâh. There can’t be a classical set in Yegâh. In the middle of
Yegâh makam, it can be changeable, right? Anything comes. You can make
Buselik, Hicaz, Uşşak, Rast on dügâh, all of them come in. (Ahmet Toz, p.c.
6/18/09)
We see here again the concern for playing taksim-s in accord with surrounding and
associated repertoire, but beyond that, and this artist’s opinions of these specific
makam-s, the quote is interesting in its implication that a makam that is particularly
welcoming of internal modulations in a taksim is therefore one that disqualifies as
being “classical.” We may contrast this to Cantemir’s description of the original
taksim genre as basically requiring such a makam to act as the framework for all
43
Note in both examples the aforementioned metaphor of coldness as negative.
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other makam-s (and other modal entities; see Chapter II). Let us contrast this against
a description by Agnès Agopian about the Ur-classical makam Rast:
My teacher [Aram Kerovpian, a student of Sadettin Öktenay] taught me that

Rast is like an old man. He’s seen everything and knows everyone by name;
any makam can be inside Rast. And it moves peacefully, deliberately,
dignified. And when he sits down—when you make the cadence—you lower
the third degree, segâh, very gently—not like in Uşşak—like it’s the end of
the day for this tired old fellow. (P.c. 6/19/09)44
Here not only do we see a wonderful sort of affective understanding of a specific
makam (and a fine example of the “cazibe” effect on intonation that we learned of
earlier in this chapter), but it would seem that the makam’s openness to internal
modulations is precisely part of what makes it the “classic” it is.
For a view on the distinction between makam-s in this regard, the following quote by
retired professional violinist Ünal Ensari on the makam Hicaz is notable for several
reasons: for pointing out that some makam-s are “broad” (need little modulation to
satisfy) while others are “narrow” (i.e., benefit from modulation, and perhaps may not
even stand on their own as makam-s per se); for noting that some makam-s are better
suited to accepting modulations than others; and finally as an example of a player
very experienced in the art of taksim imagining aloud appropriate connections (that
is, modulatory possibilities) between makam-s. In this respect he is verbalizing the
sort of choices that all taksim performers make spontaneously when executing a
taksim.
44
143
Hicaz is a broad [geniş] makam. It’s not necessary to go to other makam-s.
You can do it in the meyan [development section of a taksim], if you want;
you could go to Şehnaz. You could open up Nişaburek, you could play like
Rast all the way down to yegâh, but… Hicaz is so broad that there is no need.
But if you want to you can. If you want to pass to other makam-s, you can.
Like when I went to Eviç, I could have opened Evcara. From there I could
have gone to Hüzzam, and from there to Segâh, or Tiz Segâh. Or Nişaburek.
There are many makam-s you can go to. Mahur. You can turn to Nikriz. You
can do all of these. But Hicaz makam is a broad makam. Some others are not,
they’re narrow [dar]. Like Kürdi is very broad; but Arazbar, or Müstear
makam, it’s narrow; you can’t do anything with it. After playing it you have to
go to another makam. Hicaz, Uşşak, Segâh, Hüzzam, these are broad… Rast.
Before exhausting Rast you can have played a long time already. There’s no
need. While making a taksim, for instance a Hicaz taksim, it isn’t right to go
to another makam before showing Hicaz properly. Same with Rast. But in the
meyan, after showing the makam, you can go to another. I mean, going to
other makam-s in the meyan is correct. That’s after playing Hicaz’s meyan. If
you want to make a longer taksim, you go to other makam-s in the meyan, but
then return to Hicaz. (P.c. 1/16/09)
Mr. Ensari also mentioned that there is a way of playing Hicaz that is called “İstanbul
Hicazı”; Hicaz, that is, “with an Istanbul accent” (though he did not elaborate on what
that meant). This reminded me of a comment by yaylı tanbur player Ahmet Nuri
Benli, who, after hearing a recording I had made of a taksim by another yaylı tanbur
player, said “he plays with an accent… where is he from?” I told him that the other
player was from a certain region in the south-east of Turkey. “Ah, that’s why,” he
replied, with a bit of disdain in his voice; “You can turn it off now.” Later in that
conversation, he mentioned that the makam Kürdili Hicazkâr is an “Istanbul makam”;
“It can’t be played except in the Istanbul way, with the Istanbul prosody.”
Continuing with artists’ ideas of specific makam-s in terms of making taksim-s,
Necati Çelik noted:
144
Neva [makam] is little used because it’s barren [kısır], like a poor person
[fakir gibi]. And for example when you play Evcara, in the beginning there is
some Müstear. Otherwise you cannot make Evcara. But Müstear alone is
barren. (P.c. 12/1/08)
Though this quote may mean little to a reader who has not yet heard these makam-s, I
would note that in the 100 taksim-s presented in the DVDs of Appendix L, Neva
makam indeed does not appear at all, Evcara does not appear without some Müstear,
and Müstear appears only once alone, after having been (con-)fused by the performer
with another makam.
Some players felt that certain makam-s were better or worse for certain instruments.
For instance for me, on a ney, the makam Muhayyer-Kürdi is not very nice.
But Pesendide is good for it. (Selçuk Gürez, p.c. 1/7/09)
And similarly:
If the transposition is very easy, they are all good [for the kanun], but the
mandal system [levers that change the strings’ pitches] is … it gets in trouble,
on the kanun. Like in yıldız akort [transposed an octave higher than normal;
see Appendix F] you can play, but there’s not enough mandal-s for Saba or
Bestenigâr. (Şehvar Beşiroğlu, p.c. 1/30/09)
Hoping we would make some shared (müşterek) taksim recordings with neyzen Salih
Bilgin, tanbur player Murat Aydemir was considering makam-s to play, and noted
that Bestenigâr, Saba, and Evcara are particularly good for ney, but that ney players
don’t like Hicazkâr (p.c. 2/5/09). Generally, however, musicians are willing and able
to play any makam they know, and to sight-read repertoire in any makam presented
them, whether known or not. As to individual artists’ preferences (which may or may
not correspond to ease of playing on their respective instruments), I would note that
145
all of the makam-s in the 42 recorded taksim-s in Appendix L for which performers
gave their own analysis were chosen by the performers themselves.
I would note that makam-s are sometimes described by singers and other performers
during the introductory patter before songs in a staged program in ways such as, “a
makam dear to us,” “a rare but beautiful makam,” or these from a concert by singer
Aylin Şengün Tasçı: “They say there are two kinds of makam: Kürdili Hicazkâr, and
all the rest,” and “The next piece is in Muhayyer-Kürdi, a fine makam for love
songs.” This would indicate that such performers believe that the audience is relating
to a knowledge of makam-s at least on that level, or perhaps these are educational
moments whereby the performer hopes to create such associations. There is also a
movement, headed by Dr. Rahmi Oruç Güvenç and his group “Tumata,” to revive a
very old (if probably always somewhat obscure) Ottoman tradition of music therapy,
wherein specific healing powers are attributed to certain makam-s. Although some
performers I met thought such therapy possibly effective (and certain of them played
in such groups, whether or not they believed in its effectiveness), I found neither
widespread faith in this traditional music therapy nor any knowledge of the specific
makam attributes claimed by promoters of this camp (for which see
http://www.tumata.com/icerik.aspx?pageName=tr_makamlar.html).
On the subject of how the performers in this study learned to make taksim-s there was
a great deal of unanimity among them; each artist related that she or he had learned
146
by listening to and memorizing established repertoire (accounted the most important
factor of learning to make good taksim-s) and others’ taksim-s; copying the playing
of taksim recordings (especially those of Tanburi Cemil Bey, and of key players of
their own instruments); and consulting their teachers, and sometimes theory books, as
to details of specific makam-s. All but one reported that their teachers never taught
taksim specifically, nor, as teachers, do they do so themselves. The exception to this
was kanun player Şehvar Beşiroğlu, current chair of the musicology department of
Turkey’s most prestigious conservatory (the Türk Musikîsi Devlet Konservatuvarı at
İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi):
ŞB: First there’s instrumental technique, and basic theory, then learning
pieces. Basic makam-s and basic taksim-s without modulations; play tunes,
and then create your own version. First he [her teacher, kanun player Erol
Deran] showed us how to make this kind of taksim because, he told me, there
are so many taksim styles.
EE: So, they were explicit; your teachers said, “yes, this is how… now we’re
going to learn to make a taksim?
ŞB: Yeah.
EE: Many other performers I asked said, “oh, no; my teacher never mentioned
taksim.”
ŞB: Huh!
EE: They learned, but it wasn’t so explicit.
ŞB: Yeah, we very much studied, with Erol Deran, the taksim.
EE: Now, did you learn in the university setting?
ŞB: Yeah. Not in the beginning. Because in the beginning was just exercises,
for technique, to learn makam-s. But after five or six years he started to teach
taksim. And also at that time we listened to Tanburi Cemil Bey, Mesut Cemil,
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the other kanun players like Ahmet Yatman, Kanuni Hacı Arif Bey’s taksim-s
or their performances. And also it’s very useful to imitate their…
EE: Did you memorize a whole…
ŞB: Yeah, Tanburi Cemil Bey’s taksim-s especially we memorized. Each year
we… no, each period… in one year two taksim-s we studied with him. We
transcribed… not exactly transcribed, but for… using makam-s’
understanding [i.e., made sketch-transcriptions for analysis]. Like this kind of
introduction [plays on the kanun] for [the makam] Şedd Araban, is Tanburi
Cemil Bey’s [plays it again]. This is Tanburi Cemil Bey’s taksim.
EE: So you just incorporate that into your own melodies?
ŞB: Yeah. Also, learning repertoire is very important. (P.c. 1/30/09)45
Presumably she teaches her students in the same way in which she learned, though I
did not hear of so explicit a method of teaching taksim from other teachers, even at
the institution where she is the department chair.
ON ÇEŞNİ, CİNS, SEYİR, AND PRINCIPLES OF MELODIC MOVEMENT
Perhaps surprisingly, each of the first three Turkish terms in the above rubric, which
are both common and essential terms in the rhetoric of classical Turkish music, is
interpreted in multiple ways by performers and theorists alike, such that, like certain
of the perde-s of the general scale, each is made to represent a range of possible
meanings rather than any certainly fixed one. Leaving aside for a moment the fourth
concept (“principles of melodic movement”), I will attempt to give a listing of their
45
148
various definitions before presenting informants’ ideas employing them, in order that
we may have at least a palette from which to draw in interpreting what they have had
to say.
Çeşni literally means “a taste” or “a sample” of something, and it generally covers
any melodic material that can identify a particular makam as such.46 In this sense the
most succinct definition was given to me by Özer Özel, who called çeşni “the
smallest melodic concept conveying the explanatory [identifying] power of a makam”
(makamı anlatma kudretine sahip en ufak melodi tasarımı; p.c. 3/18/09).47 The
problem is that the term is by some performers used to convey the more specific idea
of stereotyped melodies or melodic fragments (which others might instead call a
motif, or beylik [“stereotype”]), and by still others to convey the more general idea of
a modulation (which might also be called a geçki [“passing, modulation”]).
Depending on any given performer’s strictness of adherence to all of these terms—
that is, çeşni, motif/beylik, and geçki—that person’s understanding of çeşni alone
may be understood precisely (if, indeed, it is intended to be understood precisely).
Examples of informants’ use of these terms follow.
46
I must note here that it is John Morgan O’Connell’s opinion that the term “çeşni,” with a musical
sense, was introduced only in the late twentieth century, by tanbur player Necdet Yaşar (b. 1930) (p.c.
2/26/2010).
47
Shiloah, without identifying a term for the phenomenon, notes that (perhaps since the thirteenth
century) a “major characteristic” of the modal system that would become makam is that “[I]n many
cases one genus [cins] is sufficient to give the feeling of a given mode” (1981: 38). I inferred from the
way Özel used the term “çeşni” in conversation that he thought it need not show all the notes of a cins,
or that it could even cross between two cins-es without showing all the tones of either; the point of a
çeşni is not that it delineate cins-es, but that it recall a specific makam.
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Well, each makam has its çeşni-s, its little motifs, but—the best çeşni-s are
like this; in any food, there either is salt or there isn’t. You can’t tell by
looking, but tasting it you can tell. If there isn’t any, you know that, too.
Çeşni-s are that sort of thing. For instance with 2 or 3 notes you can remember
a makam, for instance [sings a seven tone çeşni], that’s Saba, everywhere [i.e.,
inside any makam] it’s Saba. [Sings it again.] That’s all there is to it! [“Bitti!”]
To know Saba, that is enough. To know Rast makam it’s not necessary to
show the whole scale. Just between the tones rast and acem, if you use Rast’s
çeşni-s, the rast atmosphere is called forth. (Necati Çelik, p.c. 12/1/08)
Extending the salt simile, he noted that nowadays some people misuse çeşni-s:
When cooking you can’t just say “now I’ll add some white powder”—you
have to know if it needs sugar or salt, and how much, and when. For instance
in Hicazkâr there is a [pre-cadential] move in which the flattened 5th [degree]
is used—it should occur only in that makam, but now it is used in any kind of
Hicaz, not just “Zirgüleli” types. Also, in Şevk’evza there’s a lot of [Zirgüleli]
Hicaz from çargâh, but people now go below it to dügâh and play Saba çeşni-
s—this is wrong; it’s not Saba, there.
Saying that every makam has such çeşni-s, he explains how performers learn them:
These çeşni-s, we learn from works, from the repertoire. Very often any çeşni
you want to learn can be found in a work. For example at the beginning of a
Hüseyni peşrev [sings a short melody]. This means “Hüseyni.” There’s
another one, the Hicaz peşrev by Refik Fersan, [sings]. That’s Hicaz. You
understand immediately. This kind of thing, when one is making a taksim, one
can be more free. … You have to learn the old repertoire to know how
especially lesser-used makam-s really are put together. But even… I have an
idea of Rast, but did Merâgî have the same idea of it? We don’t know. But we
have some of his pieces, so we study those. … Little melodies like that [from
the repertoire] can be a makam’s çeşni-s. But for instance the Saba one [sings
it again] is so well known, and it’s in every kind of piece, that you have to
play it.
Ahmet Toz, reserving the term “çeşni” for a broader sense of showing a new makam,
used the term beylik (“stereotype”) for the above concept:
Beylik is essentially fasıl aranağme-s [instrumental breaks in songs in a suite]

that everyone uses [sings one]. If you wish, you can play all of them from
every piece. This is a beylik. One knows them from familiarity [with
150
repertoire]. Today too many phrases of already-known pieces are used. On the
one hand it’s a [source of] richness, but at the same time something has been
emptied by it. Every instrument took the same ones, and from other
instruments. They took all the [same] understandings/interpretations
[anlayışlar]. I’ll say one more thing: in very small phrases commonly used,
there are explaining stories [anlatılan hikâyeler—stories that explain]. There
are pure little stories of the city [Istanbul] in them. Stories of old times. Today
there aren’t [i.e., new ones of that sort are no longer being created]. (P.c.
6/18/09).
Here is a rare critique of the “overuse” of the repertoire as a model; it is not clear how
one would distinguish a newly created “story” of the sort described—or how older
ones might be distinguished apart from their association with songs about the city,
etc.
Murat Aydemir used the term “çeşni” in regard to a whole makam in a way that
recalls the terkib (a type of “subsidiary modal entity”) of Cantemir’s time:
MA: Isfahan is a small makam; it’s like a çeşni. If you’re anywhere in the
Uşşak family and you play [sings a brief melody], it could become Isfahan.
EE: Like a spice?
MA: Yes, like a spice. (P.c. 5/15/09)
He also made a distinction when he briefly played a tone outside the makam he was
playing in: “This is just a nağme (“melody, tune”); a çeşni happens at the level where
one is calling out a makam, whereas a nağme is just a person adding spice” (ibid.).48
48
Yaylı tanbur player Ahmet Nuri Benli made a similar comment when analyzing a brief flurry of
“out” tones in a taksim he had made, saying he was “only playing the instrument” there, making an
improvisation (doğaçlama) but not expressing a makam (see DVD 4/36, ca. 9:50-10:04). Such
moments were both rare and brief in the recordings made for this project (though see Chapter VI
regarding moments of chromaticism in certain makam-s).
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When explaining my methodology for this project to Özer Özel before we recorded
together, I showed him a video clip of another performer’s taksim (whose analysis I
had included in subtitles; see Appendix L/DVDs I-IV passim). He told me that
everywhere I (that is, the other performer) had put “modulation” (geçki) I should
instead put the term “çeşni” (p.c. 12/16/08). Later, I made a version of the clip with
his suggestions and showed it to Şehvar Beşiroğlu (she not being the clip’s
performer): “No, those are modulations, not çeşni-s” (which for her are short,
stereotyped melodies). Telling her the story, she recommended that she, Mr. Özel and
I all sit down and have a conversation about it, but unfortunately we never found the
opportunity (p.c. 1/30/09).49 At a later meeting, he noted that a suspended cadence
(asma karar) that he had made in a taksim was “çeşni-less” (çeşnisiz), and that there
were times in a taksim in which showing a çeşni must be avoided (p.c. 3/18/09).
Furthermore, he remarked that “some makam-s, such as Nihavend, don’t have çeşni-
s.”
This confirmed an analysis by Sinan Erdemsel of a Nihavend taksim he had made
(see DVD 4/20), though his sense of çeşni differed from that of Özer Özel’s; in
conversation Mr. Erdemsel did not understand the way I was using the word “çeşni”
(as a stereotyped melodic fragment), and did not really respond to the term “motif” in
that regard, either (his term for which was küçük nağme, “a little melody”).
49
NB: analyses of the taksim-s on the DVDs appear in (translations of) the terms given by their own
performers.
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EE: For instance whenever we play Hüseyni we do [I sing a typical opening
Hicaz motif]… sorry, that’s Hicaz… I mean a little… motif. Don’t we call
that a çeşni?
SE: Ah, motif. Hmm. A çeşni is like when we modulate to another makam.
Çeşni-s are geçki-s (modulations).
EE: Ah, OK. Every makam has one or two of these motifs, though, don’t
they? I don’t know if every one has… but are there any in Nihavend?
SE: Specific little melodies that we use? There isn’t such a thing, really. Other
than what we did [i.e., what he had just played for me]. You play what you
want. (P.c. 12/1/08)
Most confusing, and fortunately unique, is the theorist İsmail Hakkı Özkan’s use of
the term “çeşni” to mean what we have referred to as “cins,” i.e., that broader
category that includes pentachords, tetrachords, and trichords (1984: 46).
A definition for the term cins is not so much at issue as it is now very seldom used—
musicians speak of tetrachords (dörtlü-s), pentachords (beşli-s) and perhaps of
trichords (üçlü-s) particularly, without need of the more general “cins,” so the
question of which of these may be included in the term does not often arise (see also
Feldman 1996: 222).50 The issue is rather with interpretations of these particular
concepts, that is, whether one accepts all the tetrachords and pentachords as defined
by Arel et al., or rather understands certain tone-structures as properly consisting of a
trichord and some other cins or cins-es, and if so, what are these others? The most
convenient way to span an octave from a trichord would be to add to it a conjunct
hexachord, but I heard from my informants no mention of a “hexachord” unit (though
50
NB: these terms—dörtlü, beşli, and üçlü—are also the normative terms for the intervals “fourth,
fifth, and third” respectively.
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the word that would logically be employed for it, altılı, is the common term for the
interval of a sixth). A performer’s choice of what follows a trichord in the
construction of a makam’s scalar aspect may therefore be informative as to his or her
acceptance of the octave as a delimiter in the definition of makam-s generally.
But apart from what has already been mentioned in this chapter about these cins-es,
informants did not offer much critique; Necati Çelik opined that, “This idea of
tetrachord-pentachord has broken the concept of makam” (p.c. 5/11/09), but his
solution was simply to study with a master rather than to replace the theory and its
terminology with something new. Ahmet Toz expressed a common alternative to
Arel’s conception when he stated, “There’s no Hüzzam pentachord. It’s Hicaz
[makam] and a segâh trichord [below it]” (p.c. 6/18/09).51 Şehvar Beşiroğlu noted
that the “diatonic major pentachord” used to be called nigâr, but Arel called it çargâh
(p.c. 1/30/09).52 I would note that in Dr. Beşiroğlu’s introductory makam classes at
the conservatory, whereas normally a makam is introduced and its structure explained
in terms of its cins-es and basic seyir (see below), followed by a great deal of sight
singing of pieces in that makam and afterward analyzing the pieces phrase by phrase,
51
See Chapter V and Appendix H regarding a different concept of what should appear above the segâh
trichord in Hüzzam.
52
Note that Kutluğ, despite being a faithful student of Arel’s, uses the term “nigâr” (as a cins name) in
this older way in his 2000 theory text, returning the name “Çargâh” to a historical makam now
connected with Saba (pp. 150-1 and 298-302; cf. Wright 1990).
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when Arel’s Çargâh makam was introduced (as the first makam in the system), no
repertoire was even looked at, and the lesson passed directly to Rast makam.53
The term seyir—literally “path” or “progress”—may be used as generally as to mean
only whether a makam is:
• “ascending” (çıkıcı, i.e., beginning its melodic movement at or around the
tonic, moving upward toward the upper tonic, and returning to the tonic)
• “descending” (inici, i.e., beginning at/around the upper octave of the tonic and
moving toward the tonic)
• or either “descending-ascending” (inici-çıkıcı) or “ascending-descending”
(çıkıcı-inici), both beginning around the dominant and moving mostly in the
lower or upper region, respectively, before reaching the upper octave of the
tonic and falling to the tonic.
This is the most common way in which A-E-U based theory books use the term,
though both Arel’s (1991 [1943-48]) and Özkan’s (1984) also include prose
descriptions of each makam’s melodic movement through the hierarchy of tones. But
“seyir” may instead be used as specifically as to mean a brief melody that succinctly
outlines the minimal melodic expectations of a makam, such as those “seyir-s” Rauf
53
Class of 2/10/09; later, on 3/31/09, the (pre-Arel) makam Çargâh was introduced as a member of the
Hicaz family, i.e., as Zirgüleli Hicaz on c/çargâh.
155
Yekta notated in his 1922 (1913) Lavignac article, or those given in Yılmaz 2007
(1973), or those that Arel called “örnek özler” (“exemplary essences”) in his 1991
(1943-48) text.
There is also an overall ABA “seyir” (or bünye, “structure”) to every normative
taksim (regardless of the makam shown) consisting of a zemin (“ground”) section in
which the makam’s basic “seyir” is shown, followed by a meyan (or miyan: “center,
space between”) section in which the makam is “developed” by means of internal
modulations, followed by a return to the “ground.”54 The seyir-s of compound
(mürekkeb or bileşik) makam-s include their necessary “internal modulations,” while
the seyir-s of makam-s not considered compound but whose internal modulations are
very frequently stereotyped do not include these. In any case, a makam’s seyir must
minimally be some sort of abstract heuristic model of its melodic movement that
includes a hierarchy of tones that receive focus either by serving as a center for
melodic movement (as usually do the durak or karar, “tonic,” and güçlü,
“dominant”), or as a temporary resting point (as for asma karar-s, “suspended
cadences”) before the final cadence (karar, literally “decision”).
The term “seyir” is usually used by performers in such a way that the context will
determine the level of specificity meant, though “seyir” with Yekta and Yılmaz’s
54
İhsan Özgen noted to me that before about the 1940s there was a different structure for taksim-s,
fairly strictly kept to and reflecting the structure of the şarkı song form: zemin (ground), nakarat
(refrain), meyan (middle), nakarat (refrain) (p.c. 5/27/09; see also Özkan 1984: 86-8).
156
meaning of a condensed melody was frowned on (for instance Eymen Gürtan advised
me that I must not ask performers to “play a makam’s seyir” in order to compare it to
their more complex taksim-s in the same makam). Otherwise, in my conversations
with informants, only Özer Özel mentioned seyir in an unconventional way, while
debunking the idea of a makam’s dominant necessarily being where cins-es join:
For instance in Rast, the dominant is rast, listen [sings beginning of Merâgî’s
Rast Nakış Beste]—the same with Hüseyni makam, same with Muhayyer
makam [sings in Muhayyer]. What note does everyone give? Doing that
makam, you have to go right to muhayyer, of course. If not, you’re in
Hüseyni. That’s the seyir. You may explain seyir, but this is really what seyir
must mean. (P.c. 3/18/09)
In other words, knowing where immediately to begin a taksim in a makam is
sufficient to know that makam’s seyir (given also that all makam’s eventually end on
the tonic).
The fourth term given in the rubric of this section, “principles of melodic movement,”
is not a common one in KTM rhetoric. Only one informant spoke explicitly of
prensip-s (“principles”); Ahmet Toz, responding to a question about the “rules”
(kural-s) of makam-s given in theory books, said, “There are no rules; there are
principles. For instance wherever you have a buselik
[trichord/tetrachord/pentachord/çeşni] you can develop a hicaz beneath it” (p.c.
6/18/09). Similarly, wherever there is a hicaz tetrahchord there is commonly found a
rast pentachord above or below it. I later asked Mehmet Bitmez what he thought of
this idea of “principles,” and after thinking about it for a moment he said that he
agreed, adding, “for instance there’s a place in every makam for Saba” (p.c. 6/18/09).
157
Later still I mentioned these ideas to Agnès Agopian, who also agreed (though she
had some reservations about such a liberal application of Saba).55
At this point I am able to refine for the reader the hypothesis to which I will be
subjecting the taksim recordings analyzed in the next two chapters: it is that such
principles—widely understood by performers yet largely unarticulated and nowhere
addressed in the theoretical literature—are used to govern, at the level of the cins,
both modulation (within and between makam-s), and melodic movement that is
secondary to a makam’s seyir (e.g., in taksim-s in a single makam, even in moments
without internal modulation). I believe that an explication of such principles, coupled
with an understanding of a makam’s çeşni-s and seyir, may suffice as the materials
with which to formalize a kind of performance-oriented grammar for analyzing (and
if desired, for creating, and even for learning to create) taksim-s and other kinds of
composition, and to some extent may be used in explaining some of the finer points
of definitions of makam-s as they are understood by performers. The concept of
“principles of melodic movement (at the level of the cins)” will therefore be dealt
with in greater detail in the next two chapters.
55
She noted that applying Saba to certain makam-s would cause them to lose their identity, e.g., a
main difference between Isfahan and Isfahanek is that the latter must have it, therefore the former
should not; see also Necati Çelik’s comment above regarding the same condition between Acem and
Acem Aşiran. However, note that the issue at hand is not what may be done with Saba particularly, but
rather which modulatory combinations are avoided because they may obscure the main makam’s
identity beyond recognition, perhaps by evoking different, unintended makam-s.
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CHAPTER CONCLUSION
We have heard in this chapter current performers’ uses, contestations, and
“corrections” of the official classical Turkish music theory presented in the previous
chapter, and also some of the ways in which these musicians maintain, create and
perpetuate their own understandings of the Turkish makam system and of the music
culture’s history. We might note a tendency to ground alternative conceptions (some
of which may in fact be unprecedented innovations) in narratives of tradition,
drawing on centuries of repertoire, in oral traditions passed down from master to
student, and in the examples of great performers such as Tanburi Cemil Bey as
learned through the medium of 78 rpm records (and more recently, published
cassettes and CDs reproducing them). It is also clear that while the ideological aspects
of this pervasive conservatism and nostalgia make for a creative tension between
expressions of modernity and tradition in the lives of performers, amateurs, teachers,
and audiences, from an aesthetic point of view it serves to maintain a self-consciously
tradition-oriented music culture and sound; the music’s parameters are those that
encourage “classically beautiful” expression, if at the expense of experimentation. In
fact it may be at least partially due to such a conservative attitude that there is a
reluctance on the part of even acknowledged master musicians to attempt creating
new fixed-composition repertoire today; the widely acknowledged state of the art is
that there are few top notch composers today (as has been considered the case, with
rare exceptions, since Tanburi Cemil Bey died in 1916). The main creative outlet
159
today is the taksim genre, and that is approached largely by way of an aesthetically
conservative interpretation of makam definitions and combinations (see Chapters V
and VI), and approached as a relatively short form (from mere seconds to perhaps ten
minutes in duration—which compare to the “hours” of taksim in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries described in Chapter II).
Yet despite a widespread fear amongst performers for the current vitality of classical
Turkish music, it appears (at least to me) not to be in quite the moribund state
sometimes claimed for it. Although I have no access to the statistical information to
confirm it, it seems quite plausible that there are as many or more musicians today
(amateur and professional, singers and instrumentalists) as ever there have been in
any period of the music’s history. As to mature performers’ concerns of losses in
makam knowledge among the younger generation as expressed above, I can only say
that while I personally share their preferences for the complex, detailed, and rare in
Turkish makam music, I must also wonder what sort of opinions performers in
Cantemir’s time would have had in regard to subsequent performer-composers now
considered masters, or for that matter what the previous generation had thought of
Cantemir and his peers. A casual perusal of the first volume of Fikret Kutluğ’s 2000
makam history-cum-theory text is enough to see that a certain fluidity in makam
definitions is hardly a new phenomenon. In other words, change per se is not
necessarily loss; but we must note that if ever there were an ideal period in which the
possibilities for recording the minutest details of the art for later recovery—whether
160
in notation, sound and video recordings, or scholarship—it would seem that we are in
it, and taking full advantage of the media that may serve as resources for future
generations. This, combined with the conservative ethos of the music culture as a
whole, seems to me to be a recipe for renewal rather than for loss.
Not coincidentally, in the next chapter we will begin examining some of the taksim-s
from early twentieth-century recordings. It must be remembered that the earliest of
these performers—who, in the ears of current taksim performers, are the most
influential ones upon their sense of makam as applied in the taksim genre—learned
makam and the art of taksim largely without the aid of the works of the theorists
whom we met in Chapter III.56 As we pass from these to recordings of current
performers’ taksim-s we will be better able to hear how official theory and notation—
as well as these early recordings themselves—have affected performers’ thinking and
performance, both as a result of institutionalized education and via access to
unprecedented amounts of recordings and pre-composed repertoire—the latter newly
notated, and for the first time ever, fixed in standardized versions.
56
Though some of them seem to have been familiar enough with the works to disagree with them;
e.g., see Ayangil 2008: 420 regarding a dispute between Tanburi Cemil Bey and Rauf Yekta Bey.
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CHAPTER V: MAKAM PRAXIS SINCE 1910
Stories—perhaps legends—of the early recording industry in Turkey, and particularly
of the relationship between the Orfeon/Odeon Company’s Blumenthal brothers and
Tanburi Cemil Bey, circulate amongst current KTM musicians like fresh gossip:
about the brothers begging outside Cemil’s house for him to come to the studio,
bringing him baskets of fresh fruit and bottles of other refreshments; how he was
often too drunk to play well, but recorded anyway; about the notebooks in which he
approved or disapproved of his recordings—all released in any case, after his death—
and even of written out plans of taksim modulations; of the terrible heat in the
recording room, the artists seated in their coattails in front of the giant cone, a
producer tugging on the tails to let the artist know that the three minutes plus of the
10 inch, 78 rpm record was coming to a close. I met several musicians who have
antique gramophones and record collections to play upon them, and there is at least
one shop deep in the bowels of the Covered Bazaar in the old city where an elderly
gentleman sells and repairs the machines for these aficionados. Whether in such a
direct medium or through cassettes—or more recently, CDs and MP3s—recordings of
master musicians from the early part of the twentieth century are a normative part of a
KTM musician’s musical diet, serving as standards of excellence and as sources for
learning to make taksim-s.1
1
There are also many recordings of songs and other pre-composed repertoire, but a large portion of
these recordings are taksim-s and gazel-s—these are the most highly valued by today’s KTM
musicians.
162
Although Edison’s earliest phonograph cylinder was invented in 1877, the first
commercially distributed recordings of music from the Ottoman Empire appear
around 1910 (which is why that year marks the beginning of the period of this study).
I urge Turkish-speaking readers interested in the early recording industry and its later
spread to Ottoman Turkey to read Cemal Ünlü’s 1991 Git Zaman Gel Zaman (“Once
Upon a Time,” literally “Go, Time; Come, Time”), but in the present chapter we will
be examining several taksim-s from among these recordings rather than delving into
the social context in which they were created.
In this chapter we shall be looking primarily at four examples of taksim recordings
spanning three generations of players. The nature of the material to analyze in them is
such that each new example is in some way more complex than the previous one, and
since it may be easy to lose sight of the overall arc of the chapter when zooming in on
an issue specific to a later example, I wish to give the reader a brief description of the
journey ahead of time. The chapter proceeds thus: analysis of a Rast taksim by
Tanburi Cemil Bey (no date, 1910s); analysis of a Rast taksim by Mesut Cemil Bey
(no date, late 1930s or early 1940s); analysis of a Rast taksim by Agnès Agopian
(June 2009) having no modulation; analysis of a Rast taksim by the same artist on the
same day, but with modulations; analysis of the specific details of these modulations;
a close look at a problematic makam (called “Hüzzam”) that appears in one of
Agopian’s modulations; a comparison of eight other artists’ treatment of that makam
in previously made recordings from throughout our period; a return to the remaining
163
modulations in the second Agopian taksim; a consolidation of the information
gleaned from the analyses of the above four taksim-s; a comparison of this
information with Arelian theory and a note on the historicity of cins-oriented
understandings of the makam system; and finally four specific issues of disagreement
between current performers’ understandings and Arelian theory. We begin with the
explanation of terms, and a key to the signs used in the transcriptions.
THE CİNS-ES ACCORDING TO AREL
Before looking at the recorded examples of taksim-s we will need to establish a
vocabulary for a musicological analysis of them. We have seen in previous chapters
the concepts of seyir (stereotyped melodic movement) and of a hierarchy of tones,
and I have explained that an understanding of the cins-es (“genera”—pentachords,
tetrachords, and trichords) are key to a makam’s definition, and to identifying
modulations. At this point I will present the cins-es in use in current classical Turkish
music as given by Arel-Ezgi-Uzdilek theory; as we move through analyses of
recorded examples we will be in a position to refine these according to performer-
oriented definitions.
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Cins Written Sounds Intervals
(in commas)2
çargâh (4, 5) CDEFG GG AA BB C D 9+9+4+9
buselik (4, 5) AB cde E Fd G A B 9+4+9+9
kürdi (4, 5) A Be c d e EFGAB 4+9+9+9
rast (4, 5) G A Bq c d D E Fs G A 9+8+5+9
uşşak (4; hüseyni 5) A Bq c d e E Fs G A B 8+5+9+9
hicaz (4, 5) A B w cs d e E Fa G s A B 5+12+5+9
saba (4) A B q c dw E Fs G A w 8+5+5

segâh (5) B q c d eq fs Fs G A B q cs 5+9+8+9
hüzzam (5) B q c d ew fs F s G A B w cs 5+9+5+12
nikriz (5) G A B w cs d D E Fa Gs A 9+5+12+5
pençgâh (5) G A B cs d D E Fd Gs A 9+9+8+5
ferahnak (5) F s G A B cs Cs D E Fd Gs 5+9+9+8
Figure 2: the cins-es according to Arel.
Arel separated these into the two categories shown above: the first six cins-es are
categorized as “basic,” being distinguished by having both a perfect fifth and a
perfect fourth from the tonic,3 while the latter six are supposed to lack one of these
(1991 [1943-48]: 17-27), though the “segâh pentachord” would seem not to lack
2
Note that unlike common practice today, Arel did not measure intervals in commas; he gave ratios of
vibration for the sizes of intervals which he called koma 521441:524288 (≈ 23.46¢ or, practically,
81:80 ≈ 21.5¢) (q / a), eksik bakiyye 134217728:129140163 (≈ 66.8¢ or, practically, 25:24 ≈ 70.6¢; no
signs), bakiyye 256:243 ≈ 90.2¢ (w / s), küçük mücennep 2187:2048 ≈ 113.7¢ (e / d), büyük mücennep
65536:59049 ≈ 180.4¢ (r / f), tanini 9:8 ≈ 204¢ (ee /g), plus the artık ikili (no signs; sometimes 3
bakiyye, sometimes 3 bakiyye + 1 koma) (1991 [1943-48]: 8), which terms are understood today as
representing 1, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 12-13 commas respectively (see Özkan 1984: 39, and Appendix F).
3
Note that Arel did not use the term “cins” for these interval structures. Once in his lesson book he
gave the direct Turkish translations for the terms “tetrachord” (“teldört”—quotation marks his also;
literally “stringfour”) and “pentachord” (“telbeş,” lit. “stringfive”—both apparently neologisms, today
unused), but he did so only to note that the normative terminology he had chosen to use throughout the
theory (and text), does not distinguish between these—i.e., four- and five-tone entities within the span
of the intervals of a fourth and fifth, respectively—and the normative terms for those intervals
themselves, i.e., “fourth” and “fifth” (1991 [1943-48]: 17 fn. 3). As a result, even today the term dörtlü
means both “interval of a fourth” and “tetrachord,” and beşli means both “interval of a fifth” and
“pentachord.”
165
either of these features.4 Makam-s characterized as “basic” in Arel’s theory qualify as
such on the basis of their being formed by the conjunction of two “basic” cins-es.5
Note that the latter six cins-es,6 termed diğer (“other”) or eksik (“deficient,
diminished”), occur in only one form each, i.e., as either a tetrachord, or as a
pentachord, but not as both.7 Finally note that while all of the “basic” cins-es occur in
the forms of both a tetrachord and a pentachord (i.e., a tetrachord extended by a
whole tone), there are separate names only for the uşşak tetrachord and its extension
as a pentachord, hüseyni.8 Not that it has passed into current theory or affects the
common understanding today, but it is interesting to know that Arel expressed that it
was scales—not makam-s—that are what we build of these cins-es (ibid.: 17), and
4
Özkan notes this discrepancy, and also that there is a “diminished” (or “deficient”—eksik) version of
the pentachord, having f instead of f (1984: 47), something Arel did not include.
z s
5
Arel claimed thirteen makam-s as “basic”—Çargâh, Buselik, Kürdi, Rast, Uşşak, Hicaz, Hümayun,
Uzzal, Zengüle/Zirgüle, Hüseyni, Neva, Karcığar, and (Basit) Suzinak—but in his enumeration of
these he also pointed out four makam-s having such “basic” structures but differing in seyir: Beyati
(like Uşşak but beginning around the dominant), Tahir (like Neva but descending), Muhayyer (like
Hüseyni but descending) and Şehnaz Buselik (like Buselik but beginning around the dominant and
having a hicaz tetrachord rather than a kürdi tetrachord as the normative upper cins) (1991 [1943-48]:
43-60).
6
The Arelian theorist Özkan added 5 more cins-es to this group: the müstear pentachord (B c d e f ),
q s s
the diminished müstear pentachord (B c d e f ), the ferahnak pentachord (F G A B c ), the
q s z s s
diminished ferahnak pentachord (F G A B c ), and the nişabur pentachord (B c d e f) (1984: 47-9).
s z s
7
Note that a point of confusion arises in Arel’s scheme in that there are only three categories for
makam-s: basic, compound, and transpositions. Makam-s that do not qualify as “basic” must therefore
be categorized as one of the others (or practically, as compounds, and possibly their transpositions).
We shall see that it seems as though even during Arel’s lifetime, certain makam-s that contain “other”
cins-es were not necessarily considered compounds; that Arel’s scheme demanded he describe them as
such may explain why certain taksim-s recorded previous to the ascendancy of Arel’s theory apply
different (i.e., non-compound) definitions of their makam-s than do taksim-s recorded by people
educated using Arel’s definitions.
8
I.e., there is neither an uşşak pentachord nor a hüseyni tetrachord (ibid.: 22, fn. 5). Nor is there any
explanation for such a distinction, as far as I could tell, even at the level of a folk tale. I would also
point out here that if the artificial nature of “Çargâh” were not apparent from other features (see
Chapter III and Appendix G), the fact that this supposedly most basic cins occurs so far below the
range of all the others—and at the unusual distance of a tritone from the next closest root, no less—
would seem to signal it. It is similarly curious that it should start on kaba çargâh/middle C rather than
on the perde for which it is named, çargâh.
166
that scales are what have a tonic and dominant (ibid.: 27); that seems to be the
rationale for having distinct names for uşşak and hüseyni cins-es,9 though it leaves
unexplained why the hicaz family of makam-s—Hicaz, Hümayun, Uzzal, and
Zirgüle, the scales of the former pair having the fourth degree as dominant and those
of the latter pair the fifth degree—are based upon a tetrachord or pentachord with a
single name (hicaz).10
We are now close to having a vocabulary of elements with which to define a
makam—and therefore to define modulations within and between makam-s as well;
in addition to the cins-es listed above, the following terms (some of which we have
previously seen) are also needed:
• seyir—stereotyped melodic direction
o including an order of necessary internal modulations within compound
makam-s
• a hierarchy of tones
o durak—tonic
 tiz durak—upper tonic
9
Though seemingly not much of a “rationale,” this is Arel’s explanation: “You would think from the
Uşşak fourth that we would call this an ‘Uşşak fifth.’ But as will be explained later, because the
makam Uşşak has its dominant on the fourth, and Hüseyni has its on the fifth, it is instead called the
‘Hüseyni fifth.’ ” (1991 [1943-48]: 22, fn 5).
10
Perhaps stranger still, unlike the tone hüseyni in relation to the makam Hüseyni, no makam in the
Hicaz family contains the tone for which they are named (hicaz), but rather they contain the tone nim
hicaz (apparently formerly called uzzal, see Feldman 1996: 197, 208-9).
167
o güçlü—dominant11
 ikinci güçlü—“second dominant”
o yeden—leading tone; the tone a half-step (4 commas) below the tonic
 tam yeden—subtonic; the tone a whole step (9 commas) below
the tonic
• karar—cadence12
o yarım karar—half cadence
o asma karar—suspended cadence
I would also like to add to these the concept formulated by Münir Nurettin Beken
(1998, and elaborated with Karl Signell, q.v. in Bayhan 2008) that melodic movement
in makam music (and in taksim-s particularly) is shaped by three poetic strategies:
confirming a makam’s identity, delaying such a confirmation, and deceiving the
listener as to the makam’s identity. The central framework of these authors’ research
11
In any piece of makam music the dominant—the most important tone defining a makam’s structure
after the tonic—must be shown by extended play on that tone and by melodic movement centered
around it, and by occasional “suspended cadences” upon it (see below). It is most often a makam’s
dominant that serves as either the tonic or dominant of a new makam in modulations. “Second
dominants” and even “third dominants” are fairly common in a makam; these are tones that one may
expect to hear/play with an emphasis similar in kind to—but to a lesser degree than—the first
dominant; they do not function in the manner of “secondary dominants” in classical Western music,
one leading to the next and at a fixed interval distance. Dominants are most often the point of
conjunction of two cins-es but are not so necessarily and must be learned specifically for each makam;
unlike in Western music they are not always a perfect fifth up from the tonic.
12
The word karar—in everyday Turkish literally “decision”—is sometimes also used to refer to the
tonic (which is always the last tone played in a taksim). It implies a final cadence, though it might not
be the last one of a taksim or piece of music (particularly in a compound makam, displaying one
makam after another). Its function is to confirm (“decide”) a makam’s identity. The “half cadence”
(yarım karar) occurs on the dominant and should refrain for that moment from showing tones outside
the makam; the “suspended cadence” (asma karar) occurs on a secondary (etc.) dominant and may
“open” a modulation or otherwise display tones outside the makam (selon Aydemir 2010: 26-7).
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on this topic is the definition of the nominal makam of a taksim, but it seems to me
that the three strategies are also integral to making (and recognizing) successful
modulations. (This subject will be elaborated upon in Chapter VII.)
Finally before presenting examples, I need to explain the specialized transcription
method with which I will present them. The focus of the transcriptions is the structure
of the taksim represented, reflecting the terms and concepts we have seen above. By
showing the passage of time in 10-second increments beneath the staff we will be
freeing the variety of notehead types for the representation of only the structural
importance of tones rather than their duration. Examples are transcribed at the
standard KTM transposition level considered appropriate for the nominal makam;
“makam signatures” (donanım; analogous to “key signatures”)—as standardized by
Arel et al.—also reflect this. Accidental signs (see Appendix F) last the duration of
the line unless otherwise changed. Note that in the case of the video recordings I
made of current performers, there are two sets of timing; one showing actual elapsed
time (“Time”) and the other the time displayed on the recording (i.e., beginning after
the title of the video clip has passed; “DVD”). When referring to points in time in
these transcriptions I will use the “DVD time” in order to facilitate the reader’s ability
to follow the transcription while watching the corresponding video. Below is a key to
the signs to be used in these transcriptions.
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Figure 3: transcription key.
1. whole note: represents the tonic (in any octave) of the nominal makam (and of
modulated-to makam-s that share the same tonic); this sign may represent a
single, continuous tone or several iterations of that tone, but otherwise no
significant melodic movement away from that tone (after the tonic has been
shown, when it is being used merely as a passing tone it is usually represented
as a “small notehead,” q.v. below)
2. hollow diamond: represents the dominant tone (in any octave) of the nominal
makam (and of makam-s modulated to that share the same dominant) when its
function as a dominant is being emphasized; this sign may represent a single,
continuous tone or several iterations of that tone, but otherwise no significant
melodic movement away from that tone
3. solid notehead: represents a tone, neither the tonic nor dominant, upon which
special emphasis is placed in the performance; may de facto indicate a
“second dominant,” etc.
4. small notehead: represents any tone not otherwise distinguished in emphasis
170
5. whole note stroke: represents the tonic of a makam to which the taksim has
modulated when the new makam’s tonic is not the same as the nominal
makam’s
6. hollow diamond stroke: represents the dominant of a makam (in any octave)
to which the taksim has modulated when the new makam’s dominant is not
the same as the nominal makam’s. (After this new dominant has been shown,
when it is being used merely as a passing tone it may be represented as a
“small notehead,” q.v. above.)
7. downward vertical arrow: represents the performer’s deliberate flattening of a
tone (i.e., use of a flatter version of the notated perde)13
8. upward vertical arrow: represents the performer’s deliberate sharpening of a
tone; practically, this is nearly always a return to the normative version of a
perde following a flattening shown by the above-mentioned sign14
9. downward diagonal arrow: represents a glissando or “slide” downward
between two notated tones
10. upward diagonal arrow: represents a glissando or “slide” upward between two
notated tones
11. comma: represents a pause, i.e., a punctuational silence
13
For clarity’s sake let me reiterate that the measurement of intervals was not part of this research
project. For practical purposes we might imagine that this flattening (and the sharpening represented
by the next sign on the list above) is generally by one to two commas; the recordings are available for
researchers wishing to establish for themselves greater specificity.
14
The exception would be the D w in Saba, which some performers sharpen by about a comma (see
Signell 2008 [1973]: 45, cf. Wright 1990: 232 fn. 37).
171
12. grey line: represents melodic movement between two non-adjacent tones,
respecting any accidental signs affecting the intermediary tones; this
movement is usually stepwise but might not be (two tones not connected by a
grey line indicate an interval step or leap)
13. makam name in brackets: this marks a change in cins and the new makam
associated with it; we may generally call this a modulation to the makam
named15
Having all of the above-mentioned terms, concepts, and notation conventions at our
disposal we can now take a look at our first recorded examples. Let us begin by
comparing a few taksim performances in the makam Rast, starting with one by
Tanburi Cemil Bey (1873-1916) (hear Traditional Crossroads 1994: 2/5 “Rast
Taksim”):16
15
However note that, as mentioned in Chapter IV, some current performers identified such cins-
changes using terms other than “geçki” (modulation), preferring for example “çeşni.” Some taksim
transcriptions therefore have such designations even when it is reckoned by its performer as having no
modulations.
16
Unfortunately none of the sources I found for the taksim-s from the earlier part of the twentieth
century (see Discography) give precise dates for their recordings, even as to the year. I therefore use
the chronology of the artists’ lives and biographical material included in liner notes of the recordings
and in Ünlü 2004 as a rough guide to the sequence of recordings. In each example below, each artist
presented is assumed on the basis of these criteria to have recorded the sample taksim at a later date
than the previous exemplar.
172
Figure 4: Rast taksim, Tanburi Cemil Bey.
Now, of course, we do not have Tanburi Cemil Bey’s own analysis of this (or any
other) taksim, so in analyzing this particular taksim we can only make assumptions
about his understanding of the makam Rast as he chose to apply it here. The seyir of
the makam begins as both the theorists we have read about and today’s performers
173
understand it; centered around the tonic without exceeding the limits of the dominant
on either side of it (see below; cf. Arel 1991 [1943-48]: 47; Özkan 1984: 115); this
phrase alone—and especially the melodic gesture at ca. :08-:17 (marked as “1”)—is
sufficient to confirm for the listener that the makam is Rast. The second phrase (ca.
:20-:43, marked as “2”) appears to be an exposition of the main scalar material,
cadencing on the tonic, and here we may note two things:
• that it does so with only minimal emphasis of the dominant (until around
0:49), and
• that the seventh degree (f z) is a minor seventh from the tonic
Both of these features may be regarded as significant; the first because it seems better
to support the notion of the makam as an octave scale rather than as a collection of
cins-es that are explored more or less sequentially (see Ezgi, Özkan in Appendix D,
cf. Karadeniz ibid.; cf. also other Rast taksim-s below). The second—Cemil’s
deployment of f z /acem as the seventh degree—is significant not so much in this
phrase per se, but because it appears from its introduction here onward as the norm,
whether ascending or descending, contrary to Arelian theory and later praxis; the f s
/eviç shows up only for a few moments ca. 1:14-1:15 (“4”), ca. 1:35-1:47 (“5”), and
ca. 2:53-4 (“9”)(see especially Karadeniz, Özkan, Kutluğ in Appendix D, and taksim-
s below; Arel 1991 [1943-48]: 47; Özkan 1984: 115; see also Appendix G). Whereas
current theory might encourage the explanation that there are two varieties of upper
tetrachord being used here (a rast tetrachord on d/neva when the f s /eviç is used, and
174
a buselik tetrachord on d/neva when f z /acem is used), the way Cemil Bey treated
these elements in this taksim does not suggest that he was considering it in those
terms. In fact for the first twenty seconds it would seem as though he had a rast
tetrachord rather than a rast pentachord in mind as the lower cins.
The third phrase (ca. :44-1:10, marked “3”) establishes the dominant (d/neva),17 and
the fourth phrase (ca. 1:12-1:43, marked “4”) uses the dominant as a place from
which to make a “suspended cadence” (asma karar) on the tone Bq /segâh, as Rast’s
“second dominant,” prominently including segâh’s characteristic leading tone, As
/kürdi.18 I count a fifth phrase as defined between ca. 1:44 and 2:06 (“6”), in which an
emphasis on a stepwise motion downward from dominant to tonic is achieved by the
technically difficult and stylistically novel double-stops in parallel fourths.19 This is
followed without pause by a sixth phrase (ca. 2:07-2:33, “7”) in which melodic
gestures exploiting the upper octave are echoed in the lower, ending with a descent to
the lower dominant and a cadence on an energized rast, leading to the seventh phrase
17
Note that Özer Özel, lecturer in music theory at Yıldız University would contend firstly that Rast’s
dominant is rast, and that Cemil Bey had established it in the first phrase (p.c. 3/18/09). I take the b’ e
ca. 1:05 to be an error, although a brief show of the “flat 3rd” is not unusual in Rast.
18
This phenomenon of a perde having its own “leading tone” 4 commas below it is particular to B q
/segâh (and its octave equivalents, e.g., b /tiz segâh), F /ırak (and its octave equivalents, e.g., f
q s
s/eviç), especially in makam-s who have one of these as the tonic, and on their equivalent perde-s in
transpositions (e.g., Segâh, Müstear, Hüzzam, Irak, Eviç, et al.; also as the third degree of any rast
cins). This melodic gesture is associated with the makam Segâh; performers often refer to it as a segâh
çeşnisi, “a taste of Segâh.”
19
At about the red asterisk’s position in time, there is a passing b in the first of these sequences; this
z
is because the frets of Cemil Bey’s tanbur has that tone as the perfect fourth below e in his melody,
z
and the one-finger “barre” technique he used for executing this passage simply requires the “mistake.”
I would guess that the following e is unintentional, corrected ca. 2 seconds later by the appearance of
e
e . z
175
(ca. 2:33-3:07, “8”), a recapitulation of the taksim:
• displaying the octave scale (now including f s ascending and f z descending)
• a rise to the dominant, showing it off with the special double-stop technique
shown earlier
• showing the tones below the tonic and then above the upper tonic (again
showing f s ascending and f z descending)
• a descent to the tonic, and further to the dominant below it, before the final
cadence, echoing the opening phrase
o including the return of a typical rast “çeşni” leaping from the low
dominant to the 3rd degree then descending stepwise to the tonic (q.v.
at ca.: :08-:12, :39-:40, and 3:04-3:06)
One aspect of this taksim we may note (to contrast especially with Rast taksim-s we
will see below) is its lack of modulations; all of the tones and cins-es unaccounted for
by the makam’s signature (donanım, analogous to a “key signature”)—excluding
supposed errors—are well within commonly understood definitions of Rast, at least
currently, and we have no reason to presume otherwise regarding the makam’s
definition in Cemil Bey’s time. That is, this would appear to be Tanburi Cemil Bey’s
definition/praxis of a pure (i.e., modulation-free) Rast makam. The normative three-
part “zemin-meyan-zemin” structure of a taksim (see Chapter IV) can be interpreted
here as:
• zemin (ground; demonstrating the makam’s characteristics): ca. :00-:43
176
• meyan (center; room for freer play/modulations): ca. :43-2:34
• return to the zemin/ground: ca. 2:34-3:07
though I would say that this taksim also shows a very typical division of the meyan
into two parts (which is not expressed by the phrase “zemin-meyan-zemin”): one in
which the area of the dominant is explored (and if there are modulations, they usually
begin then, and from that area)—here, ca. :43-2:06—followed by an exploration of
the upper octave (of any modulations, then/or of the original makam) before returning
to the “zemin”—here, ca. 2:06-2:33. Let us now compare the above taksim with a
Rast taksim by Tanburi Cemil Bey’s son Mesut Cemil Bey, literally a generation later
(hear “Viyolonsel ile rast taksim” on Kalan Mesut Cemil (1902-1963), 2004: 1/16).20
20
We must note that although Mesut Cemil did learn kemençe as a child with his father, the latter
passed away when Mesut Cemil was 14; his musical education proceeded partly under students of his
father, and partly in Western music in Germany, but he is noted as having a style unlike his father’s;
more conservative and reflecting the school of Tanburi İsak (d. 1814) (Aksoy 2004). Notable
recordings of Rast taksim-s, presumed recorded between these two performers and that are
commercially available (and which were studied for this research) include: Mısırlı İbrahim Efendi
(1872-1933), ud, “Rast Taksim” Türk Müziği Ustaları - Ud Kalan 2004: 2/2; Neşet Bey (d. 1930), ud
(or neşetkâr?), “Rast Taksim” ibid.: 2/6; Haydar Tatlıyay (1890-1963), violin “Rast Taksim” Kemanî
Haydar Tatlıyay Kalan 2001: 6; Yorgo Bacanos (1900-1977), ud “Rast Taksim I” and “Rast Taksim
II” Türk Müziği Ustaları - Ud Kalan 2004: 1/13 and 14. Similar recordings presumed recorded after
this Mesut Cemil taksim include: Vedia Tunççekiç (1914-1983), kemençe, “Rast Taksim” Türk Müziği
Ustaları - Kemençe Kalan 2005: 2/15, and Cüneyd Orhon (1926-2006), kemençe, “Rast Taksim” ibid.:
2/21.
177
Figure 5: Rast taksim, Mesut Cemil Bey.
This taksim could conceivably be taken as one in the makam Mahur (an iteration of
which is a version of Rast that descends from its upper tonic), but it is labeled as Rast,
seems more like his version of Rast than his version of Mahur,21 and I suspect the fact
that it falls an octave below the tone rast is simply because, on the violoncello, he had
the extra octave available do so.22
21
Compare his Rast taksim on “Rehavî peşrev ve tanburla rast taksim” Mesut Cemil (1902-1963),
Kalan 2004: 1/13 with his Mahur taksim introducing “Mahur Beste (Eyyubi Bekir Ağa)” Mesut Cemil
(1902-1963) Volume I Early Recordings Golden Horn 2000: 3.
22
Again note that the notation, as with all KTM notation, is written in the treble clef, with rast as the
G above middle C, regardless of instrumentation. Here I have treated the taksim as if it is in its
178
Here the zemin-meyan-zemin partition is fairly clear (i.e., :00 to :48 + :48 to 1:01 +
1:01 to 1:45); the lack of an upper octave section probably follows from the mid-
taksim octave switch, which effectively recontextualizes the normative tonic as the
new upper tonic after ca. 1:14. Allowing for the octave switch, the seyir is typically
Rast’s; at first bottom heavy, moving slowly toward the dominant—though like his
father’s taksim, seemingly at first confined within a tetrachord rather than a
pentachord—indeed these may be evidence that at least Rast makam was conceived
of as two disjunct rast tetrachords, rather than a conjunct rast pentachord and rast
tetrachord; we must note that Yekta had portrayed it thus (1922 [1913]: 2997). The
taksim then goes beyond this limit to show the upper tonic before returning to the
tonic, but there is very little emphasis on d/neva as the dominant—this would be a
good example of Özer Özel’s conception of the perde rast as both the tonic and the
dominant of Rast makam (see Chapter IV). The “flat 7th degree” (f z /acem) occurs
only once—typically descending after a rise using f s /eviç—but does so during what
would seem to be a modulation, i.e., not as a part of Rast makam per se.
The modulation (if that is what this is; see below) in the meyan section, lasting ca.
:48-1:00, may be interpreted in two ways: in the first, the modulation is to Nikriz
makam and lasts ca. :48-:58 before returning directly to Rast, in which case the tone
preceded by the red asterisk should be interpreted as B w /dik kürdi; in the second
interpretation there are two brief modulations, first a “taste” of Nihavend (effectively
normative octave up to ca. 1:14, after which it has simply moved whole an octave lower. Were it in
Mahur makam, the whole taksim should be transposed an octave higher.
179
consisting of the quite normal brief use of the flat third degree, as mentioned in fn. 17
above—in which case the marked tone should be interpreted as B e /kürdi) followed
by a short phrase in Müstear makam, returning to Rast at ca. 1:01. Sonically, the tone
in question is being used in two slow glissandi and perhaps both its identity and the
identity of the modulation(s) is intentionally vague.23
This sort of ambiguity is an example of what I mean when I propose to apply Beken’s
and Signell’s analysis of “confirming-delaying-deceiving” techniques to modulatory
passages (see Beken 1998, and Signell in Bayhan 2008); either of the above
interpretations would be considered appropriate within Rast, but exactly which one it
is remains unclear—the listener is being delayed from a resolution in Rast, but
deceived as to how the delay is achieved. In fact, it is possible to understand this brief
meyan section as having no modulation at all; it may simply be seen as having certain
“delaying” melodic gestures that are commonly done when performing in Rast—a
brief show of the minor third, a sharp fourth degree tonicizing the dominant, a
“major” seventh (fs/eviç) rising replaced by a “minor” seventh (f/acem) falling, a
tonicizing of the second dominant Bq /segâh with its “leading tone” (As /kürdi)—all
incidentally performed at once in a sequence that happens to recall other makam
23
I take it as high enough to be B w/dik kürdi, incidentally, but much experience listening to
performers interpret modulations leads me to believe that most of them would likely interpret the
makam modulations by the melodic gesture(s) first and only afterward judge the intended version of an
ambiguous tone (e.g., whether the above perde is kürdi or dik kürdi), rather than vice versa.
180
possibilities.24
In any case, we have in Mesut Cemil Bey a second example of a performer whose
sense of makam definition was not formed by an education in the new rules of
theory.25 As in his father’s taksim above, the idea of a scalar concept rather than of a
modular set of cins-es seems to inform his understanding of the makam Rast (though
there appears to be a subtle showing of a rast tetrachord, rather than pentachord, up
from the tonic), and it is unclear whether the “modulation” here indicates a sense of
changes in cins; in these aspects at least these two taksim-s do not seem to reflect an
understanding of makam definition or of modulation very like that of Arel’s.
Stepping slightly aside for a moment to provide the reader a path to further
illuminating information on the subject, I need to note the fact that
ethnomusicologists in the twenty-first century of course “cite” written texts without
providing copies of the texts themselves, and yet are restrained from doing the same
with audio recordings. This strikes me as something of a field-wide failure of
imagination, but nonetheless, for the more curious reader I have marked in the
Discography examples of taksim recordings too numerous to analyze in depth here;
they are all from the early twentieth-century recordings, that is, by artists whose
24
This seems to be Beken’s idea of the techniques of delaying and deceiving, i.e., they occur in a
context without actual modulation (Beken 1998; also indicated in a personal communication with K.
Signell 10/16/09), but see Chapter VII in which I explain how I have interpreted these “poetic
strategies” slightly differently than its original authors in order to accommodate modulation.
25
We know that he had worked with Rauf Yekta Bey—the two had together constituted Turkey’s
delegation to the 1932 Cairo Congress on Arab Music (Aksoy 2004)—but by the time of their
association he had long been an accomplished musician in his own right.
181
education was undertaken before the cins-oriented theory in Yekta (1913/1922), Ezgi
(1933-53) and Arel (1943-48/1968) became the widespread norm in makam
pedagogy that it would become by the mid-1940s (see Chapter III). The first of three
categories of these recordings consists of taksim-s that I interpret as demonstrating a
“scalar” or perhaps “characteristic melody” sense of a makam’s definition-in-praxis
(that is, rather than a cins-oriented one) by putting track numbers in [brackets] with a
single asterisk (*). 53 such examples are so marked. The second category, conversely,
show examples from the same era that I interpret as demonstrating a cins-oriented
conception of makam definitions; these are placed in brackets with two asterisks (**)
in the Discography—23 such examples are so marked. And the third category
consists of taksim-s that I heard as mixing the two understandings in the same taksim;
these are marked with 3 asterisks (***)(13 examples). The above observations are not
a comprehensive analysis, but rather an invitation to one; since I am able neither to
analyze nor “cite” them here, any inference we may draw from the observations alone
regarding the understanding of makam-s in terms of cins-es, belonging to performers’
educated before the spread of Arel et al.’s cins-oriented theory, must remain
inconclusive. But a researcher desiring to clarify the concept—perhaps even the
present reader—may find these recordings useful for the task.
It is possible to hear in today’s taksim/praxis iterations of makam definitions both as
scalar, melody-oriented gestures largely ignoring the boundaries of the makam-s’
constituent cins-es (for instance hear Eymen Gürtan’s “Beyati Taksim,” DVD 1/7),
182
and as melodic gestures that outline cins-es more explicitly (for instance hear Mehmet
Emin Bitmez’s “Nişabur Taksim” DVD 2/24), but it would seem from the 100 taksim
recordings presented on the accompanying DVDs (q.v.) that the latter type is now the
more common, and certainly the performers I recorded for this project preferred to
give their analyses in terms of conjunct cins-es (as reflected in the 42 taksim-s with
their analysis as subtitles, q.v. in Appendix K and on the taksim-s of DVDs 1-4), only
occasionally preferring to describe aspects of their taksim-s in terms of “little
melodies,” “a taste of such and such makam,” etc. Certainly cins-es are rarely played
as though disjunct (see Appendix K).
In the two examples examined closely so far, we have been working under the
disadvantage of not having at hand the interpretations of the taksim-s’ performers
themselves; let us look now at two Rast taksim-s that I recorded specifically for this
project, and whose moment-by-moment analysis was given by the artist who created
them. Both taksim-s are by kanun player Agnès Agopian, who was kind enough to
record one “simple” version of Rast (i.e., without modulations) and one with several
modulations (“geçki-s”)—see DVD 1/1:
183
Figure 6: Rast taksim 1, Agnès Agopian.
First we may note that the seyir for our Rast taksim-s has been fairly consistent so far
(and compare the vagueness of descriptions of it in theory texts; see Appendix D),
even including familiar “çeşni-s” such as the previously mentioned leap from the
lower dominant to the third degree and subsequent fall to the tonic—here it is heard
not only ca. :20-23 and ca. 1:57-2:00, but foreshadowed in the leap of a sixth from
G/rast to e/hüseyni in the very beginning, and even inverted in the final cadence.
Also familiar is the now more assiduously applied idea of using f s/eviç when
ascending to the upper tonic (and beyond) and f z/acem when descending from it
(which occurs several times ca. 1:20-1:47), and notice how she applies this
184
principle—which we have seen described as an example of cazibe (“gravity”) by
Necati Çelik in Chapter IV—to a subtler degree also to the lower octave leading tone
(F s/ırak, right after :20) and to the third degree (B q/segâh, after :58; a perfect fourth
from the leading tone, and the second dominant of the makam). For this artist, it is
this flexibility within the definition of Rast’s tones that allows the evocation of the
other makam-s shown here (Uşşak and Segâh) without thinking of them as
modulations; she treats them as though they are species, or “modes” in the Western
“church modes” sense.26 More precisely, she notes that these makam-s “exist within
Rast” (p.c. 6/19/09). Since she did not mention the c s at ca. 1:21, presumably she
intended it not as a modulation (e.g., to Müstear; one of the possibilities we saw in
Mesut Cemil’s Rast taksim) but as a normal tonicization of the dominant, i.e., not
meant to evoke another makam to the point of identifying a departure from Rast—a
Bekensian deception, perhaps. Nothing described in this paragraph is mentioned by
Arel in his delineation of the makam Rast (see Arel (1991 [1943-48]: 47, also in
Appendix D), or in his explanation of scale or modulation (1991 [1943-48]: 28-34
and 127-41).
26
Not that the Western “church modes” (i.e., Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian
and Locrian) were used in this fashion; only that they are constituted of the cycle of tones of a single
scale, each beginning on the various separate tones. Theorists from Ṣafīuddīn to at least Cantemir
indeed did appear to understand primary modes in this way—note that the normative name for “music
theory text” had long been “(Kitāb al-) Edvâr” (“[Book of] Cycles,” (i.e., of octave species; see
Feldman 1996: 195-259). To be clear, this comparison is mine; Agnès Agopian did not mention
medieval modes of any kind. There is also a rarely performed, religious, “improvised” song genre
called the perde kaldırma (or perde kaldırması, “fret resting”) in which each step of a scale becomes in
turn the tonic of a new makam/species, though (currently) it does not require strict fidelity to the scale
material, i.e., certain kinds of temporary modulations are allowed. (It is generally known amongst
musicians, though I only recall one informant mentioning it in regard to taksim [A. Toz p.c. 6/18/09].)
185
Figure 7: Rast taksim 2, Agnès Agopian.
186
In her second, more complex version of Rast, the same artist uses the “species”
concept of nested makam-s right in the opening zemin—she reported that in the
section ca. 2:24-2:34 she was playing while “thinking of” Uşşak on aşiran and
Rehavi, rather than modulating.27 (Note that the particular rast çeşni we have heard so
often before, and which is the opening gesture here and following “Rehavi,” is itself
enough to identify the overall makam as Rast.) Perhaps knowing that she will be
making many modulations in this taksim, she arrives at the meyan section relatively
quickly, “opening up” the area of the dominant around 2:56.28 Although she will
make several momentary returns to Rast between modulations, we should note that
from the first modulation ca. 3:05 to around 4:25 (about two thirds through the whole
taksim) there is no showing of the Rast makam per se as inhabiting an octave-
spanning scale. The delineation of the makam into conjunct cins-es, as in the taksim-s
we have seen from the early-twentieth century, is also not very prominent until the
appearance of modulations, in which cins-es may be seen to play a crucial role. Let
us examine closely the first set of modulations: Rast(Basit) SuzinakZirgüleli
SuzinakNikrizRast (ca. 3:05-3:38).
27
It is possible that she meant that the Uşşak passage was also part of Rehavi makam (see Appendix J
s.v. “Rehavi”).
28
Current performers often refer to affecting a modulation—or even merely concentrating on a
dominant tone—using the word “to open” (açmak), e.g., “Hüseyni açtım orada,” (“I opened
Hüseyni/hüseyni, there”). Scott Marcus has asked me to note: “…her leap from rast to segâh in a
phrase going to neva—here at 2:53 and at 3:02, and in the previous “simple” taksim at 1:12—clearly
this leap is part of her understanding of the makam (as it is in eastern Arab music).”
187
Figure 8: two modulations effected by pivots.
Beneath this transcription are notations of the cins-structures that are used in this set
of modulations. We see firstly that the entities Ms. Agopian names as the subjects of
the modulations are makam-s, that is, they are not mere cins-es, or an ordered series
of accidental tones or melodic gestures indigenous to Rast, as we might have
interpreted previously seen “modulations”; they are explicitly described with the
names of makam-s:
• (Basit) Suzinak: rast-5 + hicaz-4 29
• Zirgüleli Suzinak: hicaz-5 (and occasionally rast-5) + hicaz-4
• Nikriz: nikriz-5 + rast-4 (usual when ascending) or buselik-4 (usual when
29
For simplicity’s sake I will refer to specific cins-es with a hyphenated shorthand gloss giving the
cins’ name and size, for instance “segâh-3” refers to a segâh trichord, “rast-4” refers to a rast
tetrachord, “hicaz-5” refers to a hicaz pentachord, etc. The first given in a pairing conjoined by “+” is
the lower in pitch, i.e., the lower cins of the central octave of a makam.
188
descending)
• Rast: rast-5 + rast-4 (usual when ascending) or buselik-4 (usual when
descending)
Furthermore, these are makam-s that share certain characteristics: pentachords as the
bottom cins of the central octave and tetrachords as the top ones; a tonic of G and a
dominant of d; and certain specific cins-es. One thing each of the modulated-to
makam-s also share with each other—but not with their host, Rast—is seyir: they are
all “descending-ascending” (inici-çıkıcı) makam-s, that is, they must begin from their
dominant, descend toward the tonic, then show some of their upper tetrachord before
falling to cadence on the tonic (whereas, as we have seen, Rast is “ascending” [inici];
it rises from tonic area to upper tonic area and returns).
And indeed it is this confluence of characteristics that make this string of modulations
possible (or rather, aesthetically desirable): the first modulation is accomplished by
arriving at the common dominant—for Rast it is the place from which to “open”
modulations, and for Suzinak it is the place from which to begin its seyir. The artist
could have interpreted this as “Hicaz on neva,” or as “Araban” (a somewhat archaic
makam beginning with a hicaz tetrachord or pentachord on neva),30 but she is
30
Araban makam seems to have been teetering on the brink of obscurity for some time, now (if less so
in transpositions and compound makam-s, such as Beyati-Araban, Araban-Kürdi and Şedd Araban). It
properly should have a hicaz-5 conjoined to a kürdi-4, but since this combination of cins-es does not
occur in the currently accepted members-in-good-standing of the Hicaz family (Hicaz, Hümayun,
Uzzal, and Zirgüle), there is sometimes confusion as to whether it requires a tetrachord or pentachord
189
specifically trying to evoke Suzinak, whose lower pentachord (a rast-5) the audience
already has firmly in its ears. The passage then to Zirgüleli Suzinak occurs by a
descent to the common tonic by way of switching Rast’s bottom cins, the rast-5, for
Zirgüleli Suzinak’s hicaz-5. We must note that this can only have worked through the
auspices of an intermediary makam such as Suzinak; simply changing a rast-5 into a
hicaz-5 in makam Rast’s lower cins might sound strange, abrupt and out of context;31
in short, it is more likely to be considered an inappropriate modulation (regarding
which see Chapter IV). Specifically we may say that this modulation “works”
because of a knowledge (or minimally, an unconscious familiarity, on the parts of
both the player and the discerning audience member) that Zirgüleli Suzinak is “the
other Suzinak,” and/or that changing the lower rast-5 is appropriate because of this
use first of the rast-5 as a pivot-cins between Rast and Suzinak, then the hicaz-4 on
neva as a pivot-cins common to both Suzinak and Zirgüleli Suzinak:
• makam: Rast Suzinak Zirgüleli Suzinak
• upper cins: rast-4  hicaz-4 - hicaz-4
• lower cins: rast-5 - rast-5  hicaz-5
Zirgüleli Suzinak is then made to return to its dominant (still neva), which for that
makam is an appropriate place from which to open a modulation, and which
as the lower cins (see Kutluğ 2000 Vol. I, pp. 384, Özkan 1984: 309-11). Performers nowadays may
refer to any hicaz-type constructions on neva as “Araban.” See Appendix J s.v. “Araban.”
31
Cf. Marcus 1992:183-184 where the issue of modulation and relative maqām proximity is discussed
with respective to Eastern Arab modal practice.
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conveniently also serves as the dominant for the “descending-ascending” makam
Nikriz.
Nikriz may be considered appropriate here for a number of reasons; firstly because it
is a common modulation within Rast (and seems to have been earlier in the century,
as in Mesut Cemil Bey’s taksim above, whether or not “cins” was a concern in a
performer’s application of the makam), and also because it is a descending-ascending
makam whose dominant is shared with Zirgüleli Suzinak, and because it shares the
two upper cins-es with the host makam (i.e., both it and Rast have a rast-4 on neva
ascending and a buselik-4 on neva descending), but I suspect it is also desirable
because Nikriz has as a “species” within it the hicaz tetrachord A Bw cs d, acting as a
kind of transposed echo of the two hicaz cins-es we have just heard on d/neva and
G/rast in the context of Zirgüleli Suzinak. The following return to Rast—a reminder
of the host makam that is common in taksim-s with many modulations (though not a
requirement)—is effected simply by switching the nikriz-5 for the rast-5 in the lower
cins: such direct changes in the lower cins are often considered too abrupt, but they
are usually considered more effective in makam-s whose tonic is rast—perhaps
particularly in Rast itself—and is here made gentler by beginning the change from the
common dominant, from which we have already just heard several cins changes.32
32
Direct changes in the lower cins level in modes on A/dügâh would seem more often to occur when
evoking a compound makam requiring such a change, such as Dügâh or Isfahan (see Appendices J and
K).
191
Below are the modulations of this taksim represented as changes of cins in a series of
grids with vertical columns and horizontal rows. The first four cells down the first
column contain the Turkish terms “tiz” (upper), “açan” (opening), “kök” (root), and
“destek” (supporting). These are terms I am applying, myself, to the levels of the
cins-es. So far in describing makam-s in terms of cins-es we have only mentioned
conjunctions of two of them, for instance above when I showed Rast as “rast-5 +
rast-4.” I mentioned in Chapter III that this is deemed sufficient in Arel’s (simplified)
theory, and that Yekta felt rather that each makam had at least one other conjoined
cins than the two in the central octave (page 78-9). But the additional factors that
some makam-s do not repeat their central cins-es at the octave, and that taksim-s
regularly span the two octaves between DD (yegâh) and d’ (tiz neva)—making
modulations at any level—caused me to want to show all movement of cins over the
whole range of play. Since no standardized terminology exists for describing these
levels, I am introducing these terms (tiz, açan, kök, and destek):
• the “kök/root” level is the “lower” cins in the central octave (e.g., the “rast-5”
in the Arelian “rast-5 + rast-4”)
• the “açan/opening” level is the “upper” cins of the central octave (so called
because it is generally where modulations are “opened”—e.g., the “rast-4” in
the last example)
• the “destek/supporting” level is the cins occurring below the tonic
• the “tiz/upper” level is the cins above the upper tonic. The resulting makam-s
(as interpreted by the artist) run along the bottom row. Cins-names in
192
parentheses represent incomplete cins-es (i.e., not all the tones in it were
played) named on the merit of the performer’s designation of the makam.
Note that in this system of representing taksim-s, which is used extensively in the
analyses of the 100 taksim-s made for this study (see Appendix K and Chapter VII)
these “level-names” are always relative to the presently named makam, which levels
may differ from those of the nominal makam (that is, the makam in which the taksim
began). The grids below and in Appendix K always maintain the levels of the
nominal makam; when there is a need to refer to the levels of a modulated-to makam
whose levels differ from those of the nominal makam, the switch is noted beneath the
appropriate grid (for instance see the modulation to “Karcığar on neva” in the third
grid below).33
Agnès Agopian, Rast Taksim 2 (4:20), DVD 1, track 1, #2
Tiz
Açan (rast-4) hicaz-4
Kök rast-5 uşşak-4 rast-5 hicaz-5
Destek rast-4 rast-4
Makam Rast Uşşak Rehavi Rast Suzinak Zirgüleli Suzinak
Tiz (rast-5)
Açan buselik-4 (rast-4) (buselik-4) rast-4
Kök nikriz-5 rast-5 pençgâh-5 müstear-3 uşşak-4
Destek
Makam Nikriz Rast Pençgâh Müstear Uşşak
33
As will be explained in Chapter VI, the capacity to make such shifts is a crucial aspect of the ability
to modulate through the makam system.
193
Tiz segâh-3 uşşak-4 hicaz (-5)
Açan (rast-4) (uşşak-4) çargâh-5 on
acem *
Kök rast-5 uşşak-4
Destek (rast-4)
Makam Rast (Tiz) Segâh (Tiz) Uşşak Karcığar on neva Acem
(*NB: Acem is a compound makam whose conjunctions are a bit “crooked”: it is essentially a çargâh-5
on f/acem that falls to become Beyati [i.e., an uşşak-4], but there is a buffer of three tones between the
dominant [d/neva] and the root of the upper “Çargâh”—a buselik trichord, in effect—composed of the
tones d e f.) (NB: when in “Karcığar on neva” the “levels” have de facto switched such that the uşşak-4
is the kök/root level of that makam, and the hicaz-5 is its açan/opening level.)
Tiz
Açan hicaz-5 (rast-4) rast-4
Kök uşşak-5** uşşak-4 uşşak-5 rast-5
Destek
Makam Karcığar Hüseyni Rast
(** i.e., “hüseyni-5”)
Tiz buselik (-3)

Açan hüzzam-4*** (rast-4) buselik-4
Kök segâh-3 rast-5 (rast-5)
Destek rast-4
Makam Hüzzam Rast (Rast)
(***The E here would normally be written, and probably interpreted, as a “high E ”; this
q w
interpretation of the written E (as it appears throughout the Hüzzam modulation) is the author’s rather
q
than the artist’s. See below for an explanation of the “hüzzam-4.”)
Figure 9: Agopian Rast taksim 2 depicted in grids.
Continuing where we left off in this taksim, we can see that the next set of
modulations (ca. 3:38-4:17) moves from Rast through Pençgâh, Müstear, and Uşşak
before returning to Rast. On the face of it:
• Rast (G A Bq c d + d e …) passes via a direct change of cins at the kök/root
level to
• Pençgâh ([G A] Bz cs d + d e …), which passes via a direct change of cins at
the same level to
• Müstear (Bq cs d + d e fs g + g a …), which passes via a direct change of cins
194
at the same level to
• Uşşak (A Bq c d + d e …), which moves back to Rast as one of its internal
“species”
Generally direct modulations at the kök-cins level are spoken of as the kind most
likely to make an “ugly” or “shocking” transition of the sort Necati Çelik and Eymen
Gürtan spoke of in Chapter IV (though there are certain compound makam-s that
require such a move—see Chapter VI fn. 4—and we will see in Chapter VII and
Appendix K that nineteen percent of the cins changes made in taksim-s recorded for
this study are of this kind). At least here the tonic tones change to form a kind of
melodic sequence appropriate to the host makam (GBq AG), while the
dominant (d) remains common to the modulated-to makam-s. But I think there is
another factor at work in this sequence of modulations: although Ms. Agopian did not
say as much, it may be seen altogether as a single modulation to the compound
makam Pençgâh (or more precisely, Pençgâh-ı Zâid; see Appendix J s.v. “Pençgâh”),
whose necessary internal makam-entities/modulations are described by Özkan (1984:
421) as:
• Isfahan
o itself a compound with a direct kök-level cins change between an
uşşak-4 (A Bq c d) and a nişabur-4 (A Bz cs d)
 (with a buselik-5 in the açan-cins range above these)
• a Rast pentachord on dügâh
195
o (A B cs d e)
• a Pençgâh pentachord 34
o (G A B cs d)
• Rast and/or Acemli Rast “in its place”
o Rast (G A Bq c d + d e fs g)
o Acemli Rast (G A Bq c d + d e f g) 35
And while it is true that in theory-book descriptions neither Pençgâh nor Isfahan
contain Müstear, we can see from such pieces in the canonical repertoire as Tanburi
Cemil Bey’s Isfahan Saz Semaisi (TRT 2006: 126-7) that the makam Isfahan may
interact extensively with Müstear.36
This brings up a new issue: as seen in Chapters III and IV, the main way in which
performers (purport to) learn to make taksim-s is by mimicking established repertoire
(though presumably after having mastered Arel’s grammar of makam construction in
terms of tetrachords and pentachords). We might therefore expect to find many
34
Curiously, Arel—who introduced the pençgâh pentachord in his enumeration of “other” (non-basic)
cins-es (1991 [1943-8]: 26)—did not employ it in his description of the makam Pençgâh (ibid.: 211),
practically speaking the only place where it could have been used.
35
“Acemli Rast” (lit. “Rast with [the perde] acem”) is often used as a designation for Rast when it
uses acem instead of eviç, but there has been some debate over whether or not it should refer to a
makam separate from Rast proper (see Kutluğ 2000 Vol. I, pp. 160-4).
36
Or at least Müstear-like gestures. It is possible, however, that this transcription is in error—several
pages earlier there is a peşrev in Isfahan, also by Tanbur Cemil Bey, that contains no such gestures
(ibid.: 122), and it is bereft of the tone B (expected in Isfahan). This raises the questions: a) is only
z
one version correct (and if so, which)? and b) if an understanding of the makam were widely learned
from the piece in the former transcription—published by the official, government-sponsored national
music authority—and widely applied thus in their taksim-s, could it become the norm even if it would
in earlier times have been considered in error?
196
phrases and modulations of taksim-s directly quoting or paraphrasing this repertoire. I
must say however that on the one hand, as often as I asked performers to point out
such phrases in their own taksim-s I was told that they could not identify them
specifically,37 and on the other hand, to analyze each phrase in each taksim I recorded
or found in the early recordings in a comparison to each phrase in the canonical
repertoire was simply beyond the scope of this project, and it is only incidentally that
I am able occasionally to reference concurrences of this sort. Minimally, however, we
can say that among the types of “principles” that explain the appropriateness of
particular modulations—such as we have seen in regard to shared cins-es, dominants,
and seyir-s, for instance—one of them must be the principle that a modulation can be
made in a taksim merely because it evokes a similar one well known from the
canonical repertoire; i.e., one that is iconic of established practice and that therefore
need not demonstrate other principles (though it is highly likely that such repertoire
has become canonical, at least in part, precisely because it conforms to an aesthetic
embedded in those principles).
Returning to the analysis of Agnès Agopian’s second Rast taksim, the next set of
37
Şehvar Beşiroğlu in her Zavil taksim (see DVD 1/6) pointed out to me her “quotation” of Selim III’s
Pesendide Saz Semaisi (see TRT 2001b: 192), but otherwise most performers were not so explicit. A
near exception was Murat Aydemir’s pointing out a modulation he had picked up from Tanburi Cemil
Bey, but this seems to have been from a taksim recording rather than a pre-composed piece (p.c.
5/15/09). On the same occasion, however, I had heard him criticize another performer’s taksim in
Pençgâh, saying that the makam does not really modulate at all in the meyan section (whereas this
performer had modulated to Nikriz, there). But when I pointed out that both Dede Salih Efendi’s
Pençgâh Peşrevi (TRT 2001b: 186) and Cantemir’s Pençgâh Saz Semaisi (ibid.: 189) make such
modulations to Nikriz he conceded on those grounds that this performer’s modulation had been
appropriate. We might even argue that in Ms. Agopian’s taksim above, the preceding section
modulating from Nikriz to Rast is in that sense a foreshadowing of the Pençgâh modulation to come, as
though it were returning to Pençgâh from its meyan section.
197
modulations runs: Rast(Tiz) Segâh(Tiz) UşşakKarcığar on
nevaAcemKarcığarHüseyniRast.38 The first two transitions are of the
“species” variety (i.e., she considers Segâh and Uşşak to exist inside Rast). The next
move, from
• Uşşak (as the tetrachord a bq c’ d’) to
• Karcığar on neva (as [f+] its açan-level cins g a w bq c’)
o (the central octave of Karcığar consists of uşşak-4 + hicaz-5)
is effected by way of lowering the root of the first makam in the sequence (Uşşak on
a/muhayyer) in a kind of glissando to become the diminished 5th degree of the
modulated-to makam (a w). This would seem to be a very rare sort of modulation; it
certainly does not happen often enough to derive from it a “principle of melodic
movement.” Because the “Karcığar” phrase ends on f/acem, I personally would have
interpreted this not as Karcığar on neva but as Nikriz on acem (and this also makes
more sense to me as the place from which to make the next move, to the makam
Acem), but regardless, that also would have been a strange or at least rare transition.
As far as I am aware it does not come from a piece in the canonical repertoire or from
a famous taksim recording; it would appear to be the artist’s own invention.39 And not
only did she find it a satisfying and appropriate transition, I would add that for my
part I do as well—such a judgment is always subjective, but I would suggest that this
is a good example of a “principle” that is no principle at all: that the system is open to
38
The term “tiz” here signifies “played an octave higher than normal/in the upper octave.”
39
It must be noted, however, that there are compound makam-s whose normal seyir demands just such
a sudden drop of a whole step (e.g., see Murat Aydemir’s “Muhayyer-Sümbüle Taksim,” DVD 2/14)—
it is possible that this move is a sort of mimicry of that dynamic.
198
invention, and as long as it is well received, such a new gesture may become one of a
particular performer’s signature melodic gestures, and may even become part of a
makam’s normative repertoire of internal moves; such an effect was cited by Murat
Aydemir, in whose Gerdaniye-to-Gülizar taksim (DVD 1/12) he had put a moment of
Hicaz on e/hüseyni, saying to me afterward that this was an addition to the makam
Gerdaniye by Tanburi Cemil Bey, making it “tam Gerdaniye,” “a perfect Gerdaniye”
(p.c. 5/15/09).
Continuing with the Rast taksim, the above modulation lands on f/acem, the initial
dominant of the makam of the same name: Acem—a compound makam that begins
with a çargâh-5 on f/acem (f g a b e c) then becomes the makam Beyati (A Bq c d + d
e f g).40 The modulation from Karcığar on neva (or for that matter, from Nikriz on
acem) to Acem seems also to be a continuation of the free-form gesture of this set of
modulations so far, that is, except for using the tone acem as a pivot tone between the
two makam-s, there is no immediate connection between them (e.g., they share no
common cins or dominant, they are not part of a known compound makam, do not
commonly appear together in canonical repertoire, etc.). Furthermore, the artist’s
treatment of Acem is idiosyncratic in that it emphasizes the fifth degree from the
tonic—e/hüseyni—rather than the d/neva that Arelian textbooks report as the
40
We may note Acem as one of the most outstanding exceptions to the idea that makam-s always
consist of conjunct cins-es with the conjunct tone as the dominant, there being the interval of a minor
3rd between the bottom tone of the top cins (f) and the upper tone of the bottom cins (d), which is the
makam’s second dominant. It might be better represented as: uşşak-4 + buselik-3 + çargâh-3 (or even
çargâh-5).
199
dominant (see Özkan 1984: 315, and Arel 1991 [1943-8]: 232). But using e/hüseyni
instead sets up two things in this set of modulations: it foreshadows the coming of
Hüseyni makam (ca. 5:17), but more importantly it allows her to echo the earlier
gesture from Uşşak to Karcığar on neva—made by way of a glissando fall of 4
comma-s—repeating it by a glissando from e/hüseyni to e w/hisar, thus entering
Karcığar “in its place” (on A/dügâh)—a melodic gesture that would be normative in
the makam Beyati, which is supposed to be the lower part of the compound Acem
(though she has chosen to threaten its identity as Beyati—by introducing that
dominant-like e/hüseyni—in order to accomplish this).
This is followed by a similar blurring of the separation between Uşşak-family
makam-s—the placement of whose dominant at either d/neva or e/hüseyni is usually a
major distinguishing factor—by immediately modulating from Karcığar (A Bq c d + d
ew fs g a) to Hüseyni (A Bq c d e + e fs g a), and then, as seen earlier, treating this
makam family as “existing inside” (or as a “species” of) Rast makam, it returns to
Rast at ca. 5:38. Overall, this set of modulations seems to exemplify the freedom of
the artist to experiment with novel combinations of cins-es during the spontaneous
composition of a taksim.41
41
An argument could be made that this freedom transgresses the idea of the “praxis of makam theory”
that I have posited as a definition for taksim, but I see it as only being effective within the framework
of the makam system, i.e., using its “vocabulary” (if slightly tweaking its “grammar”); its dependence
on the makam system as a whole, for me, still distinguishes it from “improvisation” in the broader
sense discussed under “Preliminary Definitions,” though this would seem to be the edge of that
distinction.
200
There then occurs a final modulation before the brief return to the zemin and final
cadence in Rast. This last modulation is found between ca. 5:50 and 6:14 and is in the
makam Hüzzam:42
Figure 10: Agopian Rast taksim 2, modulation in Hüzzam.
As it happens, Hüzzam is going to open up a whole new can of worms, so to speak,
but let us begin by positing that the artist has brought us from Rast to Hüzzam by way
of one of two previously encountered principles: a) by microtonally lowering a single
tone (e to eq↓) in a normative cin-s of the nominal makam, i.e., as though what is to
come “exists inside” Rast; or b) by presuming a commonality in the kök-level cins
while changing the açan-level cins, from a rast-4 (d e fs g) to a hicaz-4 with a
microtonally high 2nd degree (d e w↑ fs g). Since we can see that it returns to Rast ca.
6:15 by a reversal of whatever is happening here, our final issue in this taksim is
“what is meant by Hüzzam?”
42
I take it from the expression on her face at ca. 5:52 that the b e—marked by a red asterisk in the
transcription—was unintended, but she subsequently treats it as appropriate to Hüzzam at this part of
its seyir.
201
Indeed, that is not an easy thing to answer. Among the twelve performers I recorded
for this project who gave their own analysis for their 42 taksim-s, only three played in
Hüzzam—once each, and always as a minor modulation within another makam—and
each of them had a different definition for the intervals in question. Firstly it is clear
that in practice there is a segâh trichord used as the kök-level cins,43 and some sort of
tetrachord above that based on the dominant d/neva;44 the defining question is what
tones constitute this tetrachord? All three informants agreed that the second cins of
Hüzzam required at least one tone that does not appear in Arel’s theory, and each
varies it in terms of the two inner tones in an Arelian definition of a hicaz-4 on d/neva
(d e w fs g):
• Agnès Agopian: the second degree is high while the third degree remains the
same
o d e w↑ f s g
• Necati Çelik (see Chapter IV and “Rast Taksim” DVD 3/30 ca. 2:39-4:05):
the second degree remains e w but the third degree must be lowered by 2
commas (f s↓)
o d e w f s↓ g
• Murat Aydemir (see “Suzinak Taksim” DVD 2/15): the second degree must
43
This was stated explicitly by several performer-informants (see Chapter IV) and should be evident
by its deployment in the transcription above; this already runs counter to Arel’s idea of a hüzzam
pentachord as the bottom cins of the central octave, but we will look more closely at his concept of the
makam below.
44
What goes above this tetrachord is also a debatable matter; a safe bet among these performers seems
to be some form of rast cins (trichord or pentachord) on g/gerdaniye when rising or showing the upper
tonic and some form of buselik cins (trichord or pentachord) on g/gerdaniye when remaining around
the second dominant g/gerdaniye.
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be higher and the third degree must be lower than in a hicaz tetrachord
o d e w ↑ f s↓ g
Before looking more closely at these examples, and at Hüzzam taksim-s from the
earlier part of the twentieth century, let us clarify what Arel’s definition of the makam
Hüzzam was. He described Hüzzam as an ascending makam consisting of a hüzzam
pentachord on Bq/segâh (Bq c d e w f s) conjoined to a hicaz tetrachord on f s/eviç (f s
g a s bq), and whose dominant is the third degree, d/neva (1991 [1943-48]: 298). He
adds, “However, as with Segâh makam, when playing in the upper area of Hüzzam, in
place of the hicaz tetrachord many times a buselik tetrachord or pentachord is seen in
use” (ibid.). We must note that he can only mean a buselik cins from g/gerdaniye, not
literally in place of the hicaz-4 on f s/eviç (which appears neither in recordings nor
repertoire—including the two notated examples he gave).45
Of the taksim-s mentioned above, all 3 performers treated the makam as though it
were Hicaz on d/neva (hicaz-4 + rast-5 alternating with hicaz-4 + buselik-5) that falls
through a segâh-3 on (and to) segâh, but with a non-hicaz intonation of their own
definition in the açan cins-level; only Necati Çelik’s version included—in a
purposefully distinguished meyan section—a passage in Arel’s Hicaz on f s/eviç.
45
This alone seems to me to be evidence that his cins construction for Hüzzam makam—and
particularly for the never-before-theorized “hüzzam pentachord”—is an artificial novelty. For a later
Arelian take on Hüzzam, see Özkan’s implausibly complex 10-component compound version, which
nonetheless partakes of Arel’s hüzzam-5 (1984: 288-93).
203
Below I would like to compare both Arel’s definition and these current performers’
versions of Hüzzam with several taksim-s in Hüzzam from the early-twentieth
century, but first I wish to mention another makam that may quietly be playing a part
here: its name is Rahat-ül Ervah, and it may be described as, at first, recombinations
of Hicaz (A Bq cs d + d e fs g a), Hümayun (A Bq cs d + d e f g a), and Uzzal (A Bq cs
d e + e fs↓ g a) according to one’s taste,46 which toward the end of the piece or taksim
comes to a final cadence on Fs/ırak through a segâh trichord (possibly playing a bit in
the lower area of the makam Irak). One occasionally hears Rahat-ül Ervah described
in passing as a transposition of Hüzzam a perfect fourth down, but in more discerning
conversation the differences become clear, mainly that Rahat-ül Ervah does not alter
the intonation of the hicaz cins-es within it (as Hüzzam does, if we are even to think
of it as an alteration of a hicaz cins at all; see below), and that the segâh trichord
appears only after extensive exploration of the Hicaz-family makam-s mentioned
(whereas in Hüzzam the root and its trichord are shown earlier and more often). As
we will see, there nonetheless appears occasionally to be confusion of the two
makam-s in performance.
In fact, in my own reckoning I would say that the aspects that make Necati Çelik’s
example here (within “Rast Taksim” DVD 3/30, ca. 2:39-4:05) not Rahat-ül Ervah on
Bq/segâh are the intonation he mentioned and the addition of the meyan passage in
Hicaz on f s/eviç. In contrast, both Agnès Agopian’s and Murat Aydemir’s versions,
46
See Appendix J for more detailed descriptions of these makam-s.
204
while demonstrating their own non-hicaz cins-es, show the tonic and its segâh-3 early
(i.e., not only at the end of the “Hüzzam” passage).
Below is a list of recordings of taksim-s in Hüzzam from throughout the twentieth
century (presumably in chronological order), marked as to the characteristics noted
above; all but the last two performers are presumed to have completed their music
education previous to Arel’s theory becoming normative:
o Tanburi Cemil Bey (1873-1916), “Hüzzam Taksim (Violonsel ile)”

‘cello, Tanburi Cemil Bey Vol.s IV and V Traditional Crossroads 1995:
1/1
 uses both hicaz-4 and a higher “e w” and lower “f s” continually
exchanging them (with the smallest interval between them ca.
2:45)
 not treated like Rahat-ül Ervah
 ca. 2:17- 2:33 (in the meyan) he does play a few moments of
hicaz-4 on f s/eviç among other very chromatic playing
 moves to buselik on g/gerdaniye
 final melodic gesture:
• octave rise from Bq/segâh using hicaz-4 on d/neva
• descends using uşşak-4 on d/neva ca. 3:27
o (note the unusual reversal of “rise with a higher
perde version, fall with a lower one/cazibe”—
the e w rises to eq↓ during a descent)
• ends with expected movement around segâh-3
205
o Nevres Bey (1873-1937), “Hüzzam Taksim” ud, Türk Müziği Ustaları
– Ud Kalan 2004c: 1/5
 Hicaz on d/neva falls to segâh-3 ≈ Rahat-ül Ervah on Bq/segâh
(it is possible that this recording is actually Rahat-ül Ervah
mislabeled)47
 never hicaz-4 on f s/eviç
o Fahri Kopuz (1885-1968), ud, “Hüzzam” Türk Müziği Ustaları – Ud

Kalan 2004c: 1/16
 segâh-3 + hicaz-4 on d/neva (falls to Bq/segâh relatively fast,
i.e., not like Rahat-ül Ervah)
 falls as far as rast through a rast-3 (i.e. not as Arel implies,
with the hicaz-4 on f s/eviç repeated an octave below); then
later through a hicaz-4 to Fs/ırak per Arel’s description of
makam Segâh
 at the meyan section, a rast-5 on g/gerdaniye (contra Arel)
 using f/acem, an Arazbar or “Beyati-on-neva” çeşni [?]
Perhaps Buselik-on-neva [?]
 stop on c/çargâh (as though it were the 2nd degree of
Evcara/Zirgüleli Hicaz on Bq/segâh—falls to Fs/ırak in a hicaz-
4 per Arel’s description of Segâh)
 a Buselik çeşni “in its place”
 an Irak çeşni
 modulates to Rahat-ül Ervah “in its place”
 repeats “as though 2nd of Evcara/Zirgüleli Hicaz” gesture noted
above but a 4th lower (to Cs/kaba nim hicaz)
 repeats the above Buselik çeşni a 4th lower than before (on
aşiran)
 repeats Rahat-ül Ervah a 4th below where it was noted above
 modulates to Hümayun on E/aşiran
 sneaks f s/eviç in, a rast-4 on d/neva, a hint of cf/dik hicaz,
then makes a run up from G/rast in Suzinak, lands on d/neva
47
Mislabeling of the archival recordings is indeed an issue, though usually one having to do with a
misreading of the original Ottoman language label; for instance it is clear enough that Tanburi Cemil
Bey’s “Eviç Taksim” on Traditional Crossroads 1994 Tanburi Cemil Bey is actually in the makam
Evcara—since there is such a thing as an “ara” taksim (one played between two pieces of repertoire in
the same makam), the label probably read “Evcara Taksimi” but was taken as “Eviç Ara Taksimi”
when translated. Older master musicians are familiar with the discrepancies (and therefore, for
instance, do not believe that Eviç was once played the way Evcara is played now, etc.), and they pass
the lore of such corrections onto their students, but it is possible that younger players who do not have
some form of meşk relationship with an experienced master are not learning the corrections, or the
differences between such mislabeled makam-s and the recordings’ true makam-s.
206
 modulates to Hümayun on d/neva
 return to Hüzzam as segâh-3 + hicaz-4
o Şerif İçli (1899-1956), ud, “Hüzzam Taksim” Türk Müziği Ustaları –

Ud Kalan 2004c: 2/12
 basically Rahat-ül Ervah (emphasizes gerdaniye as Hicaz’
dominant)
• ending on segâh, if it is intended to be Segâh—it is
possible that this recording is actually Rahat-ül Ervah
mislabeled)
o Ruşen Kam (1902-1981), kemençe, “Ara Taksimi (Hüzzam)” Türk

Müziği Ustaları – Kemençe Kalan 2005: 2/3
 uses both eq/dik hisar (especially when rising) and e w/hisar
(i.e., a hicaz-4) on d/neva, but
o Vecihe Daryal Osmanoğlu (1908-1970), kemençe, “Hüzzam Kanun

Taksimi” Türk Müziği Ustaları – Kemençe Kalan 2005: 2/1
 like Hümayun on neva (i.e., d ew f s g + g a be [c]; the
dominant is d/neva)
 falls often to Bq/segâh (i.e., not like Rahat-ül Ervah)
o Cinuçen Tanrıkorur (1938-2000), ud, “Hüzzam Taksim” on Türk

Müziği Ustaları – Ud Kalan 2004c: 2/20
 the “eq” type is often so high that this seems as though it could
be a taksim in Segâh rather than Hüzzam much of the time
 emphasizes areas around the tonic (Bq/segâh), dominant
(d/neva), 2nd dominant (g/gerdaniye), and again tonic in turn,
but does not appear very cins-oriented
207
o Niyazi Sayın (1927-present), ney, Sufi Music of Turkish, vol. 8: Sadâ
Mega Müzik 2001: 4
 begins as though it were Rast, lands on neva with a little
gesture using c s/nim hicaz (Müstear [?] ca. :43)
 the 6th degree becomes e w/hisar; another use of c s/nim hicaz
(Zirgüleli Hicaz on neva [?])
 6th becomes e z/hüseyni; rast-4 on d/neva
 ca. 1:15 falls from c’/tiz çargâh to g/gerdaniye through a rast-
4, then g/gerdaniye to c/çargâh through a nikriz-5
 an Arazbar or “Beyati-on-neva” çeşni
 falls from b e/sümbüle to c/çargâh to land on d/neva as though
in Araban/Hümayun-on-neva but the 6th degree is a little higher
than in a hicaz-4
 descends from bq/tiz segâh to c/çargâh in Pençgâh-on-çargâh
 rises from d/neva in a hicaz-4, falls using a higher version of
“e,” with a stop on A/dügâh
 from G/rast ascends through a rast-5 then to a high e w↑/hisar
and falls through a segâh-3 to cadence on Bq/segâh.
Among our sample of 11 recordings of Hüzzam we find:
• 6 that require at least one altered tone (e w↑ or f s↓, i.e., that cannot be
accurately written in the Arel system) in the açan cins-level (from d/neva to
g/gerdaniye) but no hicaz-4 proper
o 1 of which taksim-s resembles Rahat-ül Ervah
• 3 that at times require at least one altered tone there, but at other times also
use a hicaz-4 on d/neva
o none of which resembles Rahat-ül Ervah
• 4 that use only a hicaz-4 on d/neva
o 3 of which taksim-s resembles Rahat-ül Ervah
• 2 renditions of the makam (those by Tanburi Cemil Bey and Necati Çelik)
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containing Arel’s hicaz-4 on f s/eviç, although in both cases this was
performed in the meyan section, where one would expect a modulation rather
than a further definition of the makam itself, and in one case amongst very
ambiguous chromatic material
I wish to conclude the analysis of Agnès Agopian’s second Rast taksim with this
overview of the issues raised by these divergent interpretations of Hüzzam. I do so by
way of a transition to a consolidation of the material so far presented in Chapter V,
which will include suggestions for modifying certain items in the “grammar” of
Arelian music theory to better reflect the understandings of makam-s, and
modulations between makam-s, that performers over the period 1910-2010 have
expressed in their application (i.e., putting into praxis) of them in the 12 taksim-s we
have examined in some detail so far in this chapter.48 The first such suggestion
regards the constitution of Hüzzam, but unlike those that will follow, the basis for
making this suggestion is not to be found in the material within this chapter alone; I
therefore have provided a detailed justification and explanation for it in Appendix H,
which I hope the reader will peruse after finishing this chapter.
The first suggestion is simply this: to introduce a cins replacing Arel’s “hüzzam
pentachord” (Bq c d e w f s), to consist only of a tetrachord form and to be written (as
long as Arel’s notation scheme remains) “d eq f s g” and to refer to it as a “hüzzam
48
That is, the eight taksim-s in Hüzzam directly above, and four taksim-s in Rast before them.
209
tetrachord,” for use in the makam-s Hüzzam, Segâh, and Müstear (as well as in
compounds including these, and in certain historical interpretations of Rast, Yegâh,
and Araban; see Appendix H) with the understanding that the perde-s here
represented as “eq/hisar” and “f s/eviç” may be inflected according to taste by the
performer in the same manner as is found in the similarly “misspelled” tones “d w” in
Saba and “Bq” in the Uşşak family of makam-s. In addition to reviving what
apparently had been a valid cins historically (ibid.), it would seem to me to offer
performers a more realistic representation of their praxis of these makam-s, and
possibly also serve as a device for maintaining the separate identities of Hüzzam and
Rahat-ül Ervah, if such a preservation is desired.
CONSOLIDATION
Although the sample of taksim-s thus far presented has been relatively small,49 the
details we have gleaned from it are sufficient to form a framework for a performer-
generated music theory, further details of which we will be able to demonstrate in
Chapter VI (drawing on the analyses of our 100 taksim recordings, presented in
Appendix K).
Firstly we may note that there are two main concerns in the making of a taksim:
49
101 makam-s were examined in total in this chapter: 89 were cited in comparisons regarding
melody-oriented versus cin-s-oriented taksim-s (see Discography); 8 were described in detail using
only prose; 4 were fully transcribed and analyzed in prose.
210
defining the nominal makam, and effecting appropriate modulations to other makam-
s. The first of these depends on such factors as demonstrating melodic gestures
associated specifically with the makam; establishing the makam’s characteristic
melodic direction (seyir); sequentially and with proportionate emphasis
demonstrating the hierarchy of tonic, dominant, and other makam-defining tones; and
demonstrating makam-specific intonation (and/or an idiosyncratic flexibility of
intonation).50 It does not seem to require strict attention to delineating the makam’s
constituent cins-es, though it would seem that this has become more common a factor
than it was at the beginning of the twentieth century (presumably due to Arel’s
emphasis on octave scales consisting of conjoined pentachords and tetrachords).
The second concern of taksim making—effecting appropriate modulations—does
indeed seem to require a focus upon the cins-es, at least among current performers.
For whatever reason, the extant early phonograph recordings of taksim-s remain
mostly in their nominal makam, many having nothing that could be called even
vaguely a modulation. Let us for the moment defer speculation regarding the possible
reasons for this, but we may recall from Chapter II—if Cantemir is to be trusted—that
at the inception of the taksim genre its whole raison d’être was to show modulations;
there was no point in making a “taksim” in a single makam. We must assume this
implies that brief, single-makam introductions to and between pieces were not
50
Karl Signell lists 5 criteria for identifying a discrete makam: scale, melodic direction, characteristic
modulations, stereotyped melodies, tessitura (2008 [1977/1985]: 137; cf. Marcus 1989a: 323-6 and
438-713 regarding such criteria for Eastern Arab maqām).
211
considered part of the taksim genre per se at that time.51 Even today we hear from
academic music researchers such as Dr. Can Akkoç (a participant in the “theory vs.
practice” congress cited so often in Chapter III):
“Requesting a pure improvisation from a master musician that does not delve
into other maqams could be viewed as absurd, almost like handcuffing the
performer.” (In Bayhan 2008: 50, fn. 8)
However throughout our period, and perhaps for some time before it, the single-
makam “taksim” has been quite normal; whether the apparent importance of the cins-
es to the current sense of modulation results from the early-twentieth-century
theorists’ newfound focus on them (and particularly Arel’s, since these became part
of musicians’ normative vocabulary) is difficult to tell. But from one of the earliest
taksim recordings featuring extensive modulation—the above-mentioned Hüzzam ud
taksim by Fahri Kopuz (1885-1968)—we can see that modulations effected by
extensive chains of makam-s that share a common cins were put to good effect then,52
and by the 1960s it seems to be a normative practice.53
This leads us to a review of what I have earlier referred to as “principles of melodic
movement” as seen in our example taksim-s. I would reiterate firstly that the term
“principles” used in regard to makam construction and modulation came to me from
51
The reader will recall from that chapter my speculation regarding a performance-generated,
repertoire-dependent, non-modulating sort of prelude/interlude, perhaps corresponding at some period
with the term “agaze/âğâze” (Persian, “commencement”).
52
Despite inadequate dating we may presume (from his life-dates, and from the sound quality and
length of the recording) that this recording is from the era before the extensive use of the 12 inch, 78
rpm record, i.e., from the late 1930s or before.
53
Hear for instance Yorgo Bacanos’s “Rast Taksim II” on Türk Müziği Ustaları—Ud Kalan 2004c:
1/14 or Haydar Tatlıyay’s “Rast Taksim” on Haydar Tatlıyay Kalan 2001: 6.
212
neyzen Ahmet Toz (see Chapter IV), but that his meaning of it referred to specific
permissible conjunctions of cins-es within the system, with the understanding that
each of these carries the power to imply or evoke other makam-s without necessarily
delineating the whole of the modulated-to makam. This sort of “principle” will be the
main subject of the following chapter, but those we have seen so far in this chapter
are more directly concerned with the dynamics of modulation, and work at a different
operational level, to wit:
• modulations often occur between makam-s that share a cins at the same level,
which is used as a pivot from which to change an adjacent cins
• modulations may be facilitated by exploiting common dominants
o and by taking the dominant of one of the makam-s as the tonic of the
other
 a modulation may be further facilitated by exploiting the seyir
of the modulated-to makam from a hierarchically important
tone, e.g.:
• an ascending-descending or descending-ascending
makam introduced from its dominant, which is also the
dominant of the host or previous makam
• a descending makam introduced from its upper tonic,
which is also the upper tonic of the previous makam
• a descending makam introduced from its upper tonic,
which is the dominant of the previous makam (whose
213
kök-level cins acts as the açan-level cins of the
modulated-to makam)
• a descending-ascending or ascending-descending
makam introduced from the upper tonic of a makam
which is acting as the dominant of the modulated-to
makam (thereby shifting the cins levels)
• etc.—any such recontextualization of a hierarchically
important tone by deploying the second makam’s seyir
upon it may be used as a pivot between two makam-s
• a certain kind of modulation (which need not be thought of as such) may be
achieved by treating tones other than the tonic or dominants of the first
makam as the tonic or dominants of the modulated-to makam while
maintaining the scalar integrity, in the manner of a melodic “species”
o “maintaining scalar integrity” here may require including a flexible
interpretation of the intonation of certain perde-s in the makam’s main
scale (as we saw the treatment of Uşşak above as “existing inside”
Rast)
• that the system is open to inventive ways of connecting cins-es
• that a modulation can be made that evokes a similar modulation found in the
canonical repertoire, or in older taksim recordings (regardless of its
adherence to principles such as those listed, though it is likely to have
achieved that status by way of employing such principles)
214
We will be able to hear these principles at work also in further taksim examples from
this study. Before that, I would like to introduce a few, more general characteristics of
the makam system that we may derive from the taksim-s we have seen so far, having
to do with the issue of the interdependence of individual makam-s within the system.
One of the reasons I chose Rast as the first makam to examine is that it is widely
considered to be a makam well suited to welcoming many makam-s inside it as
modulations (see Chapter IV), and indeed two of the longest and most complex
taksim-s I recorded for this project were in Rast: Necati Çelik playing ud (12 minutes,
22 modulations, 20 makam-s represented; see DVD 3/30) and Ahmet Nuri Benli
playing yaylı tanbur (11 minutes, 20 modulations, 15 makam-s represented; see DVD
4/36).54 So if we may take these two taksim-s, and add to it Agnès Agopian’s second
Rast taksim above, as on one level “representing the makam Rast,” in just these three
examples alone 31 discrete makam-s other than Rast appear (not including “mere”
transpositions).
Even though each makam may be evaluated in terms of its propensity for welcoming
other makam-s inside it in this way, the makam system as a whole exists on the
premise that, given a proper understanding of how to get from one makam to the next,
it is possible to reach any makam from any other makam despite a plethora of
54
For number of modulations the nearest match was Mehmet Emin Bitmez’s ud rendition of the
makam Acem Aşiran: 10 minutes, 22 modulations, 14 makam-s represented; see DVD 2/21.
(Compound makam-s were here counted by their constituent elements, since “modulations” were
required between these. Transpositions were not here counted as separate makam-s.)
215
aesthetic criteria capable of rendering many combinations incompatible if approached
directly.55 From a certain point of view we can understand the theory books
mentioned in this study as tending to portray the makam system as a kind of
inventory of individual, rule-governed makam-s, but the interconnectivity
demonstrated in the Rast taksim-s cited (and many others; see Chapter VII and DVDs
passim)—bolstered by the high value that performers have placed on knowing the
intricate details of making successful modulations and on the ability to apply them in
taksim-s—makes of the makam system a kind of “holism,” such that not only is the
whole greater than the sum of its parts, but like a holograph, each part may be seen to
contain within it all the other parts of the whole.56 That is, every makam is capable of
serving as a framing device for showing, potentially, every other makam. Such an
idea is not made explicit in the Turkish theory texts we have reviewed above (i.e.,
Yekta, Ezgi, Arel, Töre/Karadeniz, Özkan, Kutluğ, Yılmaz et al.), but often
mentioned by teaching performers, and is evident in taksim-s with extensive
modulation.57
Thinking of this dynamic only in terms of the taksim genre, we will recall again that
55
See similar ideas expressed for Eastern Arab music in Marcus 1992: 175. We will explore these
criteria in the next chapter. Generally, I intend to show that, for most current performers, a knowledge
of getting from one makam to the next is largely founded upon understanding how to properly exploit
makam connections at the level of the cins.
56
At least this is so at the level of the makam and “upward” (i.e., if not at the level of the cins). The
word “holism” was introduced to the English language by philosopher Jan C. Smuts to mean “[T]he
tendency in nature to form wholes that are greater than the sum of the parts through creative evolution”
(Smuts 1926). I see a parallel with the makam system, even though it is of course human choices that
create it, such that we must substitute the ideas of “nature” and “evolution” with others like “culture”
and “development” in their respective places.
57
See DVD 1/1 (A. Agopian), 1/9 (E. Gürtan), 2/19 (Ö. Özel), 2/21 (M. Bitmez), 3/30 (N. Çelik), and
4/37 (A. Benli) especially, each of whose performers (among several others) shared this idea with me
in interviews. Again, see a similar idea expressed for eastern Arab music in Marcus 1992: 175.
216
in Cantemir’s time the highest goal of a performing musician was to be able to create
taksim-s that indeed went through the entirety of the system, returning to an original
nominal makam (the küll-i külliyat taksim, see Chapter II). There still exists such a
sort of taksim—the fihrist (“index” or “list”) taksim, though it is exceedingly rare
today (but hear Fahrettin Çimenli, KAF Müzik 2005: Disk 1 Tracks 2 and 7, and Disk
2 Track 2); it was probably the first victim of the time limitations of early phonograph
recording, and of the subsequent decisions to limit the length of taksim-s in radio and
concert programming (see Chapter II). I assume that it is this holistic characteristic of
the makam system that made İhsan Özgen (and others) so lament the “loss” of
detailed makam knowledge among younger players (see Chapter IV). Let me reprint
his quote:
They’re reduced by half [the number of makam-s in use today]. I mean, what
remains? Hicaz, Uşşak, Rast, Segâh. Hüzzam. Nihavend, Buselik. And
various combined makam-s. There used to be known and used many more,
and they were “constructive”—they told you about their structure. Now,
makam, how shall I say it? Various makam-s give you details, information,
knowledge. Thinking about them, you develop your mind. Because of this
development, production and performance must be different. The performance
is different than before. Because not knowing the details of the broader
makam possibilities makes playing even the few that people now “know” less
rich than it was in the past. (İhsan Özgen, p.c. 5/27/09)
217
And let us set alongside this the previously given quote by Can Akkoç:
“Requesting a pure improvisation from a master musician that does not delve
into other maqams could be viewed as absurd, almost like handcuffing the
performer.” (In Bayhan 2008: 50, fn. 8)
In a sense the individual makam-s exist—at least for the purposes of the taksim
genre—to serve the whole, to give the diversity of the system a context and a
framework, and while each makam has its own identity, each also has the potential at
any moment to evoke any of its close relations (e.g., through the aforementioned
“principles of melodic movement,” showing common properties at the level of the
cins and hierarchically important tones), thereby making a taksim into a kind of
portrait of relations, a selective “family reunion” of sorts. In the hands of the
competent taksim performer, all the emotional characteristics attributed to individual
makam-s (see performers’ comments about which in Chapter IV) may be put into
relationship one with another to highlight the relative tensions and harmonies
imagined in their various relations. The loss of makam diversity among currently
younger players (and of the characteristic details of the remaining makam-s) that
İhsan Özgen et al., lament can be seen in this light as a drastic impoverishment of the
system as a whole, like a community after a plague or mass emigration. Even if the
youngest generation of performers is able to play Rast to the satisfaction of its
definition as given in theory books, if they were not to learn also how to include in it,
for instance, at least some of the 31 other makam-s we have seen in the three Rast
taksim-s mentioned above, then Rast itself becomes impoverished.
218
CHAPTER CONCLUSION
In this chapter we have seen examples from the three main objects of this study side
by side: taksim praxis from the early part of the period, taksim praxis from current
performers, and Arelian theory. Let us conclude the chapter by comparing them each
with the other. Firstly we may recall several changes in performance practices in the
taksim genre over the period as noted by current performers in Chapter IV, mainly
changes in style: borrowings from Western musics such as arpeggios and double
stops,58 and to a lesser extent pentatonicism apparently from Eastern musics;59 for
some instruments, such as the kanun, a growing interest in virtuosity,60 while for
others, such as the ney and ud, a lessening of virtuosic flash in favor of a slower,
more exploratory style leaning into their instruments’ timbral possibilities.61
In this chapter we have also seen an apparent increase in the conceptualization of
makam-s as the conjunction of distinctly defined cins-es, overshadowing the freer use
of makam-defining melodic gestures of a more scalar nature, though both are present
in current makam praxis (and both were present in the early recordings). It would be
58
Hear Yorgo Bacanos on Türk Müziği Ustaları – Ud Kalan 2004c: 1/14, Turgut Özefer DVD 5/42
and 5/43.
59
P.c. İhsan Özgen (3/30/09), whom hear on Remembrances of Ottoman Composers Golden Horn
1998: 1 (and with his analysis on DVD 4/A1).
60
Compare Artaki Candan on Lâle-Nerkis Hanımlar Kalan 1998: 1/11 with Erdem Özkıvanç DVD
5/44.
61
Hear Niyazi Sayın on Sadâ Mega Müzik 2001: 1; compare Udi Nevres Türk Müziği Ustaları – Ud
Kalan 2004c: 1/2 with Cinuçen Tanrıkorur (ibid.: 2/19). We may note Walter Feldman’s opinion that a
truly classical style of ud playing was only (re-)invented in the twentieth century by such players as
Rüstü Eriç and Cinuçen Tanrıkorur, the instrument having disappeared from the classical
instrumentarium ca. 1650-1850 and played mainly in a light/popular style ca. 1850-1950 (1996: 518).
219
tempting to make a case that before Yekta, Ezgi and Arel revived makam theory by
structuring it in terms of cins-es there had been no cins-oriented theory as a
“performers’ theory” in the oral meşk tradition,62 and that the acceptance (or
imposition) of Arelian theory as the normative, institutionalized pedagogical standard
by the mid-1940s caused subsequently educated performers to understand and
interpret makam-s in terms of cins-es, which they would not otherwise have done. If
such were definitely the case we could say that those differences arising between
current performers’ understandings of the makam system and Arelian theory that are
couched in terms of cins-es result from their having accepted the concept of cins-es
from Arel et al., in the first place.
We could also then refer to Yekta’s and Arel’s use of cins-oriented theory as basically
a reimagining of the makam system based on medieval Arabic language texts
employing the ancient Greek terminology of tetrachords,63 and not a reflection of
contemporary performance practices. It does not seem to me possible at this time to
present such a clear case, because there would appear to be taksim-s amongst the
early recordings mentioned toward the beginning of this chapter (and marked with
two or three asterisks in the Discography) that show an understanding of cins-
62
Though clearly there had not been such a conception in the recent centuries’ written tradition, for
instance see Haşim Bey 1852 and 1864.
63
Note that Yekta referred to both such medieval theorists (e.g., Al-Fārāb, al-Kindī, and Ṣafīuddīn) as
well as to ancient Greek music theorists (such as Pythagoras and Aristoxenos) in his major work on
theory (1922 [1913]), but that Arel—who was trying to make the music appear as Turkish as possible
to suit the nationalist ideology of his day (see Chapter III)—did not refer to any historical precedent in
his theory text (1991 [1943-48]), except to (falsely) claim a Turko-centric provenance for his concept
of the “Çargâh scale” (see Appendix G).
220
conjunctions in makam definitions on the part of their performers (though we can
only speculate as to its provenance or prominence in an oral tradition). For all we
know, given only the data I have been able to present here, it is possible that Yekta
and Arel used the idea because it was already present in contemporary performers’
musical rhetoric.64 Regardless, it must be said that particularly the Arelian
presentation of makam-s as constructed of the conjoined tetrachords and pentachords
he devised has so pervaded the KTM music culture that it is difficult to find
performers who do not conceive of makam-s as “naturally” constructed in terms of
conjoined cins-es—even contestations of their details are configured in similar terms
seemingly in order to fit into Arelian theory.65
Still, it is worthwhile noting for future research the presence of what may be hints of
cins-oriented thinking in early twentieth-century taksim recordings, with the idea of
tracking down a source for current performers’ contestations of Arelian theory in
mind.66 Here we may note that it is clear there has not been a time after the
appearance of taksim-s in phonograph recordings when students did not imitate them
64
After all, if a primary reason for creating a new theory for classical Turkish music was to
modernize-qua-Westernize it (including simplifications to suit the new pedagogy; see Chapter III), as
seems definitely to be the case with Arel’s version, he presumably could have accomplished that much
better with mere scales, an idea he merges with cins-constructions for unknown reasons (1991 [1943-
48]:17-34), perhaps because it was already considered an indispensable element of the understanding
of makam-s.
65
Even so, we must recall from Chapter I Münir Beken’s note that there are iterations of Turkish
makam music just on the margins of the classical world—for instance as played in restaurants and
bars, and as “recited” in the call to prayer in mosques—whose performers might be less inclined to use
Arelian rhetoric in their descriptions of what they do.
66
For instance the seeming use of “trichords” as a cins in Hüzzam, Segâh, Rahat-ül Ervah et al.
makam-s—and to what would such a thing be attached if not to some other kind of cins?
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as models (see Ünlü 2004, Chapter IV above) from which to learn the “[performers’]
theory” of which their own taksim-s are the praxis. This at least accounts for the
earlier-mentioned phenomenon of a novel çeşni or modulation coming into the
normative praxis of a particular makam due to its invention and performance by a
well respected artist such as Tanburi Cemil Bey. These recordings are de facto part of
the oral/aural transmission that runs in parallel with Arelian theory—as shown in
previous chapters it is not the case that this pre-Arelian, pre-phonograph oral tradition
has yet died out, as diminished as it may be from a traditional meşk education. It also
must be remembered that the single most important model for learning to make
taksim-s today (which is de facto the praxis of a “[performers’] theory”) is
supposedly mimicry of established repertoire. My study does not include repertoire as
a repository of theory, but if some or any if this repertoire can be interpreted as
reflecting some concept of cins structure for makam-s (and I strongly suspect that we
could find such examples), then this would also help us understand the confluence of
factors that lead Yekta, Ezgi, and Arel to formulate a cins-oriented understanding of
makam structure in their works.67
Overall it must be said that the “definitions” of makam-s themselves, as made
manifest in the taksim genre, have not changed significantly over the hundred year
period of this study; makam-s in even the earliest recordings are easily identified by
67
We must note, however, that Yekta and Ezgi themselves are credited with the transcription of nearly
all the repertoire in play today (barring maybe 5 or 6 later composers’ work)—any study of these
materials must also keep in mind how these men’s ideas may have affected their transcriptions.
222
today’s performers and aficionados—especially by such (non-cins-oriented) melodic
gestures as the leap of a 6th from the low-octave dominant falling a 3rd to the tonic so
often played in our Rast examples at the beginning of this chapter—and (as noted in
Chapter IV) performers today are conscious of traditional makam definitions and
pride themselves on reproducing makam-s in ways they assume would have been
understood by the earlier performers.68
Comparing the makam praxis of our period with Arelian theory, we must recall firstly
that it is not merely Arel’s theory specifically that may reflect (or not) earlier praxis
and shape (or not) current praxis, but rather that this theory appeared in the context of
quite drastic changes in pedagogical norms within the whole of the music culture
during this period. If we may posit at least the later end of Arel’s 1943-1948 Turkish
Music Theory Lessons as a marker of his theory having been accepted as the
normative music theory, then we may describe the differences in education between
a) the artists whose recorded taksim-s we have looked at above, and b) even the most
senior of my current informants: the older pedagogical world consisted in decades-
long, one-on-one and small group lessons between a master and his or her students,
usually with little or no reliance on written texts or repertoire, learning by rote pieces
that were understood not to have definitive versions, and the theoretical
underpinnings of which apparently had a different understanding of the role of cins-es
68
Experiments that radically alter the traditional understandings of makam praxis, such as İhsan
Özgen’s “Beyond Makam” (Golden Horn 1999: 1) are extremely rare, and even in this case he seems
to presume that the listener will understand the normative aesthetic enough to know both that and why
this performance deviates from it (see his analysis of the piece on DVD 4/A1).
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in makam definition and/or were linked more closely to characteristic melodic
gestures than to formulaic conjunctions of cins-es (see Behar 2008 [2005], Gill 2006).
My informants, on the other hand, were raised in a pedagogical world in which a
music education—though in many cases supplemented by less stringent or regular
meşk-like lessons with senior musicians—consists of learning literacy at a very early
stage (along with its attendant focus on text-learning and canonized repertoire in fixed
versions), by sitting in different classrooms for an hour or two at a time several days a
week for four or five years, with different teachers for different subjects, all
discussing their subjects (generation after generation) using the same standardized—
and simplified, Arelian—vocabulary, grammar of cins-es, notation, intonation, and
solfège.69
It is perhaps, then, the greater surprise that the understandings of makam-s and of the
makam system as a whole (as demonstrated in current praxis in the taksim genre, at
least) have changed so little over this turbulent period; subtracting the changes
attributed to mere style, or to the limitations of mass media, the main change appears
to be a greater emphasis on the construction of makam-s in terms of cins-es (whose
definitions by Arel are nonetheless often a matter of contestation). And herein would
appear to lie the rub: Arel’s theory seems to have been successful in providing a kind
of standardized language for the Turkish makam system, but its success as a medium
69
Solfège is much used among KTM musicians, but as it is “fixed do” (representing the written
“bolahenk” transposition rather than sounding tones) and consists of only seven syllables to represent
(at least) 24 tones, it strikes me as a problematic imposition, though I never heard a Turkish musician
complain about it.
224
for transmitting the makam tradition is in large part thanks to individual performers’
creating their own “dialects” of it, that is, it is the capacity of Arel’s simplified
concepts to contain basic meanings without breaking under the performers’
unwillingness to deploy them literally that gives his theory the staying power it has
maintained over these 70-some years.70 We have seen both in the taksim examples
above and in prose in the previous chapter many of the details of these current
performers’ contestations and re-imaginings of Arel’s theory; let us summarize four
categories of them here generally, in simple dialectical formulae, each consisting of: a
particular issue, how Arelian theory deals with it, and a performer-oriented synthesis
(followed, if required, by a note on unresolved aspects of the issue):
Intonation and Notation
• Issue: intonation in the music is flexible (i.e., interpretable in multiple ways
by different performers in different melodic contexts) and has partaken at
times of at least 33 nameable tones (see Wright 1992a, Bayhan 2008)
• Arel: there are 24 tones only, all named and presentable in the Arelian
notation system (1991 [1943-48]:1, 35)
• Performers: intonation is multiply interpretable but performers learn to sight-
read and sing solfège using Arelian terms while sonically altering them,71 with
a commonly understood standard regarding which signs and syllables refer to
70
Cf. Marcus 1993:50 on a similar issue in eastern Arab maqām music in regard to intonation theory.
71
As noted in previous chapters, some performers do instead use alternate names for pitches that fall
between Arel’s.
225
which intended perde-s (e.g., the lowered segâh in makam Beyati is
understood to be represented by the syllable “si,” by the name segâh, and by
the sign “Bq” rather than “Bw” or “Ad” etc.)
o Unresolved: discrepancies such as we have seen regarding the
intonation in Hüzzam; even though performers largely reject Arel’s
understanding of its “hüzzam pentachord,” their explanation of the
unaccountably-intoned part of it in terms of Arel’s hicaz tetrachord
may unintentionally influence performers to confound Hüzzam with
Rahat-ül Ervah (which indeed does require a hicaz cins in that
position, though the whole makam is transposed a perfect fourth
lower)
Makam Identity and Construction
• Issue: individual makam-s had apparently long been identified by melodic
criteria—seyir (sometimes represented as short melodies), hierarchical tones,
characteristic gestures preserved in repertoire, special intonation issues, etc.—
but not consistently by cins-constructions 72
• Arel: all makam-s are constructed of seven-tone octave scales consisting of
the conjunction of one tetrachord and one pentachord (1991 [1943-48]: 17-
34); other aspects of makam definition are either presented in simplified form
72
We will recall from Chapter III that explanations of the makam-s in terms of cins-es had been
practically non-existent (at least in texts) between the fifteenth century and Yekta’s explanation (see
Yekta 1922 [1913], which compare with Haşim Bey 1852).
226
(e.g., seyir = ascending, descending or ascending-descending; the dominant is
simply where the conjunction of cins-es is found) or excluded (characteristic
melodic gestures, accidental tones, and intonation issues, for instance, are
absent in the theory and its texts)
• Performers: performers have fully taken on the conception of makam-s as
consisting of conjunct cins-es, but may use the idea to interpret makam-s in
terms other than what Arel described
o following Rauf Yekta, it is understood that many makam-s’ cins-
structures do not repeat at the octave, requiring more than two cins-es
to present all the defining tones of a makam (which incidentally
delegitimizes the Arelian concept of a “makam’s [octave] scale”)
o while it is a good rule of thumb that a makam’s dominant is likely to
occur where the two central cins-es conjoin, this is not always the
case: care to learn the true dominant must be taken when learning a
new makam 73
 on the other hand, many performers reverse-engineer this
Arelian rule, taking makam-s whose third degree is dominant
(e.g., Segâh, Müstear, Hüzzam, Irak, Bestenigâr, Rahat-ül
Ervah, etc.) and describe them with the lower cins of the
central octave (the “kök” cins) as a trichord, thereby
deconstructing the pentachord and tetrachord (and their
73
Furthermore, some performers may have idiosyncratic interpretations of which tones are the
dominant, second dominant, etc.; see Chapter IV.
227
conjunction) with which Arel had defined the makam
o performers are expected to learn the more subtle aspects of seyir and
characteristic melodic gestures by listening to and performing
canonical repertoire, and those of intonation by listening to
acknowledged masters (whether in live performance, as private
students, or from recordings)—this, and all attributions of affect,
ethos, and emotion to specific makam-s are understood to be outside
the realm of Arelian theory
The Basic Scale
• Issue: it would appear that there had traditionally been a “basic scale” for
makam musics, and that it was used to generate the primary modes (“makam-
s,” as opposed to secondary entities such as “terkib-s” and “şu’be-s,” etc.) in
the manner of “species” as we have seen in this chapter (see Feldman 1996:
195-259 74); its tones were apparently once in the structure “G A Bq c d eq f g”
but more recently have been understood as “G A Bq c d e f s g” (see Appendix
G)
• Arel: the scale of the “makam Çargâh”—“C D E F G A B c,” which is
conveniently identical to the Western “C Major” scale—is the only possible
“basic scale” for classical Turkish Music (1991 [1943-48]: 61-4)
74
Note that there has not always been agreement about what the “basic” species/makam of this scale
was: Yekta, Karadeniz, Kutluğ and the theorists in Bayhan 2008 take it as the makam Rast (formerly
called Yegâh), while Cantemir assumed it to be the makam Hüseyni, and did not feel he had to argue
the point against contemporary opinion (as he did other points; see Feldman 1996: 195; 1993).
228
• Performers: since there is no longer a recognized hierarchy of modal entities
(i.e., since the terkib-s, şu’be-s etc., became full “makam-s” starting in the
seventeenth century; see Chapter II), there is no real need to designate a “basic
scale” except for historical understanding, and for its implication regarding
the “natural” (i.e., unmarked) notes in the Western-style staff notation; it is
widely understood that Arel invented and promoted what he called “Çargâh”
for extra-musical reasons, and that Rast (currently understood as G A Bq c d
+ d e f s g) is really the “basic scale”
o Unresolved: it would seem from the conclusion of the “theory vs.
practice” congress mentioned in Chapter III (i.e., Bayhan 2008) that
today’s academic authorities intend to restore Rast as the “basic scale,”
but this leaves open the question of what the cins-type going by the
name “çargâh” should be called—performers today realize that there is
no real music in the “Çargâh makam” yet are happy to refer to “çargâh
pentachords and tetrachords.” Kutluğ has recommended an apparently
historical alternative: nigâr, though I have never heard a performer use
that term and rather doubt it will catch on 75
75
Nor is there any reason to think that current performers will prefer to use the Arab maqām name for
the cins, “àjam/acem,” since the makam Acem is thought of as part of the Uşşak makam family in
Turkey (though Acem Aşiran—essentially the Arab maqām Àjam—would be a logical candidate, as
would “mahur,” after the makam of the same name).
229
Basic, Transposed, and Compound Makam Categories
• Issue: over the centuries the categories for different kinds of makam-s have
varied greatly
• Arel: “basic makam-s” are basic because they are constructed of the “basic
pentachords and tetrachords,” which have both a perfect fourth and a perfect
fifth up from the tonic (1991 [1943-48]: 17-34, 43); transpositions of makam-s
are nothing more than that—they are not separate makam-s in their own right
even though certain of them have their own names (ibid.: 317-56); all those
makam-s not categorized as basic or transposed are categorized as
“compound”
• Performers: generally, performers have no problem with the designation of
Arel’s “basic” makam-s as “basic” (though I would think that if the theory
were to include trichords they would also be happy to include several more
makam-s under that category); although there is certainly such a phenomenon
as playing a makam in a transposition, for most performers, if a makam has its
own name, it must be a distinct makam and not a transposition of another
makam (see Chapter IV)—to confuse them is to risk, for instance, playing
Hüzzam as though it were Rahat-ül Ervah; finally, to performers, a compound
makam is not so called because it fails to qualify for another category, but
because it is composed of more than one distinct makam
o Unresolved: Arel’s refusal to admit of any cins but the tetrachords and
pentachords he listed (see above), and his insistence on every makam’s
230
being constructed of nothing other than one combination of one
pentachord and one tetrachord each has created a generation of
performers for whom it is not always clear whether or why a makam is
really a compound; for instance it should be clear from the repertoire
at least that the makam Saba has historically been a compound of the
makam that used to be called Çargâh (whose scale resembles that of
Zirgüleli Hicaz but on c/çargâh) that falls through an uşşak trichord on
A/dügâh—Arel insisted that its lower cins is a “saba tetrachord” (A Bq
c d w) not conjunct with but overlapping a hicaz-5 on çargâh, even
though in discussing its seyir he describes and even notates it as
“Hicaz Zirgüle scale on Çargâh,” then (on a separate staff) falling
through the three lowest tones of the “Uşşak scale on Dügâh”—in any
case, we must note that this makam is classified as “compound” by
Arel simply because its lower cins does not have a perfect fourth up
from the tonic (see 1991 [1943-48]: 24). The makam Yegâh is
classified as a compound (ibid.: 150) even though historically it must
have been the first among the primary modes of the basic scale (see
Appendix G), and Hüzzam, if the proper cins-es for it had been
accepted, might not be considered a compound at all; this is the case
for several much used makam-s
Overall we see that the imposition of Arel’s theory on that which was apparently a
231
performer-driven understanding of makam before the mid-twentieth century has left
quite an impression on performers today, and it can hardly be denied that it solved
certain of the problems Arel meant it to solve: it apparently simplified music theory to
the point where it could efficiently fit the new, European-style pedagogy, making
Turkish classical music theory for the first time in centuries appear systematic and
scientific in a “politically correct” Western way, even physically resembling Western
music on the page (and sonically so, by way of fixing repertoire in single versions on
that page). To repeat a quote we saw in Chapter III:
Would we be here if it were not for Arel? Would this conservatory exist?
Would there be [music] education? Yes, [it is true that] there is not one tanbur
or kanun that can be physically linked with [tuned in accord with] the system
of Arel. No matter … one way or another, the Arel system is the basis of this
education. It provided the continuity of this music.76 (Nail Yavuzoğlu in
Bayhan 2008: 180)
And yet the impression Arel’s theory has made and continues to make only serves to
transmit the music from generation to generation to the extent that it can be fused by
each of those generations with an oral tradition existing outside its bounds, a
performance-oriented “theory”—a describable praxis, really—and one from which
we are here trying to extrapolate the unwritten principles of current classical Turkish
makam music that both depend on Arel’s vocabulary and grammar of cins-es, yet
reshape them in order to preserve both an earlier sense of the heritage and the right of
an artist’s individual interpretation. In the next chapter we will look in greater detail
76
Their translation of, “Bugün Arel olmasaydı biz burada olur muyduk? Bu konservatuar olur muydu?
Eğitim olur muydu? Evet Arel sistemiyle fiziksel olarak bağlanan bir tane tanbur yoktur. Bir tane
çakılan kanun da yoktur. Ama Arel sistemi bu eğitimin temelidir. Ne olursa olsun, öyle ya da böyle. Bu
müziğin devamını sağlamıştır.”
232
at the workings of this synthesized “performer’s theory,” and at the constitution of
what may not be played that renders the potential for “beauty” in that which may be
played.
233
CHAPTER VI: CİNS CONJUNTIONS WITHIN THE PRINCIPLES OF
MELODIC MOVEMENT
Let me begin this chapter by stating as a claim a point that I had presented as a kind
of inference in previous chapters: that makam definition per se is based on one set of
criteria, and the means by which one makam may move to another rests on a different
set of principles. In Chapter IV we saw this idea implied by several performers,
specifically as comments regarding the deficiencies of Arelian theory to address
makam definition while—rather than faulting Arel et al. for not addressing
modulation—explaining that learning the relationships between makam-s for use in
taksim-s depends on the one hand upon a body of knowledge available only through
experienced masters, and on the other upon finding them fossilized within the
canonical repertoire.
I make this claim explicit here for two reasons: firstly to address the widespread
opinion amongst KTM performers and enthusiasts that the whole of the makam
system is too complex, intimate, detailed, and idiosyncratic to be systematized in a
theory of principles, whether by Arel or anyone else, and that at least some oral/aural
training is necessary to learn the makam system well, and that this state of pedagogy
is both traditional and desirable. In this regard I make the distinction between makam
definition and “principles of melodic movement” (particularly regarding modulation,
but not limited to it) in order to state my agreement about these opinions and yet to
qualify this agreement: I would say that, at least up to this point, the issue of defining
234
the necessary characteristics of each makam has been very inadequately addressed in
theory texts (and I am agnostic on the point of whether or not it ever could be done to
general satisfaction), but as for the means by which modulations are made between
makam-s, and also regarding melodic movement not necessarily governed by a
makam’s seyir, I see in the taksim-s analyzed for this study—and especially in the
rhetoric used by today’s performers in elucidating their understanding of the
modulations they make—reason to believe that this aspect of the makam system can
indeed be explained by means of relatively simple principles. That it has not been so
described before may be attributable to the fact that no-one—whether theorist or
performer—has tried to do so, preferring to assign such knowledge to the realm of the
oral/aural tradition.1
As for makam definitions; since there has not been published a text explicating
Turkish makam theory in a language other than Turkish,2 I have included in
Appendix J information comparable to that found in current Turkish music theory
texts, describing in rudimentary terms the 53 makam-s appearing in the video
recordings made for this study (and a few others as well). This information must be
understood to be at its most basic, and if used for learning makam theory, should
1
The only text approaching a comprehensive explanation of modulation in taksim is the late Dr. Onur
Akdoğu’s 1989(a) Taksim: Nedir, Nasıl Yapılır? (“Taksim: What is it, How is it Made?”), but by
general consensus it is understood as an effort that fell far short of its goal. I have read it and agree
with the consensus.
2
As this dissertation was in its final stages of revision, the publication in 2010 of Murat Aydemir’s
Turkish Music Makam Guide (Istanbul: Pan Yayıncılık) was brought to my attention; it does indeed
explain the basics of Turkish makam music, including 60 makam definitions, at about the same level of
detail as Özkan 1984, for the first time in the English language.
235
supplement rather than replace lessons with a qualified teacher, close listening to
repertoire and taksim-s, and learning to play canonical repertoire. The rest of this
chapter, and essentially the rest of the dissertation, concerns the modulatory and
relational aspects of the Turkish makam system.
THE CİNS-ES ACCORDING TO CURRENT PRAXIS
The first thing we must do in order to proceed toward the “principles of melodic
movement at the level of the cins” is to lay out the redefinition of Arel’s cins-es (see
Chapter V) as derived from current performers’ analyses of their taksim-s (see DVDs
1-4 (passim), Chapters IV and V):
Cins Written Sounds Intervals

(in commas)
rast- (3, 4, 5) G A Bq c d D E Fs G A 9+8+5+9
uşşak- (3, 4, 5) A Bq c d e E Fs G A B 8+5+9+9
[or 7+6+9+9 or even 6.5+6.5+9+9]
segâh- (3) Bq c d Fs G A 5+9

müstear- (3) B q cs d Fs G s A 9+5
pençgâh- (5) G A B cs d D E Fd Gs A 9+9+8+5
hüzzam- (4) d eq fs g A B q cs d 8+9+5
[or 6.5+9+6.5]
buselik- (3, 4, 5) ABcde E Fd G A B 9+4+9+9

kürdi- (3, 4, 5) A Be c d e EFGAB 4+9+9+9
çargâh- (4, 5) cdefg GABcd 9+9+4+9
hicaz- (4, 5) A B w cs d e E Fa G s A B 5+12+5+9

[or 4+13+5+9]
nikriz- (5) G A B w cs d D E Fd Gs A 9+5+12+9
[or 9+4+13+5+9]
Figure 11: the cins-es according to current praxis.
236
The differences between these and Arel’s cins-es are few but significant:
• Trichords added
o trichords do not exist in Arel’s theory, and their inclusion in it has
even been discouraged (see Chapter III)
o their inclusion allows re-thinking the constitution of certain makam-s
• New cins-es added
o the hüzzam tetrachord and the segâh and müstear trichords have been
added
• Cins-es removed
o taken away from the system are Arel’s pentachords “segâh,”
“hüzzam,” and “ferahnak,” and the tetrachord “saba,” because they do
not accurately reflect the construction of the makam-s for which they
are named (q.v. in Appendix J and below)
 taken away, not from Arel but from Özkan (1984: 49), is any
kind of cins for nişabur (which is better represented with an
uşşak trichord on buselik)
o note that, following the recommendation of Özer Özel (see Chapter
IV), the “hüseyni pentachord” will be represented below by the gloss
“uşşak-5”
• (Note that the “pençgâh-5” appears in Arel and Özkan but was never used in
their makam descriptions—even for the makam Pençgâh—but because it is
now used by performers it remains in the list of cins-es above)
237
Accounted for in one sentence, the newly added items are: the rast-3, uşşak-3, segâh-
3, müstear-3, buselik-3, kürdi-3 and the hüzzam-4.
The cins-es in the above table (fig. 11) have been defined in terms of commas, and it
will be noted that certain of them have alternative intonational versions (all of which
must be taken as approximate):
• as noted in Chapter III, the 2nd degree of the uşşak cins is consistently slightly
lowered in makam-s such as Beyati, and slightly lower still in makam-s such
as Uşşak and Hüseyni (see Appendix J).3 The only case in which it is
expected to remain as literally notated is when serving in a trichord as the kök
cins of Nişabur makam
• (see Appendix H regarding the intonational possibilities of the hüzzam
tetrachord)
• it turns out that, using only the 24 tones accepted by Arelian theory, it is not
possible to properly “spell” the “12-comma-wide” augmented second needed
in hicaz and nikriz cins-es in every possible transposition; there are
transpositions in which a “13-comma-wide” augmented second must be used
instead (and for that reason both sizes of hicaz and nikriz cins-es are given
above, though those with 12-comma-wide) augmented seconds are
considered “more correct” (see Özkan 1984: 39)
3
Note that the same tone, when serving as the 3rd degree of Rast (i.e., in a rast cins), may also be
slightly lowered in cadential gestures, though this is not a consistent enough practice to give the cins an
“alternative intonation.”
238
CİNS CONJUNCTIONS
Because a modulation is essentially the evocation of another makam—usually
without offering as full a “definition” of the modulated-to makam as was given of the
host makam (as we saw demonstrated in Chapter V)—we will benefit from
understanding which combinations of cins-es, moving one to another across
conjunctions, are enough to evoke specific makam-s.4 This was the sense in which
Ahmet Toz described his understanding of the “principles” of classical Turkish music
(see Chapter IV). Let me take a moment to clarify the distinction between moments
of single-makam definition and moments of modulation between makam-s that
permits this “makam evoking” potential of any cins conjunction. As stated at the
beginning of this chapter, makam definition per se is based on one set of criteria, and
the means by which one makam may move to another rests on a different set of
principles. Makam definitions may be glossed as “a set of tones, and a set of rules
regarding how to show them in performance (seyir, hierarchy of tones, characteristic
melodic gestures, etc.),” and there are two situations in which the demonstration of
the full makam definition is necessary: when a performance or composition is in only
a single makam, and when a makam is the “nominal” or “host” makam inside of
which modulations are made before returning to the original/nominal/host makam,
4
Note that there are also a few makam-s whose definition include a direct switching between two cins-
es at the same—kök—level, on the same tonic. These are so few, in fact, that we may name here those
that are not totally obscure: Isfahan, Isfahanek, Dügâh, Mahur, Pençgâh, and Pesendide (see Appendix
J, and Özkan 1984). There are also a few oddities—all of them compounds—that de facto require
disjunct cins-es (e.g., see Muhayyer-Sümbüle, Acem, Arazbar, Arazbar-Buselik, Vech-i Arazbar, Tarz-
ı Nevin et al., in Özkan 1984) and other compounds whose definitions rely on the “species” principle
(e.g., Segâh Mâye, Dügâh Mâye; ibid.).
239
that is, when it is acting as a frame in which modulation occurs. For that matter,
performances and compositions that begin in one makam and end in a different
makam—for instance in a geciş taksim—also require full definitions of both
beginning and ending makam-s, whether or not there are intervening modulations to
other makam-s.
But as we have seen in Chapter V, and will see in great detail in Chapter VII, in the
course of modulation the aspects of a makam’s definition that are not attributed to its
scalar aspect—its seyir, hierarchy of tones, characteristic melodic gestures, etc.—are
often abandoned when “evoking” the modulated-to makam; we may even safely say
that the minimum information having the power to evoke a makam identity in a
modulatory situation consists of merely that aspect of the makam that is a “set of
tones.” As we may see in the analyses of the 100 taksim-s made for this study (in
Appendix K), there was no occasion in them on which a modulation was effected by
suddenly changing all of the “scalar material” of one makam at once—modulation
occurs by changing one cins at a time, and by the new relation that that cins is in with
those adjacent cins-es that did not change. In other words, the minimum makam-
identifying material is the conjunction of two cins-es, and the association of that cins
conjunction with a makam. The seyir, etc. of the modulated-to makam may be used,
but it need not be.
240
A thorough investigation of all the possible combinations of two conjoined cins-es
will show us not only which combinations are associated with specific makam-s, but
those that are never used in any makam. This information is never referred to
specifically, either in theory or by performers, but it is clear both from makam praxis
in taksim-s and in the canonical repertoire that the cins-conjunctions in actual use are
quite limited compared to the total of possibilities. That is to say, there is much that
must not be played for the music to be aesthetically acceptable; a sort of invisible
landscape of untreadable ground through which the composer must weave a path by
way of acceptable cins-combinations and makam evocations. As noted previously
regarding KTM’s essentially conservative aesthetic/poetics, that which is considered
ugly is not regarded as a viable compositional option; those cins-combinations that
never occur in makam definitions (though it is possible that they were combined in
times beyond current memory) fall within the realm of the shocking and ugly.
Below are the one-to-one conjunctions of the cins-es explained above. The makam-s
named include all 53 played in the recordings made for this study, as well as certain
others either closely related or too common to leave out. The conjunctions may occur
between any two adjacent cins-levels (i.e., destek-kök, kök-açan or açan-tiz), but
because the kök-açan conjunction is the one most closely associated with a makam’s
definition, these are marked by bold type. The cins-es in the (vertical) columns are
the lower in the conjunction, i.e., those lower in pitch, while those in (horizontal)
rows are above them (higher in pitch). Cells filled with black represent cins
241
conjunctions unused in makam-s, while those filled with grey show makam-s (whose
names are preceded by the sign “±”) in which the cins conjunction in question is a
possibility (or which may be considered close enough to the definition to approximate
it, i.e., one could “fake it”),5 but which is not sufficient to clearly evoke the makam
specifically—being somewhat tenuous, they are not marked in bold type even when
occurring in the kök-açan level conjunction. Makam-s whose names appear without
the sign “±” are those specifically evoked by the cins conjunction, the association
being made more strongly and/or immediately in those marked in bold type.6
5
There are situations, for instance in the heat of fast consecutive modulations, when cins-es that differ
very little from each other (e.g., a rast cins and a çargâh cins, which differ only in that one tone is
different by one comma) may be played in the other’s stead, that is “faking” the cins and therefore the
implied conjunction, But if a performer were to play the cins slowly and clearly, the conjunction that
was “faked” in the fast situation would not by itself evoke a makam.
6
Six grids are shown according to cins conjunctions in use; a possible seventh—having pentachords
below and trichords above—does not occur, nor do any tetrachord + tetrachord or pentachord +
pentachord conjunctions (though see Özkan 1984: 430, 501, and 506 for the incidental possibility of
the latter in the rare makam-s Büzürk, Buselik Aşiran, and Aşiran Zemzeme respectively). Also
implicitly excluded are all combinations that might have consisted of unused cins-es, such as a “hicaz
trichord” or “nikriz tetrachord,” etc.
242
Pentachords + Tetrachords:
Tetrachords→ rast uşşak hüzzam buselik kürdi çargâh hicaz

Pentachords↓
rast 1 2 3 4 5 6
uşşak (hüseyni) 7 8 9
pençgâh 10 11
buselik 12 13 14
kürdi 15
çargâh 16 17 18
hicaz 19 20 21
nikriz 22 23 24
Figure 12: cins conjunctions: pentachord + tetrachord.
1. Rast, Rehavi, Nişaburek, Gerdaniye, ±Mahur, ±Yegâh; ±Zavil, ±Suz-i Dilara, ±Pençgâh,
±Pesendide; 2. Yegâh, Uşşak, Neva, Tahir, Beyati, ±Arazbar, ±Arazbar Buselik, ±Isfahan; 3. ±Yegâh;
4. (Acemli) Rast, Gerdaniye; 5. Mahur; 6. Hicaz, Hümayun, Basit Suzinak, ±Zirgüleli Suzinak,
±Arazbar, ±Arazbar Buselik; 7. Hüseyni, Muhayyer, Gülizar, Gerdaniye, Karcığar, ±Arazbar,
±Arazbar Buselik; 8. ±Hüseyni, ±Muhayyer, ±Gülizar; 9. Hisar, ±Hisar Buselik; 10. ± Pençgâh; 11.
Pençgâh, Pesendide; 12. ±Buselik, ±Nihavend, ±Sultani Yegâh, ±Ruhnüvaz, ±Ferahfeza; 13. Buselik,
Nihavend, Sultani Yegâh, Ruhnüvaz, ±Ferahfeza; 14. Buselik, Nihavend, Sultani Yegâh,
Ruhnüvaz, ±Ferahfeza; 15. ±Kürdili Hicazkâr, ±Muhayyer Kürdi, ±Acem Kürdi, ±Muhayyer
Sümbüle (and other “-Kürdi” compounds); 16. ±Mahur; 17. ±Mahur; 18. Mahur, Acem Aşiran,
(“Çargâh”); 19. Uzzal; 20. Araban;7 21. Zirgüle, Şehnaz, Suz-i Dil, Zirgüleli Suzinak, Hicazkâr,
Şedd Araban, Evcara, Suz-i Dil, ±Kürdili Hicazkâr; 22. Nikriz, ±Şevk’efza, ±Acem Aşiran; 23.
Nikriz, ±Şevk’efza, ±Acem Aşiran; 24. Nev’eser, Reng-i Dil.
8
Total: 56 possible / 24 used (16 definitive/8 merely possible) / 32 unused
7
This is how Araban is commonly understood today; a more historically accurate version might
instead have a “hüzzam-5” instead of a hicaz-5 in this position (see Appendices H and J).
8
“Definitive” in this context means “makam-defining.”
243
Tetrachords + Pentachords
Pentachords→ rast uşşak pençgâh buselik kürdi çargâh hicaz nikriz
Tetrachords↓ (hüseyni)
rast 1 2 3 4 5 6
uşşak 7 8 9 10
hüzzam 11 12
buselik 12 13 14 15 16
kürdi 17 18 19
çargâh 20 21 22 23
hicaz 24 25 26 27 28
Figure 13: cins conjunctions: tetrachord + pentachord.
1. Rast, Rehavi, Nişaburek, ±Gerdaniye, ±Mahur, ±Yegâh; ±Zavil, ±Suz-i Dilara, ±Pençgâh,
±Pesendide; 2. ±Hüseyni, ±Gerdaniye; 3. ±Pençgâh, ±Pesendide; 4. ±Mahur; 5. Hümayun, ±Saba,
±Araban, ±Arazbar, ±Arazbar Buselik; 6. ±Nikriz, ±Nev’eser; 7. Neva, Tahir, ±Uşşak, ±Beyati,
±Arazbar, ±Arazbar Buselik; 8. Uşşak, Beyati, Arazbar, Arazbar Buselik, ±Acem, ±Buselik,
±Nihavend, ±Sultani Yegâh, ±Ruhnüvaz, ±Ferahfeza; 9. ±Muhayyer Kürdi; 10. Karcığar, ±Beyati-
Araban, ±Araban, ±Arazbar, ±Arazbar Buselik; 11. ±Hüzzam; 12. ±Araban, ±Hüzzam, ±Yegâh; 13.
±Pençgâh; 14. Buselik; 15. ±Mahur; 16. Araban Buselik; 17. ±Hüseyni, ±Muhayyer, ±Gerdaniye; 18.
Kürdi, Aşk’efza, Ferahnüma, ±Muhayyer Kürdi, ±Acem Kürdi; 19. Araban Kürdi; 20. ±Suz-i Dilara;
21. ±Pençgâh, ±Pesendide; 22. ±Mahur; 23. Mahur; 24. Hicaz, Basit Suzinak; 25. Hümayun,
±Arazbar, ±Arazbar Buselik; 26. ± Acem Aşiran; 27. ±Zirgüle, ±Şehnaz, ±Suz-i Dil, ±Zirgüleli
Suzinak, ±Hicazkâr, ±Şedd Araban, ±Evcara, ±Suz-i Dil, ±Kürdili Hicazkâr; 28. Nev’eser, Reng-i Dil.
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Trichords + Tetrachords
Tetrachords→ rast uşşak hüzzam buselik kürdi çargâh hicaz
Trichords↓
rast
uşşak 1
segâh 2 3 4 5 6
müstear 7 8 9 10 11
buselik
kürdi
Figure 14: cins conjunctions: trichord + tetrachord.
1. Nişabur, ±Pençgâh; 2. Ferahnak; 3. Segâh, Irak, ±Eviç; 4. Hüzzam, Segâh; 5. ±Ferahnak; 6.
Rahat-ül Ervah, ±Hüzzam; 7. ±Rast, ±Pesendide; 8. Müstear, ±Evcara; 9. Müstear; 10. ±Müstear,
±Pençgâh, ±Pesendide; 11. ±Pençgâh, ±Pesendide.
245
Tetrachords + Trichords
Trichords→ rast uşşak segâh müstear buselik kürdi
Tetrachords↓
rast 1
uşşak 2
hüzzam 3 4
buselik 5
kürdi 6
çargâh
hicaz 7 8 9
Figure 15: cins conjunctions: tetrachord + trichord.
1. ±Müstear; 2. Acem, ±Uşşak, ±Beyati, ±Arazbar, ±Arazbar Buselik; 3. Hüzzam; 4. ± Hüzzam; 5.
±Müstear; 6. Acem Kürdi; 7. ±Rahat-ül Ervah; 8. ±Dügâh; 9. ±Evcara, ±Revnaknüma.
246
Trichords + Pentachords
Pentachords→ rast uşşak pençgâh buselik kürdi çargâh hicaz nikriz
Trichords↓
rast
uşşak 1 2 3
segâh 4
müstear
buselik 5
kürdi 6
Figure 16: cins conjunctions: trichord + pentachord.
1. ±Arazbar, ±Arazbar Buselik; 2. Nişabur; 3. Saba, ±Bestenigâr, ±Dügâh; 4. Rahat-ül Ervah, ±
Hüzzam; 5. Acem, Acem Buselik, ±Ferahfeza; 6. Saba Zemzeme, Muhayyer Sümbüle, ±Acem
Aşiran.
247
Trichords + Trichords
Trichords→ rast uşşak segâh müstear buselik kürdi
Trichords↓
rast 1
uşşak
segâh 1 2 3
müstear 3
buselik
kürdi
Figure 17: cins conjunctions: trichord + trichord.
1. ±Segâh, ±Irak, ±Eviç; 2. Bestenigâr; 3. ±Eviç, ±Sultani Yegâh.
The grand total: of 262 possible cins conjunctions, 180 of them (69%) are never used
in a makam definition at all.9 Of the 82 (31%) that are used in makam-s, 35 (or 13%)
qualify as possible iterations within certain makam-s but do not, in and of themselves,
recall specific makam-s. The remaining 47 cins conjunctions (18% of the total
possible), with their ability to signal specific makam-s without having to formally
define them as one would the host makam—with, in many cases, one conjunction
able to signal multiple, by definition related makam-s—serve as the muscles of the
makam system, the engine of modulatory movement.
9
At least they do not appear in the 128 makam-s described in full in Özkan 1984, or in the same
makam-s described in Kutluğ 2000 (though it is possible that some appear in the additional 91 [archaic
and/or very obscure] makam-s given there). Conversely, the number of makam-s partaking of the
above cins conjunctions are greater than those listed, which were chosen only from among the 53
makam-s played in the recordings made for this study and a few others I thought too common or
closely related to these to exclude.
248
At this level, the “principles of melodic movement,” as originally suggested to me by
performers,10 consist simply of the full collection of these conjunctions laid out as
sets of permissible movements between cins-es, for example, “from any buselik-5 it is
permissible to move upward into a conjunct kürdi-4.” Then we may make a collection
of all the other acceptable upward moves from a buselik-5 (in this case, that it is also
possible to move upward into a hicaz-4 or uşşak-4). Then we may also make a
collection of permissible downward moves from a buselik-5: to uşşak-3 and -4,
buselik-4, kürdi-4, hicaz-4 (as well as hüzzam-4 and çargâh-4, as options that
nonetheless do not appear in any makam’s definition). We have thus defined a kind of
constellation of possible moves around any given buselik pentachord (able to evoke,
in this case, 13 discrete makam-s, counting only the “definitive” cins conjunctions).
And each of the cins-es connected to this buselik-5 has its own constellation of
acceptable, makam-evoking cins conjunctions, and so on, forming an interconnected
network for the whole of that aspect of the makam system governing modulation
(e.g., as opposed to single-makam definition—though we shall see in Chapter VII that
much use is made of these relationships even when no modulation is made). Below,
we shall define a “constellation” (my term) such as just described for each viable cins
in the Turkish makam system, and in the next chapter we shall review in their light
the 100 taksim-s recorded for this study.
10
In Chapter IV I had mentioned the input of Ahmet Toz, Mehmet Emin Bitmez, and Agnès Agopian,
to which I can add a subsequent conversation on the subject with Eymen Gürtan (p.c. 6/14/2010).
249
THE CONSTELLATIONS OF CİNS-ES
Below will appear the “constellations” just mentioned, but before presenting them I
wish to point out that when speaking above of upward or downward movement into a
conjunct cins—or indeed even of the switching of cins while remaining at the same
level, which we have seen previously—we are speaking only of the aspect of adjacent
(or overlapping) cins-es, that is, as separate from the aspect of seyir. I have explained
that a performer may evoke a makam by demonstrating a cins conjunction closely
associated with it whether or not the upward or downward movement of the move
coincides with the seyir of that makam per se;11 this is one of the reasons we may say
that makam definition in modulation is not as strict as it is when dealing with a single
or host makam. Even within a single-makam performance, after the seyir has been
clarified in the initial “zemin” section melodic movement becomes considerably more
free (see Chapter VII). A performer’s decisions about which of a cins’ conjoined
partners to move to may (or may not) be influenced by ideas regarding the seyir of the
makam-to-be-modulated-to, but since modulations de facto occur in the “meyan”
section of a taksim, there would seem to be a transference of that state to each of the
modulated-to makam-s, that is, they may themselves be treated as though they had
11
We have seen adjacent examples of both of these in Agnès Agopian’s second Rast taksim in
Chapter V: when she moves from Rast to Suzinak at (DVD 1/1) 3:07 she deploys Suzinak’s
descending-ascending seyir, but then when she moves from Suzinak to Zirgüleli Suzinak at 3:17 she
deploys a descending seyir. This makam could thereby be interpreted as Hicazkâr instead of Zirgüleli
Suzinak; the artist was able to label it as Zirgüleli Suzinak precisely because, in this modulatory
situation, adherence to the new makam’s seyir is not necessary.
250
already been properly “defined” and are at that moment in their own meyan section,
having less restriction upon melodic movement.
Note that in the figures demonstrating “constellations” around each cins, the makam-s
that may be evoked by the move are given below the conjoined cins. Again, grayed-
out text represents cins-es that are possible or “fake-able” in a makam, but that are not
definitive of any one in particular, that is, to hear such a combination would likely not
immediately bring the makam-s there listed to mind. Also as above, the “more or
less” sign (“±”) before a makam name indicates a possibility unlikely to be the first to
leap to mind upon hearing the two cins-es one after the other.
251
PENTACHORD CONSTELLATIONS
Figure 18: constellation of Rast-5.
Figure 19: constellation of Uşşak-5.
252
Figure 20: constellation of Pençgâh-5.
Figure 21: constellation of Buselik-5.
Figure 22: Constellation of Kürdi-5.
Note that the kürdi pentachord per se does not exist in any makam’s definition—the
makam Kürdi and its “transpositions” (e.g., Aşk’efza, Ferahnüma), for instance, all
have a kürdi-4 in the kök position, and in all makam-s where it appears in the açan
253
position it is also as a tetrachord—but for whatever reason, when it occurs in the
many compound makam-s ending in “-Kürdi” or “-Zemzeme”—and often enough
also in Kürdili Hicazkâr (see DVD1/4, 2/19, 4/39, 5/43, 6/57, 6/58)—the kürdi cins in
that kök position may be treated as a pentachord, especially in final cadences. Perhaps
this kürdi-5 type is connected with a pre-cadential “flat 5th” melodic gesture also
associated with this combination (and with Zirgüleli Hicaz and its “transpositions”) –
after playing that diminished fifth tone, the “normal,” perfect 5th degree from the
tonic is often played to restore the original scale material, coincidentally making the
cins in question appear as a pentachord rather than its normative tetrachord.
Figure 23: constellation of Çargâh-5.
254
Figure 24: constellation of Hicaz-5.
Figure 25: Constellation of Nikriz-5.
255
TETRACHORD CONSTELLATIONS
256
Figure 28: constellation of Hüzzam-4.
Figure 30: constellation of Kürdi-4.
257
Figure 31: constellation of Çargâh-4.
Figure 32: constellation of Hicaz-4.
258
TRICHORD CONSTELLATIONS
Figure 35: constellation of Segâh-3.
Figure 36: constellation of Müstear-3.
259
Figure 38: constellation of Kürdi-3.
For the convenience of comparing these “constellations” organized by name rather
than number (e.g., all the kürdi cins-es one after another, rather than all the
tetrachords one after another), see Appendix I. In the next chapter we shall see how
the abstract principles outlined in Chapters V and VI are made manifest in the taksim-
s recorded for this study.
260
CHAPTER VII: THE PRINCIPLES APPLIED
In this chapter we will be looking at the manifestation of the previously articulated
“principles of melodic movement” in the 100 taksim-s recorded for this project (the
data for which are represented in Appendix K), and conversely, looking for patterns
in these taksim-s that might be generalized into other such “principles.” I wish to
make clear that even in the former case it is not a matter of comparing some
abstracted principles to examples of practice in order to ascertain whether there is
concurrence between them, i.e., to prove that the principles are valid (which would be
a circular argument in any case); we must recall that it is the taksim-s themselves that
are necessarily the “correct answers” to the question of how performers understand
makam theory. Our task in this chapter is to articulate those “answers” verbally, and
to compare them to performers’ rhetoric as presented in Chapter IV, and especially
with the verbal descriptions given by those performers who analyzed their own 42
taksim-s,1 in order to refine a formalized presentation of the principles themselves
(which we may then compare to Arelian theory).
The analyses (see Appendix K) consist of representations in each taksim of the
following information:
1
These are given in subtitles in each of the taksim videos on DVDs 1 through 4.
261
• each makam named in the analysis (in the 42 taksim-s analyzed by their
performers, and as I interpreted those in the remaining 58 taksim-s)
• each change of cins
o and whether it implies a change of makam
• cins change qualities:
o direct change at the same cins level
 and implicitly whether it is associated with a makam’s
definition (e.g., Rast makam may de facto have both a rast-4
and a buselik-4 in the upper/“açan” cins level—see Appendix
J) or instead with a modulation to (or at least evocation of)
another makam
o pivot (using a cins shared by two makam-s)
 whether the tone where the pivot begins is hierarchically
important in both makam-s (e.g., the tonic, dominant, second
dominant, etc. NB: it is not necessarily the same in both
makam-s)
 whether the modulated-to makam’s seyir is deployed directly
after the pivot
o species (i.e., modulation made to a makam whose scalar material
“exists inside” the previously shown makam)
o quote from known repertoire
262
o “unique-p” (both unique and possible: a cins combination that does not
evoke a specific makam, but that is consistent with the cins
conjunctions shown as valid in Chapter VI; the “p” indicates that the
cins conjunction is possible according to those tables)
o “unique-i” (unique but impossible: a cins combination that does not
evoke a specific makam and is also inconsistent with the cins
conjunctions shown as valid in Chapter VI; the “i” indicates that the
cins conjunction is impossible according to those tables)
Additionally I will point out other patterns in the data as they come up. Before giving
an accounting of the categories listed above I must make a note on the methodology
of how the number of cins changes was arrived at: once a makam has been
established, further movement within that makam that does not include a direct
change of cins at the same level is not counted as a new change (i.e., in terms of a
previously named makam), since it is normative in the (newly) current makam. There
being much latitude for movement within any given makam, the total number of cins
changes is therefore not the same as the number of columns in which the name of a
new cins occurs in Appendix K. All other changes of cins have been counted and
categorized. I have thus reckoned the total changes of cins in the 100 taksim-s
recorded at 699 in number.
263
Here follows the accounting of cins-change categories derived from the data in
Appendix K, with analytical commentary provided after each larger section of
information:
TYPES OF CİNS CHANGE
• direct 421 (60%)

o at the tiz level 84 (12%)
o at the açan level 189 (27%)
o at the kök level 135 (19%)
o at the destek level 13 (2%)2
3
o by octave leap 3 (.4%)
• pivot 126 (18%)
• species 84 (12%)
• quote 0 [3 = .4%]
o (2 counted as another kind of cins change)
o (1 not functioning in a change of cins, therefore not counted)
• unique-i 13 (2%)
o (1 not functioning in a change but counted above)
o (see list of these combinations below)
• unique-p 4 (.6%) [7 = 1%]
o (3 counted in a combination below but not above)
o (see list of these combinations below)
• ambiguous combinations4
o pivot/species 9 (2%)
o pivot/unique-p 3 (.4%)
o pivot/unique-i 5 (.7%)
o unique-i/quote 1 (.14%)
o direct/unique-i 1 (.14%)
o direct/species 4 (.6%)
o direct/quote 1 (.14%)
o direct/pivot 1 (.14%)
• “Z” or “Y” below5 23 (3%)
2
We must note that 10 of these occur at moments when the “destek/support” level has de facto
become the “kök/root” level of a newly modulated-to makam. In that sense there were only 3 (.4%) at
this level and 145 (21%) at the kök level.
3
“Octave leap” here means that rather than traversing conjunct cins-es, the melody progressed by
simply continuing play one octave higher (or rarely, lower) than it had been a moment before.
4
This signifies that these cins changes could be interpreted as either or both of the designated change
types.
264
• “W” below 3 (.4%)
Total: 699
Significance of cins changes in terms of defining or evoking a makam:

• W [a new makam is evoked6] 388 (55%)
o [a new makam is evoked by a change of seyir or non-species note
focus rather than by a cins change7] 3 (.4%)
• X [a cins change occurs without altering the makam’s definition] 270 (39%)
• Y [a new makam is evoked by adding a new cins below the tonic8] 18 (2.5%)
o [all of which are counted in the ‘“Z” or “Y” below’ category of cins
change substitute above]
• Z [ambiguous as to whether a change of makam is intended] 23 (3%)
o [of which 5 require accounting under the ‘“Z” or “Y” below’ cins
change substitute above—see footnote 5] 5 (.7%)
Total: 699
Note that where these statistics are applied below I list those that are “ambiguous”
separately; these are the cins changes that appear in dichotomies such as
“pivot/species,” “direct/quote,” etc., meaning that it is possible to interpret them as
either sort of move. The point of presenting them separately is to show that there is a
range of possible answers regarding how many of each kind of cins change occurred,
5
The categories “W,” “X,” “Y,” and “Z” (which see above) pertain to qualities independent of the
given “cins change types” above, yet there are several instances in which they de facto substitute for a
cins change type, and so are counted here.
6
This excludes cases in which a new makam is evoked by adding a new cins below the tonic (see “Y”
below).
7
These are already counted both in the 388 “W” types, and in the aforementioned ‘“W” below’ type of
substitute cins change.
8
This occurs normally in several compound makam-s such as Saba, Bestenigâr, Rahat-ül Ervah, et al.;
until the new cins is added below it must be assumed by the listener that the taksim is in a different
makam, i.e., the new cins clarifies the compound.
265
those without the “ambiguous” categories being the more conservative, and those
where they are added being the maximum interpretable.
On Direct Cins Changes at the Same Level
I must say that the prominence of the first item on the above tally—direct changes of
cins at the same level, constituting some 60% of all cins changes—came to me as
something of a surprise; it seems to me that at least rhetorically many musicians treat
the idea of direct cins changes at the same level as potentially the sort most likely to
result in “shocking” or “cold” (i.e., unwanted) juxtapositions,9 and I had therefore
expected the percentage of them to be much lower. This is especially true for those at
the kök/root level—constituting 19% of this type—since these are so intimately
connected with a makam’s identity (see a note about which below). Perhaps I
overestimated what I thought I was understanding in conversation on the subject, or
perhaps the talk about it exaggerates the likelihood of such a move to result in “cold”
modulations, or it is possible that these examples are so expertly done that the
performers knew that the effect would not be “cold,” or indeed that some of them can
be considered “cold.” The truth is probably some combination of all of these. In any
case, among the more general uses of this cins change type (to be parsed below),
there seem to be two distinct situations in which such direct cins changes at the same
level occur in our examples:
9
What Racy and others labeled as “sudden” modulations in Marcus 1992: 178.
266
• when demonstrating the affect described in Chapter IV as “cazibe” (gravity);
most of these appeared in the same recurring gesture: by rising with either a
rast-4 or an uşşak-4 on a dominant tone, and falling (respectively) with a
buselik-4 or a kürdi-4
o it must be noted that the particular gesture above demonstrating
“cazibe” is often referred to by performers simply as “rising with eviç
and falling with acem,” rather than associated with particular cins
structures (though these are well understood)—this gesture occurred at
least 65 times,10 and the closely related “çargâh-4 rising/buselik-4
falling” gesture occurred another 6 times
• in compound makam-s that require a switch between two cins-es at the kök
level (such as Isfahan, Dügâh, Pençgâh, and Pesendide)—this phenomenon
was counted 33 times11
Direct cins changes at the same level are otherwise best understood in terms of their
functionality as “confirming, delaying or deceptive” melodic gestures, which will be
explained below. Regarding this sort of cins change in the kök/root level, I want to
note that at a certain point I was compiling a list of the actual cins-es exchanged (e.g.,
asking questions such as, “how many times was a hicaz-5 exchanged, at the same
10
Note in Appendix K that there are several instances where I noted repetitions of the gesture but did
not count them precisely. Note also that the term “cazibe” may refer to the alteration of a single
perde’s pitch rather than the alternation between two perde-s discussed here (see Chapter IV).
11
It seems to have occurred another 4 times that were not counted because the artists interpreted the
“modulations” differently.
267
level, for a buselik-5?” ). Although I did not complete the list for every level, I did do
so for the kök/root level,12 and want here to note a few characteristics that, it seems to
me, were also present in such cins changes at other levels:
• that a slight majority of such changes (54%) were between cins-es of the same
size (i.e., pentachords that changed into other pentachords rather than into a
tetrachord or trichord, etc.; 46% did change to a cins of a different size)
• that among these, 82% of the changes occurred inside the span of the first
cins, for example, if two pentachords were bounded by the tones D and A,
then most of the direct changes of cins of this sort would consist of alterations
of one or more of the E-, F- and G-type tones rather than of the D or A
themselves
• that while it was most common that direct cins changes at the same level
ended in a cins with the same root tone as the cins from which it had changed,
33% of them (at the kök/root level, at least) changed root tone
12
I ceased making the list when I realized that the distribution of possibilities was quite broad (i.e., not
restricted to only certain cins-es moving to certain others over and over again), and that the absence of
any such possibilities would tell us nothing about their viability (only about their frequency in this not-
comprehensive study). In any case, I had finished listing those for the kök/root level before abandoning
the project, and am stating here that at first glance, they did not appear to be remarkably different in
quality from those at other levels (though it is possible that a thorough listing would yield other
conclusions).
268
On Pivot-type Cins Changes
The next type of cins change listed above is the pivot type, whose function as a
“principle of melodic movement” was explained in Chapter V. There were 126 of
these, or approximately 18% of all changes of cins. Adding another 18 possible pivots
that are found in the “ambiguous combinations” category, we may note that the pivot
is employed as a tactic nearly as often within a makam’s definition (66 times, or 46%)
as it is to move between makam-s (78 times, or 54%). However, of the former group
26 occur in compound makam-s requiring (internal) modulation, so perhaps the split
is better interpreted as 40 pivot-type changes not in the context of modulation (28%
of pivot-type cins changes) and 104 in the context of a modulation (72%).13
On a subject related to the pivot-type cins change, we may note that the data yield the
following information:
13
To clarify with an abstract example, let us posit a compound makam that first begins with a makam
whose central octave is “pentachord X + tetrachord Y,” and that what makes it a compound is that it
changes into a makam whose central octave is “pentachord Z + tetrachord Y,” and let us say that the
change is made using tetrachord Y as a pivot. In this case we may count the change of cins as being
“within the makam’s definition” (i.e., not a modulation) by virtue of the fact that it is a compound
makam that requires the move. But if it is the case that the very same change may be effected when not
in the context of that compound (or some other compound), then we would instead see the same pivot
as part of a modulation between the makam-s. I am suggesting above that it is perhaps more useful to
an overall understanding of “the pivot” to count these cins changes occurring in compound makam-s as
modulations, even though their being “within the (compound) makam’s definition” obscures that.
269
Number of times the new makam’s seyir was deployed from a pivot tone:14
• 33
• (an additional 2 ambiguously)
Pivot tones used to transfer tone hierarchy between makam-s (in order of frequency)
• dominantdominant: 18
• tonictonic: 10
• dominanttonic: 6
• secondary dominanttonic: 6
• tonicdominant: 3
• upper tonicdominant: 3
• dominantupper tonic: 2
• tonicsecondary dominant: 2
• tonicupper tonic: 1
• secondary dominantupper tonic: 1
• upper tonicupper tonic: 1
• upper tonictonic: 1
• sub-tonictonic: 1
• secondary dominantdominant: 0
• secondary dominant secondary dominant: 0
• upper tonicsecondary dominant: 0
Let us note the totals of the two categories above in terms of the 144 cins changes in
which pivot tones can have been used (represented by the “pivot,” “pivot/species,”
“pivot/unique-i,” “pivot/unique-p,” and “direct/pivot” cins change categories above):
14
We saw examples of this phenomenon in the analysis of Agnès Agopian’s second Rast taksim in
Chapter V when Rast modulated to (Basit) Suzinak (DVD 1/1 3:07); Suzinak’s seyir is descending-
ascending and therefore begins in its “açan” cins, a hicaz-4 on d/neva, which is also that makam’s
dominant. That same tone is also the dominant of the makam from which the pivot-effected
modulation was made—Rast—though the “açan cins” of that makam was a rast-4 on d/neva. Here I am
saying simply that d/neva is the “pivot tone” and that the modulated-to makam uses it as a place from
which to express its (descending-ascending) seyir. (It might instead have passed quickly through the
hicaz-4 to rest upon g/gerdaniye, ignoring the seyir, for instance.) To use this example to clarify the
information in the next column: the pivot tone had been a dominant in the first makam (Rast) and
remained the dominant of the second makam (Basit Suzinak), which is depicted
“dominantdominant.”
270
• seyir-s followed: 35 (i.e., in approximately 24% of pivots)
• pivot tones used: 55 (i.e., in approximately 38% of pivots)
If we are to count these as kinds of “principles of melodic movement” (as we did in
Chapter V) then we must also acknowledge that they are currently only utilized as
often as this. As mentioned in Chapters V and VI, the evocation of a makam in a
modulation may be effected without showing the full seyir of the modulated-to
makam; in a sense using pivot tones in this way is kind of a “luxury item”—not
technically necessary and perhaps easily going unnoticed by many listeners, though
potentially adding a level of sophistication to a taksim.
On Species- and Quote-type Cins Changes
The next sort of cins change in the tally is of the “species” variety, that is, changes of
cins that occur simply by shifting focus onto certain tones in the scalar material
without changing that material itself.15 There were 84 clear examples of this (12% of
all cins changes), and another 13 in the ambiguous “pivot-species” and “direct-
species” subcategories combined (2.6%, for a total of 14.6% of all cins changes).
Although this is a relatively small number, the species-type cins change is a tactic that
15
Except microtonally in ways considered consistent with alternative definitions of the perde-s in
question (see Chapters III, IV and V, and Appendix J).
271
pulls its weight and then some; as we shall see below, it counts for about 17% of all
modulations in our sample.
The quote-type cins change—that is, the use of quotations from pre-composed
repertoire and well known taksim recordings—is a category that we must analyze
here in a circumspect way for two reasons: first because it is quite possible that there
are musical quotations made in the taksim-s that I did not recognize as such (and/or
that were not pointed out by the artists in their analyses), and second because it would
seem that such quotes as noted in our sample recordings do not function
independently, that is, those noted are either functioning in the capacity of some other
principle that we have seen,16 or they are acting as a kind of melodic ornament
without referring to or evoking a new makam. A separate study focused on such
quotations in taksim-s might yield a more insightful way of categorizing them, but
given the sample presented here we must conservatively say that quotations—in
which category I have included gestures “like” those found in early taksim recordings
(such as Murat Aydemir’s use of Tanburi Cemil Bey’s “addition” to the makam
Gerdaniye, see Chapter V and Appendix K)—are an accepted part of making taksim-s
16
Presumably this is because the original composer was following the same principles we are tracking
here.
272
in the twenty-first century,17 but do not constitute a “principle” per se, either in the
definition of a makam or in modulations between them.
On “Unique” Cins Combinations
The “unique cins combinations” category is divided into two parts: 1) those
conjunctions that are considered possible (or, minimally, “fake-able”) in accord with
the conjunctions listed in Chapter VI yet which are not capable of evoking a specific
makam per se (labeled “unique-p”), and 2) those that are considered impossible
conjunctions in terms of the conjunctions listed in Chapter VI (q.v.). Below are listed
all of these combinations found in the recorded taksim-s (including those counted
under “ambiguous combinations” in the original tally, above); numbers in the column
on the right indicate the number of times each was used:
• unique possible
o kürdi-5 + kürdi-4 2
o nikriz-5 + çargâh-4 1
o uşşak-3 + rast-3 1
o pençgâh-5 + çargâh-4 1
o rast-5 + uşşak-4 1
o buselik-5 + uşşak-4 1
• unique impossible
o buselik-5 + rast-4 2
o buselik-5 + d – e – f – g – ae 1
o buselik-5 + rast-5 1
o hicaz-5 + buselik-5 2
o kürdi-3 + rast-5 1
o kürdi-5 + uşşak-4 1
17
We will recall from Cantemir’s descriptions of the taksim in the seventeenth century, given in
Chapter II, that this was not always the case.
273
o kürdi-5 + uşşak-4 1
o nikriz-5 + uşşak-4 2 (in the same taksim)
o uşşak-3 + segâh-3 1
o pençgâh-5 + hicaz-4 1
o rast-4 + buselik-5 1 (or 2)
o rast-5 + kürdi-4 1 (or 2)18
o disjunct rast-5 + hicaz-4 (or conjunct rast-5 + nikriz-5) 1
o hicaz-4 + hicaz-4 (or could be “faking” nikriz-4 + hicaz-4) 1
Total: 25
It was not among my primary research tasks to track precisely the total number of
cins conjunctions deployed in the takism-s recorded (which, with many cins-es
merely being implied, and counting a total for each level at each moment in each
taksim, would be difficult to ascertain in any case; see Appendix K), but I estimate
that they cannot have been fewer than around 900, and perhaps can have reached
nearly twice that number. In any case, that there are only 25 such aberrations—and
only 18 of them in the “impossible” category (see Chapter VI)—these “unique cins
conjunctions” would indeed seem to be the “exceptions that prove the rule” regarding
the “invisible landscape” of unused cins conjunctions discussed in Chapter VI.19 As
we shall see below, their function in effecting modulations is miniscule (being used in
around 2.75% of all modulations).
On “Ambiguous Combinations”
18
There was one instance in which it is ambiguous as to whether the conjunction is functionally “rast-
4 + buselik-5” or “rast-5 + kürdi-4.”
19
If my low estimate is correct, the total number of “unique cins combinations” cannot have exceeded
2.7% of all cins conjunctions.
274
The final set of cins change types in the tally above consists of cins changes that may
be interpreted as either one of two previously described types. There was a total of 25
of this kind, accounting for 7% of all modulations, but these are not really unique
types of cins change per se and no “principle” can be derived from them—it is only
the possibility of interpreting them differently that keeps them from belonging to one
or another of the already established types.
ON CİNS CHANGES IN RELATION TO MODULATION
In the review of cins-change data above, the context for describing the various cins-
change types was the overall number of cins changes made in the recorded taksim-s.
In the two graphs immediately below we can instead see how these specific types
were deployed in terms of whether or not they were used to effect a modulation.
Cases in which it is ambiguous as to whether there was a modulation are counted as
not being involved in a modulation.
275
number % of all % of its own % of all cins
resulting in modulations change type changes
modulations
direct 230 56% 55% 33%
species 70 17% 83% 10%
pivot 64 16.5% 51% 9%
added cins 18 4% 100% 2.5%
below
pivot/species 8 2% 89% 1%
direct/species 4 1% 100% 0.5%
unique-i 4 1% 31% 0.5%
pivot/unique-i 3 0.75% 60% 0.4%
seyir/focus 3 0.75% 100% 0.4%
change
unique-p 2 0.5% 50% 0.3%
pivot/unique- 1 0.25% 33% 0.2%
p
unique- 1 0.25% 100% 0.2%
i/quote
quote 0 0 0 0
direct/unique- 0 0 0 0
i
direct/quote 0 0 0 0
direct/pivot 0 0 0 0
Total: 408 58%
Figure 39: cins changes involved in modulations.
276
number not % of its own % of all cins
resulting in change type changes
modulations
direct 191 45% 27%
pivot 62 49% 9%
species 14 17% 2%
unique-i 9 69% 1.3%
ambiguous 5 22% 1%
“Z”*
pivot/unique- 2 66% 0.3%
p
pivot/unique-i 2 40% 0.3%
unique-p 2 50% 0.3%
direct/quote 1 100% 0.2%
direct/pivot 1 100% 0.2%
direct/unique- 1 100% 0.2%
i
pivot/species 1 11% 0.2%
added cins 0 0 0
below (“Y”)
unique-p- 0 0 0
ambiguous
quote 0 0 0
unique- 0 0 0
i/quote
direct/species 0 0 0
Total: 291 42%
(* “Z” represents a category of cins changes in which it is not clear that a modulation was intended,
regardless of change type used—18 of the 23 “Z” types were already included in the tallies of other
categories.)
Figure 40: cins changes not (clearly) involved in modulations.
277
CHROMATIC RUNS
Chromatic melodic movement (i.e., melodic movement by adjacent “4-comma” semi-
tones) occurred in the following contexts (the number to the right indicating how
many times):
• in Nihavend 7
• in Pesendide 2
• in Hicazkâr [but going into Nihavend] 1
• in Hicazkâr 1
• in Kürdili Hicazkâr [from tiz buselik-5 to kürdi-4] 1
• in Mahur 1
• in Segâh [going into Mahur] 1
• in Acem Aşiran 1
• in Rast [but on açan buselik-5] 1
• in Şehnaz [but on açan buselik-5] 1
• in Uşşak [but on açan buselik-5] 1
• in Nev’eser 1
• in Hüseyni 1
Total: 20
Under particular circumstances such chromatic melodic gestures may have been
counted as a sort of cins change substitute, but generally, since there is no “chromatic
cins,” they are independent of makam definitions per se (and are often described by
players as “merely playing the instrument,” or “improvisation” [doğaçlama]).
However, it must be noted that the great majority of chromatic moments—17 of the
20 here—happen in or moving toward “diatonic” scalar material (i.e., that constructed
only of 9-comma whole steps and 4-comma half steps) e.g., Nihavend, Buselik,
Kürdi, Mahur (and the aspect of Mahur within Pesendide) and Acem Aşiran. Dr.
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Scott Marcus has pointed out this phenomenon to me in regard to Eastern Arab
maqām practices stating that they are a possible characteristic feature of the
Nahawand and Kurd tetrachords, though I have never heard it explicitly noted by
Turkish musicians.20 Perhaps despite the relative rarity of chromaticism in our
examples (even within most of the diatonic makam-s performed) we may make room
for a potential new “principle of melodic movement”: that makam-s whose scalar
material is diatonic are especially open to chromaticism, and that chromaticism may
therefore be used in a melodic gesture modulating to a makam with diatonic scalar
material.
“PRE-CADENTIAL FLAT-5” GESTURES
• in Muhayyer-Sümbüle 1
• in Hicazkâr 2 times
• in Muhayyer-Kürdi 2 [+ 2 more times, in the same taksim]
• in Nihavend 1
• in Saba (on aşiran) 1
Total: 9
As in the case of chromaticism, this melodic gesture is not part of a cins-based
makam change per se, yet occurs only in association with certain types of makam. As
mentioned in Chapter IV and elsewhere, we see that except for the one occurrence of
this gesture in Nihavend, it is associated with constructions of the Zirgüleli Hicaz
20
See this matter discussed in Marcus 1989: 616.
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type, and with compound makam-s ending with Kürdi (q.v. in Appendix J; see also a
discussion of this phenomenon in Eastern Arab maqām in Marcus 1989: 617).
TAKSIM-S WITH (OR WITHOUT) MODULATION
• without modulation according to the artist: 15

• without modulation according to the author: an additional 23
• with modulation: 62
I mention the above information only to contrast the 38% of taksim-s made for this
project (at the beginning of the twenty-first century) ostensibly having no modulation
to the seventeenth-century concept of a taksim requiring modulation (see Chapter II).
CHAPTER SUMMARY
The “principles of melodic movement” are techniques for moving a melody forward
in time through an implicit “landscape” of acceptable and unacceptable cins-es and
cins-conjunctions (see Chapter VI). An established vocabulary of cins conjunctions—
when deployed with other identifying features—evoke specific makam-s (see Chapter
V and Appendix J regarding makam definition); this must be done formally for the
first makam shown in a performance (and generally also for the last one, if it differs
from the opening makam), but subsequent modulations may use abbreviated
references to makam-s without formally “defining” them. Although some performers
define the idea of “çeşni” (“a taste”) such that a gesture even smaller than a full cins
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may identify a makam,21 in an Arelian conception a minimum relationship of two
cins-es in conjunction is needed to clearly identify a specific makam (noting that
there are a few compound makam-s in which a direct change of cins at the same level
may suffice to evoke a makam, e.g., Isfahan, Dügâh, Pençgâh, Pesendide, q.v. in
Appendix J).
Melodic movement at the level of the cins occurs by deploying a limited number of
these techniques or “principles”; aside from aberrations or coincidences (shown
above under the categories “unique-p,” “unique-i,” and “quote”) and the relatively
rare “modulation by change of seyir only” (a sub-category of “W” above) and
“modulation by adding a cins below the tonic compound” (category “Y” above), there
are three such principles; these were employed in 90% of the work of melodic
movement in our taksim examples: the pivot, the species, and the direct cins change
at the same level:22
• The pivots played were relatively few (18% of all cins changes) but they were
reliably employed as a means of making modulations (72% of the pivots were
used in modulation, and 16.5% of all modulations were pivots)
21
For instance see Özer Özel’s comments on the subject in Chapter IV.
22
To briefly recall information given above regarding the other 10% of melodic movement: the total
number of “unique” cins changes came to no more than an estimated 2.7% of all cins changes and a
mere 2.75% of all modulations; 2 of the 3 noted “quotes” were counted under other change types, and
one had no functionality in its taksim; there were only 3 modulations by “change of seyir or tonal
focus”; and there were 18 instances of modulation by adding a cins below a former tonic (all of which
occurred in compound makam-s whose definitions required such a gesture). Together these constituted
10% of the melodic movement in our examples.
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o Modulations in which the seyir of the new makam was directly
employed in a pivot: 35 (i.e., in approximately 24% of pivots)23
o Hierarchically significant pivot tones in pivots: 55 (i.e., in
approximately 38% of pivots—most of these were either dominant to
dominant, or tonic to tonic)24
 These two phenomena associated with the pivot are perhaps a
sort of “luxury item”; they have the potential to enrich the
subtle complexity of a taksim (or other composition) but are
seldom used, and perhaps seldom noted by general audiences
• The species type (at 12% of all cins changes) is also not very often used, but
83% of those used were made to effect a modulation (accounting for 17% of
all modulations)
• Direct cins changes at the same level were both the most often employed
single type of cins change (at 60% of all cins changes), and also constituted
the most often used technique for effecting modulations (56% of them); they
were especially utilized in the following two situations (as well as others to be
explained below):
o 1) In a melodic affect associated with the term “cazibe” (“gravity”),
especially the sort that may be described by performers as “rising with
eviç and falling with acem” (since these, in the açan level of several
23
For instance as we saw in Agnès Agopian’s second Rast taksim (DVD 1/1 ca. 3:07) when moving
from Rast to (Basit) Suzinak, q.v. in Chapter V.
24
Again, as was heard in Agopian DVD 1/1 (see footnotes 23 and 14 above).
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often played makam-s, are de facto where the gesture most often
occurs)
 rhetorically, at least, discussions in terms of note names may
dissociate the gesture from concepts of cins structure, though
the cins-es implied by the particular makam would certainly be
readily understood by any performer
 this may also be taken as evidence that certain makam
definitions de facto have more than one possible cins in the
açan level (contra Arel’s 2-cins conjunction definitions; see
more below)25
o 2) In compound makam-s that require a switch between two cins-es at
the kök level, the examples in our taksim recordings being Isfahan,
Dügâh, Pençgâh, and Pesendide (see definitions of which in Appendix
J)
Since these “principles” are not only the techniques by which melodic movement is
made generally, but are the only means used to effect modulations, we might think of
them also as “principles of modulation,”26 though they are not exclusively so: we will
recall that 58% of all cins changes—that is, of all melodic movement—in our
25
Scott Marcus has noted that this is a normative understanding of certain Eastern Arab maqām-s such
as Rast, Bayyāti, and Ḥijāz, i.e., that they are each understood to have three different but normative
“tops” (i.e., “açan cins-es”; p.c. 2011).
26
Cf. Marcus 1992 regarding “rules of modulation” in (Eastern) Arab maqām music.
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examples clearly resulted in modulations, while a sizable 42% of them did not; all,
however, used the same “principles,” in varied distribution patterns. The evidence in
our recorded taksim examples suggests that the issue of how these principles intersect
with modulation is as simple as those numbers indicate; the fact that we are able to
distinguish “makam definition” and “modulation” as two domains within the makam
system does not mean that the “principles of melodic movement” as a whole are
associated solely with one or the other, nor for that matter that certain principles are
applied to better effect in one domain while other principles better serve the other
domain. Still, it may be useful, if only for didactic purposes, to think of them as
“principles of modulation” when teaching or learning how to modulate within the
makam system.
Below we shall look at these three techniques for moving the melody along—the
pivot, the species and the direct cins change at the same level—in terms of strategic
poetic functions of the sort suggested by Beken and Signell (1989b and in Bayhan
2008), but first there are two other melodic affects in our examples beside these cins-
change types to review: chromaticism and the “pre-cadential flat-5” gesture. Both of
these, however, would seem to be so closely related to specific melodic circumstances
that if they are to be included as “principles of melodic movement (and of
modulation)” then it must be in a circumscribed manner for both:
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• Chromaticism is most likely to appear in (or moving toward) “diatonic”
makam-s, i.e., those whose scalar material is made solely of intervals of a 9-
comma “whole step” and a 4-comma “half step”
o It is therefore a useful technique for approaching a modulation to such
a makam
• The “pre-cadential flat-5” gesture is associated with the ending phrases in
makam-s with
o a Zirgüleli Hicaz construction (i.e., hicaz-5 + hicaz-4), and
o compound makam-s ending in “-Kürdi” (or “-Zemzeme”)
 its appearance elsewhere is apparently erroneous (see remarks
made by Necati Çelik in Chapter IV)
The Poetic Strategies of Confirming, Delaying, and Deceiving
The “confirming, delaying and deceptive elements in Turkish improvisations”
described by Beken and Signell (1989b) are what I am here referring to as “poetic
strategies”; they are three parts of a simple but powerful concept for understanding
and classifying any given melodic gesture in terms of its functionality within a
taksim. Beken and Signell describe the three poetic strategies thus:
1. confirming (strengthen the listener’s identification of a specific makam…)

2. delaying (suspends makam identification)
3. deceptive (steers the identification away from the nominal makam)
(1989b)
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These definitions use the nominal makam—the makam in which the taksim began
(and usually the one in which it ends)—as the point of reference; a “delaying”
melodic gesture is one that suspends the identification only of the nominal makam,
and a “deceptive” gesture is one that strays from the definition of the same. This
paradigm does not address modulation per se (other than to classify it as a
“deceptive” move, in terms of the nominal makam). Since modulation forms such a
large and important part of what we have been looking at here, and because the
insight into melodic functionality that these poetic strategies provide is so useful, I
have expanded the meanings of the three terms for the purposes of addressing
modulation in our analysis of the “principles of melodic movement” as follows:
• “confirming” here describes melodic moves made in order to confirm a
makam’s identity, whether it be the nominal (or “host”) makam or a
modulated-to makam
o this can be accomplished by a melody fulfilling the exigencies of the
makam’s seyir, or by delivering a makam-specific melodic gesture, or
minimally by displaying a conjunction of two cins-es associated with a
particular makam’s (Arelian) definition
• “delaying” here describes a change of cins that is neither itself a modulation
nor obviously confirmable as part of the most recently confirmed makam
o one example of this occurs when there is de facto more than one cins
available in a given level of a makam’s definition (contrary to the
standard Arelian two-cins conjunction)—for instance it could be
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argued that the makam Rast may have both a buselik-4 and a rast-4 in
the açan level; this is what makes the ostensibly “cazibe”-oriented
“rises with eviç and falls with acem” gesture viable in Rast (and in
several other makam-s) and yet not a modulation per se
o in a sense “delaying” may also describe simply playing in a single
makam without altering the identifying cins-es (and providing that any
“species” movement is not considered modulatory); in this sense—
seemingly one shared by Beken and Signell—it is a cadence that is
being delayed rather than further makam-identifying melodic material
• “deceptive” describes a change of cins that suggests a modulation (e.g., by a
direct cins change at the same level to a cins not associated with the most
recently confirmed makam), but one that is not immediately confirmed (e.g.,
by a makam-identifying melodic gesture or adjacent/conjunct cins)—it
deceives as to whether or not it has modulated rather than by straying from
the previously confirmed makam’s cins material per se—it may in fact return
to the most recently confirmed makam
Given these provisional refinements to Beken’s and Signell’s concept, we may say
the following about the three main “principles of melodic movement” in their terms:
• “Pivots” are implicitly “confirming” because, whether or not a pivot has
effected a modulation, the minimum Arelian two-cins conjunction that
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identifies the makam (and on which the pivot depends) will have been made
explicit
• “Species” gestures in the recorded taksim-s were used with all three poetic
strategies, though most often to confirm new modulations
o 70% of the species type cins changes that were explicitly involved in a
modulation were “confirming”
o 30% of the species type cins changes that were explicitly involved in a
modulation were “deceptive”
o of the (merely 14) species moves that were counted as not involving
modulation, closer examination showed that 9 (64%) of these were
involved in internal modulations in compound makam-s that the artists
did not mention as modulations, and these were also all “confirming”
 the remaining 5 species moves—those that were not involved
with a modulation at all—were used for “delaying”
• “Direct cins changes at the same level” were also used in all three strategies
but these must be looked at more closely:
o “directs” resulting in a modulation: 230
 followed by a confirming conjunction of the new makam: 132
 not so followed (being therefore deceptive): 98
o “directs” not resulting in modulations: 191
 followed by a confirming conjunction of the most recently
confirmed makam (being therefore confirming): 73
288
 not so followed (being therefore delaying): 118
From this analysis we can further extrapolate the following information:
% of  pivot species direct

that are 100% 69% 49%
confirming
that are delaying 0 25% 23%
that are deceptive 0 6% 28%
This shows that most melodic movement in our examples was functionally doing the
work of confirming a makam’s identity (whether it was that of the host/nominal
makam or that of a modulated-to makam). Delaying techniques took up the next
largest amount of effort, with deceptive movement receiving the least focus.
Furthermore:
% of  confirming delaying deceptive

that are direct 53% 96% 82%
that are pivots 32% 0 0
that are species 15% 4% 18%
This shows us that direct cins changes at the same level is the single most employed
technique used for effecting any of the three poetic strategies, while pivots are by
nature effective only in confirming a makam’s identity, and species were perhaps
preferred for deceptive movement, then in confirming, if very little for delaying
confirmation of makam identity.
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This effectively concludes our review of the data derived from analyses of the
recorded taksim examples, their parsing and explanation as “principles of melodic
movement” (and de facto, as “principles of modulation” as well), and the explanation
of how these interact with the “poetic strategies” of confirming, delaying and
deceiving (as modified from the studies by Beken and Signell). Of course it must be
noted that all of the numbers and percentages presented above have been manipulated
out of the sum total of one hundred taksim-s made by thirty-four individuals; any
particular artist may have used these strategies in different combinations to different
effect (see Appendix K). It is probable that patterns for each individual player could
be mapped out, and it might even be possible to detect patterns according to
instrument, or to the relative ages of performers, or using other criteria. In attempting
to reduce the total changes of cins into a formalized and general set of “principles of
melodic movement” such a compression of individual style has been necessary, but I
hope that both the performances on the accompanying DVDs and the analyses in
Appendix K may serve also to provide the reader with material for appreciating the
details of individual artistic expression in the taksim examples. Following this chapter
is the conclusion of the dissertation.
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CONCLUSION
The music that we know today as “makam music” appears to have originated in the
eastern end of the Fertile Crescent as the establishment of a small set of melodic
modes whose interval structure was at some point determined by their placement on a
“basic scale,” that is, as “octave species” of that scale.1 A second, less highly
esteemed category of modes was then developed by changing (at least) one tone of
any of these primary modes in accord with a greater “general scale” (of which the
“basic scale” was a seven-tone selection). Eventually yet a third tier of melodic
gestures was designated for entities combining tones from the basic and general
scales apparently less methodically than those in the first two categories; these were
not considered proper modes per se, and it is not perfectly clear how or in what
contexts these were used.2
1
How early one wishes to date the beginning of its development may depend on how one chooses to
conceive of the music: a musical tradition fitting this description is evident as early as the fourth
millennium BCE, with explicit descriptions of intonation and the construction of scales/modes from
the early-second millennium (perhaps using the same “basic scale” as Yekta, et al., presumed the early
Systematists did; see Dumbrill 2008 [1997] a, b, and c [though cf. Crickmore 2008: 333]—also note
the coincidence that the Babylonian name for this scale (or tuning), “išartum,” has the same meanings
as the Persian term “rast” [“right, correct, straight, fitting”]). Though local texts in later centuries
become sparse it would appear that this system was replicated and modified by sixth- and fifth-century
BCE Greeks, for which there are abundant records (see Franklin 2007 and 2002; West 1992); if we
mean to define an “Islamic [-era] art music,” we may begin with the seventh-century CE descriptions
of music in the Àbbasid court at Baghdad by al-Munajjim (see Wright 1966); a music whose primary
modal elements are described by the term “makam” dates from around 1300 CE (also in [then Persian-
controlled] Iraq; see Neubauer 2000, cf. Shiloah 1981: 34-5).
2
See Wright 1978, 1995; Feldman 1993.
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There have been several centuries-long periods during which music theorists have
explained various aspects of the “makam” system (and given other information on the
music cultures employing it)—sometimes in minute, systematized detail—and there
have been comparably long intermittent periods when little or nothing about the
music itself was written; on many subjects regarding makam music we are left merely
to infer exactly how an earlier understanding of the system was developed into a later
one. In the realm of classical Ottoman makam music we are fortunate that in the
seventeenth century—in the midst of the most recent period of general theoretical
inactivity—two musicians at court (one of them Polish, incidentally, followed 50
years later by a Moldavian) applied their own idiosyncratic notation systems to
documenting the contemporary repertoire, some of it reputed to be quite old.3 This
body of evidence—and in the case of the Moldavian Cantemir’s treatise, considerable
theoretical and technical information as well—provides at least some understanding
of the modal entities as they existed at that time; to the extent that some of the
repertoire was indeed old, and provided that it had been remembered and notated
accurately, it may also be a cross section of musical understandings as they developed
over several centuries. It is especially pertinent to us that in this, the earliest modern
3
The musicians being Wojciech “Ali Ufki” Bobowski and Dimitrie Cantemir respectively. There is no
way to verify the provenance of pieces attributed to such historical persons as Plato, Ṣafīuddīn, and
Fārābī, nor even with certainty some of those attributed to later (more likely) composers such as
Merâgî and Gazi Giray Han, but such attributions at least tell us something about how seventeenth-
century musicians thought about their repertoire, and perhaps in the cases of pieces attributed to
ancient figures we may assume they are at least old enough that no-one in recent generations of the
oral transmission had been able to remember their introduction into the repertoire (i.e., their actual
composers).
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makam repertoire preserved in writing, there appears to have been employed almost
no modulation.4
Single-mode, spontaneously generated (perhaps “improvised”) introductions and
interludes to established repertoire would seem to predate the creation of the taksim
genre that was first described by Cantemir in 1700. For the time being I refer to this
type of performance as an agaze (which may also be expressed as ağaze)—Persian
for “commencement”—even though it may be a less than precise usage, and for some
periods an anachronistic one. In any case, the taksim genre itself appears to have been
invented around the early- to mid-seventeenth century as a medium for transforming
the spontaneously generated “agaze” into A) a genre that could either be performed
independently of established repertoire, or used in the manner of an “agaze,” that is,
to introduce or connect pre-composed pieces of the repertoire, and; B) necessarily
included modulations from one modal entity to others. Taksim was apparently a
medium in which the aesthetics/poetics of the day were deployed to combine modal
entities while eventually coming to blur the hierarchy that separated primary,
secondary and tertiary modal categories. By 1700 the ideal taksim was apparently one
that modulated through all the known modal elements (apparently regardless of
“hierarchy”). It is also worth noting that Cantemir makes clear that it was not allowed
to quote or imitate pre-composed repertoire in the taksim genre.
4
Apparently it existed only in certain pedagogical genres, and briefly in the third section (hane) in the
4-part peşrev genre (see Feldman 1993: 3 and 1996: 276-7; and Chapter II above).
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We should also note that in Cantemir’s time the instrumentarium of courtly music had
recently changed, welcoming among other instruments the (fretted, long-necked)
tanbur at the expense of the (unfretted, short-necked) ud, and that—perhaps not
coincidentally—whereas previous Systematist music theory had admitted 17 tones in
the general scale, Cantemir describes the 16 basic and 17 secondary “perde-s” per
octave on his tanbur, for a total of 33 perde-s (Feldman 1996: 202; the implication
being that before the long-necked, precisely fretted tanbur became the main stringed
instrument at court, theorists could not have so precisely divided the octave into the
newly appearing perde-s). While it is not clear how or when the extra tones had been
added, they leave the implication of a continual expansion of the definitions of modal
entities from some undetermined time after the thirteenth century (though possibly
much more recently). By the mid-eighteenth century a plethora of new modal
combinations created by performer-composers for deployment in the taksim genre
were taking form as new modes—some of them compounds of previously known
modes, but also some simply using newly developed interval combinations—many of
which have appeared as staple modal material for the pre-composed repertoire since
that time as well. It is from this period that the hierarchy between modal types
definitively disappears; all “modal entities” are since then called “makam-s,” and are
treated as independent modes (though some may de facto be used only rarely on their
own, appearing as internal modulations in compound makam-s, apparently as the
subsidiary “terkib-s/şube-s” had once been used; see below).
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Despite written sources from the eighteenth century to the twentieth showing little
interest in a systematic makam theory in the Turkish cultural sphere—whether to
maintain a traditional system or to develop one in accord with the praxis of the day—
two things about how the makam system had been transformed since the invention of
the taksim genre are clear from both the written repertoire and the framework given
by the early-twentieth-century theorists: firstly that the proliferation of modal entities
qualifying as “makam-s” reinforced the maintenance of mode-distinguishing rules of
performance that became part of the definition of each makam (melodic path, a
hierarchy of tones, characteristic melodic gestures, tessitura, characteristic internal
modulations, special intonations, etc.). Whereas the available literature is not clear
about how early the standardization of such elements of praxis occurred, by the time
the early-twentieth-century creators of current makam theory explained the system,
this way of defining makam-s was not only normative, but “music theory texts” came
to consist mainly of descriptions of makam-s in these terms (reinventing and defining
a vocabulary of elements with which to make such definitions—tetrachords and
pentachords, a standardized general scale, notation conventions, etc.; see examples in
Appendix D).
The second thing that had obviously changed about the makam system since the
invention of the taksim genre (and apparently in response to it) was the way in which
modal elements could be combined, either fleetingly in a taksim or in a pre-composed
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piece, or to create new compound makam-s. Modulation had apparently previously
been very rare in both spontaneously generated composition and in pre-composed
repertoire, and it is perhaps precisely because of the sudden confusion of modal
combinations that were generated in abundance between the seventeenth and
twentieth centuries that theorists were not able to get a handle on a systematic
description of how makam music “worked” (whereas previous to the inclusion of
modulation it was understood to “work” by simply applying the exigencies of a
makam’s definitions to composition); the old definitions of hierarchical distinctions
between modal elements had disappeared, the “basic scale” was no longer seen as the
generator of makam-s (i.e., it ceased to serve a function except as a traditional
concept)—even to the point that Yekta and Arel could argue about what the tones
constituting it were; and the “agaze”—previously the de facto medium in which a
makam’s definition could be applied purely (i.e., independent of lyrics, meter,
repertoire, modulation)—was absorbed into the (modulation-oriented) taksim genre.5
However, despite the twentieth-century theorists’ revival of such concepts as formally
defining makam-s and the need for a “basic scale” (though now for the purpose of
establishing how to use Western notation), no theory was created to explain
systematically how the conventions of modulation that developed between the
5
As Feldman noted, almost all of the repertoire played in the twentieth century (most of it composed
in the previous two centuries) contains some modulation, only “giriş” (introductory) and “ara”
(interlude) taksim-s—i.e., those types I have referred to as former “agaze-s”—possibly being without
any modulation (1977: 66 and 1993: 16-7).
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seventeenth and twentieth centuries work. Perhaps their having developed a theory
with the ability to describe the complexities of compound makam-s seemed sufficient
without expanding beyond the paradigm that theory should consist basically of a
description of the elements of the system and then definitions of makam-s in their
terms;6 perhaps the Westernized-qua-modernized theory they needed to create in
order to fit the new pedagogy (which, under official pressure from the Republic,
necessarily shunned the traditional oral/aural transmission) simply could not bear all
the detail and still be useful.7 Meanwhile the surviving oral/aural tradition came to
concentrate on making expedient compromises with the new system: learning the new
vocabulary of makam theory, altering the new theory to suit their own idiosyncratic
understandings, adopting music literacy and using it to access the newly “fixed”
repertoire (if with adjustments).8 We must recall that more repertoire than ever before
had suddenly become available to each performer via this standardized and
assiduously applied musical literacy—students used to have to learn pieces one-on-
6
All twentieth-century theory texts take care to categorize and describe compound makam-s; see Arel
1991 (1943-8), Yılmaz 2007 (1973), and especially Kutluğ 2000 and Özkan 1984.
7
Detail, for instance, regarding how to effect modulations, an aspect of the makam system that had
never been described by theorists but that would seem, some 300 years after Cantemir, to merit
attention. Of course, although such an expansion of the theory would have added greatly to the amount
of information to pass on to students in the new pedagogy, there is no reason to believe that the early
twentieth-century theorists intended to develop an explication of modulation yet declined to do so in
order to make institutional music education simpler; the issue is simply not dealt with at all.
8
That is to say, repertoire transcribed and distributed in newly definitive versions, in contrast to the
traditional situation in which each piece—memorized by a master and passed by him or her to students
orally—had as many subtly idiosyncratic versions as there were masters to pass it along.
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one from their master(s), and any repertoire that the master did not know, a student
would not learn.9
But understanding how to play taksim-s and to make appropriate modulations became
(or perhaps had already long been) the province of each student’s own individual
initiative. In addition to learning Arelian theory and musical literacy (and the
adjustments to these dictated by their teachers), each student is tasked with
memorizing a great deal of pre-composed repertoire, comparing pieces in the same
makam in order to extract the “essential” (i.e., obviously reappearing) elements, and
listening closely to taksim-s made by their teachers, other senior performers, and in
recordings of past masters. By periodically imitating these before their teachers and
altering their understandings of “how taksim is done” in response to the teachers’
feedback they are expected to become competent at making taksim-s, and at
understanding how modulations occur in the makam system. But even this feedback
is deliberately unsystematic—teachers emphatically do not teach taksim; they seem
not to want that aspect of the art to become systematized in such a way as to remove
the personal, human element (and parenthetically, perhaps to threaten their own
position in the oral/aural meşk tradition). However, as with the limitations of a
dependence on the pre-literacy-era master, a student who does not learn sufficient
9
Barring, that is, an extraordinary memory for serendipitously heard performances. Even those who
could read Hamparsum notation did not have access to large sources of notated repertoire, and there
are many stories of masters refusing to pass along repertoire because they did not think their students
worthy, or feared that it would be stolen or misused (see Chapter IV).
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repertoire in a given makam will not feel able to make a taksim in that makam, or to
modulate to or through it. One well known, acknowledged master told me that he
would not play taksim-s in a certain little-played but not particularly obscure makam
because he felt he did not know it well enough—and if such an expert will not play a
given makam or teach it (even though there are descriptions of it in theory books, and
available notated repertoire), how will the next generation of students learn to make
creative use of it?
Currently—at the beginning of the twenty-first century—performers and theorists
alike recognize that the discrepancies between official theory and praxis are broad
enough that it has become a burden on current students and possibly a
discouragement to new students, and therefore to the continuance of the art itself.10
Meanwhile the system as a whole appears to become more simplified and less
sophisticated with each generation (at least to many of my informants, as shown in
Chapter IV); composition is a nearly stagnant sector of the art and taksim-s are
reduced in duration, complexity and modal variety (ibid.); the single-makam “agaze”
has simply been absorbed into the taksim genre and relies on the repertoire for
makam definition—or from another point of view, taksim may be on its way to
becoming no more than what had once been “agaze,” any modulations de facto being
10
Although I presented no informant quotes on the subject in Chapter IV, I can say that such concerns
were either implicitly or explicitly conveyed to me as part of the first conversations I had with each of
my informants regarding this project; their express desire to ameliorate the situation was largely the
reason for their participation in the research, and for the ease with which I was able to undertake it. As
for theorists on the subject, see the 13 speakers in Bayhan 2008, and Akdoğu 1989b.
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internal to the makam’s definition and stereotyped in the pre-composed literature. By
relying on students’ self-guided study and a dependence on canonical repertoire for
the transmission of how taksim-s are made—to the point of literally quoting phrases
as part of a makam’s de facto definition—and thereby perpetuating an unsystematic
understanding of how modulations are effected, the state of the art has been reversed
from the dynamism begun in the seventeenth century: whereas Cantemir had made it
clear that a taksim could not quote pre-composed repertoire, it is now repertoire that
current students have to mimic in order to learn to make taksim-s—repertoire that
itself was the result of an explosion of creativity expressed through the taksim genre
by performer-composers unwilling to stay within the limitations of their own
contemporary repertoire.
Musicians today are of course personally invested in keeping classical Turkish music
alive (and continually express fears that it will not outlast their own generation). But
it seems to me that their hopes are not merely that it will survive as a museum piece,
confined to repeating past repertoire; that is presumably why the taksim genre still
exists, and why there is a hope that composition will again become a more lively
sector of the art form. As mentioned in Chapter IV, there is a reflexive conservatism
that has protected classical Turkish music not merely from extinction but also from
incorporating such “modern” experiments as atonality, noise, serialism, polymodality
(or even polyphony), static timbres, minimalism, etc. As effective as this has proved
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in regard to the maintenance of what is considered a traditional aesthetic, this attitude
also maintains a pedagogical situation in which the activity of learning those aspects
of the makam system concerning how melodic movement is effected has not changed
(i.e., “been modernized”) apparently since the seventeenth century; neither Arelian
theory nor the masters and their meşk are considered responsible for this
transmission, but it is left simply to the chance that students—who by definition are
the least experienced listeners and analysts of the music—will be able to extract this
information from repertoire and recordings. Perhaps a formalization of those aspects
would be enough to lead to a review of the viability of the seventeenth-century idea
of taksim as a medium in which to experiment with the system’s most basic (and
traditional) elements, in which to learn and to apply the principles informing
individual makam-s and—especially—their relationships to each other, stimulating
new composition in a traditional way without being forced to rely on the mimicry of
past repertoire (as deserving of appreciation as it may be).
When I invited the performers and theorists whose input appears in this study to
participate in the research, I clearly framed the overall project as a way for them to
give voice to an understanding of the makam system as they employed it as
performers and teachers, and particularly as spontaneous composers in the taksim
genre; the idea that the information they gave could be used collectively to reform the
current music theory was explicitly shared between us as a possibility. Some of their
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responses were given verbally and some appear as the taksim-s themselves. In this
dissertation I have gathered their “explanations” of how the makam system works
and, concentrating on the aspect of it concerned with melodic movement and
modulation, I have extracted and formalized a set of “principles” from them. These
must be understood as being distinct from that aspect of makam theory that is
characterized by makam definition per se—a subject that is the focus of virtually all
twentieth-century Turkish makam theory texts, as well as a central part of all KTM
education, whether in conservatories or meşk. In a sense it is also therefore separate
from the whole endeavor of Arelian theory, though it runs in parallel with it, and uses
a basically Arelian rhetoric of conjoined cins-es. It is also separate from arguments
regarding proper intonation and the general scale; though it would seem that this is
the area where current theorists are putting most of their attention (see Bayhan 2008),
these “principles of melodic movement” should apply in whatever scheme they may
choose.11 Furthermore it must be said that other researchers might look at the very
same material (which, being included in the DVDs of Appendix L, all are welcome to
do) and find yet other useful patterns in the data.
11
For my part, I see this as a non-issue in terms of the workings of the makam system. Intonation
choices, like color choices for a painter, are properly the province of the individual performer; a stroll
through any museum will allow us to agree upon a broad interpretation of the name “red” without
defining it as “corresponding to a vibration of ~480-405 terahertz,” or some such technical analysis.
Both listeners and performers understand not merely from the intonation of a tone itself but from its
context within a melodic passage a tone’s intended perde/color, without feeling perturbed by its
alignment with or variance from a standard measurement of such a perde out of context. If additional
symbols and perde names are needed to adjust Arelian notation, that should be quite an easy change to
effect, but I doubt that restricting everyone’s tone choices—except subtly, as a means for assuring that
instruments are capable of being played in tune with each other—will ultimately bring a desirable
result (cf. “desired results” regarding intonational definitions in Bayhan 2008 passim).
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I was initially surprised that what I discerned in the raw data of my informants’
responses was a way of understanding the techniques of creating appropriate melodic
movement, and especially a way of describing the methods by which modulation is
achieved. Nor do I think that my informants would have predicted exactly that result.
The original goal had been simply to compare three objects of study—taksim
recordings from the early-twentieth century, taksim-s as practiced today, and
twentieth-century music theory as presented in texts—to see how they differed and
how they were similar, and to provide information with which to adjust Arelian
theory, that it be in better accord with twenty-first-century makam praxis. But in fact
there is little to adjust; beside stylistic factors, makam praxis in taksim-s seems to
have changed little between 1910 and 2010, other than there apparently being a
greater emphasis now on the definition of specific cins-regions of a makam rather
than the more freely moving melodic style of makam exposition of the recent past.12
The theory itself has been demonstrated to adequately if imperfectly represent many
aspects of the music that its creators chose to focus on. Setting aside issues of
notation, the basic scale, and interval definition of the general scale, the main changes
to standard Arelian theory suggested by the information gathered for this study would
consist of the following:
12
And perhaps there is some hint that disjunct tetrachords formed the central scalar material of
makam-s rather than the later, Arelian conjunction of tetrachord and pentachord. Presumably this shift
is due to the effect of the inclusion in normative pedagogy of the Arelian insistence on each makam’s
basic structure consisting of one tetrachord and one pentachord (conjoined in either order). If so it is a
clear case of (abstract, novel) theory shaping established practice (and thereby also praxis).
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• accepting that the scalar material of many makam-s consists of more than one
pentachord and one conjoined tetrachord (and their repetition at the octaves)
• accepting the trichord (üçlü) as a cins type and re-defining those makam-s that
have been shown here to be widely understood as employing them (see
Appendix J)
o which implies that the central scalar material for some makam-s will
consist of three conjunct cins-es rather than the currently mandated
two
• the creation and use of a “hüzzam tetrachord” to be used as described in
Appendix H
• the explicit recognition that the point of conjunction between the central cins-
es is not necessarily the dominant of the makam
o but parenthetically noticing that it usually is, and when it is not, the
dominant is inevitably either the tonic or upper tonic instead. (Such
information is already noted in specific individual makam descriptions
in standard texts, though the recognition of trichords will alter the way
some of these are expressed.)
• recognize that there are (at least) two ways of describing how makam-s are
constructed:
o 1) in terms of conjunct cins-es
 e.g., Acem makam can be understood as “uşşak-4 + buselik-3 +
çargâh-5”
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 note that there is no overlap of cins-es here, but for compound
makam-s we may also describe a structure as
o 2) overlapping cins-constructions
 e.g., Acem makam can be understood as “play ‘Çargâh’ on
acem,13 then play Buselik on neva, then play Beyati”
o both descriptions are valid, each presenting a different emphasis on
performance information; together they may be a synthesis of the
apparently older “melodic gesture” sense of makam definition seen in
the early taksim recordings and the Arelian emphasis on conjunct cins
regions (see Chapter V)
• optionally, for consistency’s sake, using the term “uşşak pentachord” for what
is now called the “hüseyni pentachord”—it would not seem as though
standardizing this will make the makam Hüseyni disappear, nor does there
seem to be an important story connected to the current distinction (i.e., the
term “hüseyni pentachord” has neither a musical function nor an extra-musical
one)
As we saw in Chapter IV many performers would also prefer that the makam
definitions found in standard music theory textbooks include more detailed
information than they do, some of it technical (e.g., regarding special intonation
13
Or “Acem Aşiran (on acem),” if in fact there is no such thing as a (diatonic) “Çargâh makam.”
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issues, habitual internal modulations, characteristic phrases, etc.) and some more
“literary” (prose descriptions of a makam’s moods and characteristics, different
historical versions, relations with other makam-s, etc.), and a few notated or even
recorded examples of each makam would be appreciated by some, also. But there is
nothing inherent in Arelian theory that causes authors of music theory texts to make
such omissions, and altogether this study did not result in more radical answers
regarding the Yekta-Arel-Ezgi-Uzdilek theory complex per se.
What I drew from the study was instead a set of organizing principles regarding the
makam system that are neither described by current theory nor implicitly alien to it;
they are simply an aspect of the system that had not been described as a whole before,
apparently for three reasons:
• because the (pre-seventeenth-century) models that twentieth-century theorists
had for what a systematic “makam theory” should look like had been written
previous to the period when modulation and compound makam-s—and the
profusion of new relationships they engendered at the level of the cins and of
the mode—became the norm
• because the creators of the current theory were under pressure to simplify the
representation of the system in order to fit the new, Western-style pedagogy,
and
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• because masters still teaching in a meşk environment felt that these details
were on the one hand too manifold and complex to formalize systematically
and on the other hand fell properly within the domain of a personal mastery
(part of which includes knowing when an individual student is ready to learn
such specific details—not something that one should be able simply to pick
out of a book)
While I am sympathetic to the concerns of those teachers keeping the oral tradition
alive, it would seem to me that the “principles of melodic movement (and
modulation)” elucidated in this study are an aspect of classical Turkish music theory
that students specifically, and likely these teachers as well, may benefit from seeing
compiled in a more formalized way—they were expressed, after all, in today’s
teachers’ own “voices,” as it were (i.e., through their taksim-s, through the analyses
of these that they gave, and as information conveyed in interviews). That such a
presentation of the principles may also prove suitable for the pedagogical methods of
today’s conservatories makes them in a sense a gift from the oral tradition to the
literate one—at the least we can say that it is a response to the latter’s Arelian
conceptions of the theory. In any case, a music theory that explicitly recognizes that
makam-s, through compound forms and modulatory possibilities developed since
Cantemir’s time, mix together in varied and specific ways (and must not mix in other
such ways) would seem to be about three hundred years overdue. To reinforce this
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idea I would like to present what I see as the potential importance of the formalization
of these principles by way of an analogy with a similar development in Western art
music.
Between about the ninth century CE and the seventeenth century CE in central
Europe, the concept of the music of the day (and the theory describing it) centered
around the primacy of individual melodies. Over that period, the music turned from
monophonic—that is, all performers performing the same melody—to polyphonic—
where multiple melodies were performed simultaneously. The theory describing the
proper way to create this music was therefore concerned with the principles of voice-
leading that would cause the multiple melodies sounding together to conform to the
aesthetics of the day. But by the end of that period, composers and music theorists
came up with a new way of looking at the same material: they now shifted their
analysis from the relations between several simultaneous melodies to a focus on
discrete moments of time within a piece of music, and instead of analyzing each
melody horizontally, they began analyzing the relations of the notes “vertically” in
these discrete moments and designating the resulting “harmony” in terms of chords.
Although ostensibly they were still creating the same music, this new way of
understanding “how the system works”—which is referred to now as a theory of
“functional harmony,” of how different kinds of chords move from one to the next—
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radically changed the possibilities available to composers, who need not have, and
indeed did not cease to create melodies to work along with the new chords.
Now, let us compare this to the situation in Turkish makam music. Over roughly the
same period, between the ninth and seventeenth centuries CE, there had been
developed theoretical conceptions of the music for which descriptions of the elements
of intervals (and at times also of cins-es) and their use in the descriptions of
individual makam-s was sufficient to explain how music was made; a performer
needed to know only how to put into praxis the already well formulated theoretical
definitions of the makam-s. But as a result of the invention of the taksim genre and its
introduction of extensive modulation, the makam system itself was radically altered.
And yet even through the twentieth century the theoretical paradigm of describing the
entirety of the system in the old terms of intervals, cins-es, etc., and then giving lists
of makam definitions (even those these were expanded to show internal modulations
and compound makam-s) ignored the innovations of the seventeenth through
nineteenth centuries. By the twentieth century, what can only once have been a deep
understanding of modulation has instead been replaced by a mimicry of canonical
repertoire as the source for learning how to make taksim, and therefore of
understanding how the system works. I am suggesting that the performer-oriented
music theory formalized in this dissertation as “principles of melodic movement and
modulation” is analogous to the development of that which we call “functional
309
harmony” in Western art music. It has the same potential to provide musicians a
systematic way of expanding their creative possibilities simply by looking at what
they are already doing from another perspective, and yet it runs in parallel with the
(currently Arelian) theory; there is no need to radically alter the existing paradigm in
order to add this new point of view.
The Turkish makam system today, then, can be likened to a community of
personalities (or for that matter to a palette of colors, or to the sum of ingredients in a
cookbook). There are the cins-es and their conjunctions—acceptable and
unacceptable, as shown in Chapter VI; certain combinations of these become the
bases of makam-s (and we may reckon a sort of “familial” relationship between
makam-s that end with the same cins).14 Each makam is more than the sum of its
intervals by virtue of: a melodic path, a hierarchy of tones, characteristic melodic
gestures, tessitura, characteristic internal modulations, special intonations, etc. To
many makam-s have also accrued characteristic phrases/“çeşni-s”—these also serve
to identify discrete makam-s; when making “giriş” and “ara” taksim-s (introductory
and interlude taksim-s respectively—the “agaze” of old) then these makam-
identifying attributions combined (perhaps along with some “delaying” strategies, see
below) are sufficient to make a “taksim” in one makam.
14
See Marcus’ discussion of the Arab fasila system, 1989: 289-93 and 368-425.
310
In parallel to this there is the realm of modulation, including the internal modulations
required of compound makam-s. Compound (mürekkep or bileşik) makam-s appear
to have existed before the invention of the taksim genre and the explosion of new
compound makam-s that it engendered in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—
the older mürekkep makam-s seem to have consisted of primary modes (makam-s) to
which secondary etc., modal material (terkib-s, şube-s etc.) were added. The
compound makam-s of today, mainly created in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, in effect treat whole makam-s (when used internally in modulations) as
“secondary modal entities” temporarily. In this way every modal entity is treatable as
a makam, which (after an initial definition in performance) can serve as a framework
for showing its relation to virtually every other modal entity by modulation in
conformity with the acceptable cins conjunctions. Conversely every modal entity may
also serve in the manner in which secondary modal entities (e.g., terkib-s, şube-s,
etc.) once did, that is, as distinct modal entities that (in the context of modulation) do
not require full exposition (of seyir, hierarchical tones, etc.); they may be treated
temporarily as lesser entities than “whole” makam-s.
Both aspects of the system—identifying makam-s and moving between makam-s—
are mediated by melodic movement, “horizontally” through time, of course, and also
“vertically” through variations in pitch. Using the previously identified cins-es
(groups of 3, 4 or 5 pitches, see Chapter VI) we saw that this most basic level of
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“principle of melodic movement” is entwined with the concept of makam identity,
that is, that there are acceptable conjunctions of cins-es (and importantly to the
aesthetic, many more such conjunctions that are not acceptable—69% of the total
possible), and that certain conjunctions (18% of the total) are ascribed the capacity to
evoke specific makam-s even in the absence of seyir, hierarchical tones, etc. (ibid.;
the remaining 13% of cins conjunctions are possible but do not evoke makam-s per
se). This information yields three dynamics in the Turkish makam system:
• 1) the fact that there are restrictions upon playing 82% of the possible cins
conjunctions due to their estrangement from acceptable makam-s reminds us
that the aesthetic that informs the sense of beauty in classical Turkish music
exists in a kind of “invisible landscape”—or more precisely, an “intolerable
soundscape” of sonic ugliness that must be traversed but not entered during
every performance and composition—this makes even more poignant the
distinction between “the praxis of makam theory in taksim performance” and
“improvisation” as it is often more liberally conceived (i.e., as being able to
cross or ignore the boundaries of specific scalar or modal definitions)
• 2) revealed are the many “principles of melodic movement/modulation” as
they were first suggested to me by performers, that is, principles of the sort
that teach “above or below any hicaz tetrachord a conjunct rast pentachord
may be developed”—these essentially determine what sort of “vertical”
melodic movement is possible
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• 3) this is the arena in which we see that, just as all melodic modal entities
came to be “makam-s” in the eighteenth century, all of today’s “makam-s”
can also function (in modulations and compound makam-s) as “terkib-s”
apparently once had done, that is, to appear as namable modal entities evoked
merely by the association of two cins-es in conjunction15
In order to distinguish this sort of “principle,” let us specify these as “principles of
cins conjunction” within the greater category of “principles of melodic movement
[and modulation].” (These might be rendered in Turkish “cins birleşme prensipleri”
and “nağme tahriği [ve geçki] prensipleri” respectively.)
As we saw in Chapters V and VII, a second sort of “principle of melodic movement
and modulation” governs motion, and we may therefore similarly distinguish them as
“principles of motivity” (perhaps “hareket kuvvet prensipleri” in Turkish). Allowing
that 10% of the cins-level melodic movement in the taksim-s made for this study was
15
I must note that I am not here giving the traditional definition of “terkib” (about which see below); I
am only saying that functionally there is a parallel between the old secondary and tertiary modal
entities and the way in which today non-nominal makam-s may be evoked in compound makam-s and
in modulations. Additionally I might point out that there are makam-s today that are so seldom used by
themselves (but that appear often in modulations) that they might be considered “secondary modal
elements”—Isfahan, Müstear, Araban, Arazbar and Neva were so described to me by performers (see
Chapter IV), and I am sure more could be found comparing Appendices J and L. Cf. Wright 1990: 231,
fn. 33: “Cantemir's definition of terkibs (edvar: 20) is articulated in terms of limited ambitus (terkīb
oldur ki āvāz bir kaç perdenin üzerinde hareket edūb) and association with a number of makams (ve bir
kaç makāmın yerlerine uğrayub geçer) with which they have the final in common (karārgāına varub ve
anda karār-ı istirāhati eyleyüb).”
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unorthodox, not rising to the level of principle,16 we have seen three main principles
responsible for moving melodies forward:
• the pivot
o in which the commonality of a cins shared by two makam-s* is used to
move from one makam to another, as an adjacent (not shared) cins is
altered to suit the second makam
 (*or within one makam that de facto has alternative cins-es in
one level)
• the species
o in which the tones and intervals within a makam’s structure remain,17
but a newly placed emphasis on one or more different hierarchically
important tones causes the impression of the appearance of another
makam
• the direct cins change at the same level
o in which one cins is exchanged for another in the same level, directly
 although there were many varieties (see Chapter VII), the most
common sort would appear to involve two cins-es of the same
16
To briefly recall information given in Chapter VII regarding this 10% of melodic movement: the
total number of “unique” cins changes came to no more than an estimated 2.7% of all cins changes and
a mere 2.75% of all modulations; 2 of the 3 noted “quotes” were counted under other change types,
and one had no functionality in its taksim; there were only 3 modulations by “change of seyir or tonal
focus”; and there were 18 instances of modulation by adding a cins below a former tonic (all of which
occurred in compound makam-s whose definitions required such a gesture). Together these constituted
10% of the melodic movement in our examples.
17
Or in which some tones are altered microtonally in accord with a performer’s understanding of a
spectrum of those perde-s’ possible inflections (see Chapter IV).
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size (i.e., trichord, tetrachord, or pentachord), sharing the same
root tone, in which the change consisted of altering one or
more of the internal tones of the cins (rather than either of the
two tones forming the boundary of the cins)
There was in our taksim examples a wide variety of uses and combinations for each
of these three techniques, 58% of them resulting in (declared) modulations and 42%
(interpreted as) occurring within a given single makam’s definition (see Chapter VII).
In effect the two types of “principles of melodic movement and modulation” given
above—those of cins conjunction and those of motivity—are two aspects of the
means by which melodic movement occurs in the Turkish makam system, the bones
and the muscle, as it were. The context of all such movement is a “world” populated
by makam-s, each being ascribed a unique character (which is synthesized for
expression in the aspect of the system concerned with defining and identifying
individual makam-s), in which the possibilities for showing the relations between any
given makam-s is negotiated through modulation. Despite there existing a plethora of
aesthetic criteria that prevent many direct juxtapositions of makam-s,18 the “familial”
system of relations between makam-s—that is, the inevitability of many makam-s
sharing cins material at the same levels—makes it possible to wend one’s way in
18
Although several hints were given by performers in Chapter IV as to what makes certain such
juxtapositions “cold” or unacceptable, it was regrettably beyond the scope of the present study to
examine the phenomenon systematically.
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performance from any makam to any other, always within the framework of the
nominal or “host” makam. In this way the Turkish makam system may be described
as a kind of holism, in which each part (at least at the level of the makam and makam
combinations, if not at the level of cins-es and intervals) can be seen to relate to each
other part, as well as to the whole.
If the aesthetic goals of making taksim-s and other forms of composition may be seen
as partaking of the above-mentioned factors—of clearly identifying a host makam,
and possibly of using it as a framework for showing relations with other makam-s by
making modulations within it (likely evoking each new makam-s in a manner
analogous to an archaic “secondary modal entity” rather than by formally defining
it19)—then we may also speak of strategies for conditioning melodic movement in the
pursuit of those goals. In order to characterize such strategies, I have taken the
paradigm of “confirming, delaying and deceptive elements in Turkish
improvisations” elucidated by Beken and Signell (see 1989b) and expanded each term
slightly that together they might accommodate the modulatory aspect of the makam
system (which was not addressed in the study in which these authors introduced the
concepts). Thus “confirming” came to describe melodic moves made in order to
confirm a makam’s identity, whether it be the nominal (or “host”) makam or a
modulated-to makam; “delaying” came to describe a change of cins that is neither
19
We must also always recall that the Turkish makam system has since at least Cantemir’s time been
an “open-ended” one, in Powers’ sense that new makam-s—and particularly compound makam-s—
may be created and absorbed as normative by the system (1980: 427).
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itself a modulation nor obviously confirmable as part of the most recently confirmed
makam; and “deceptive” came to describe a change of cins that suggests a
modulation, but one that is not immediately confirmed—it deceives as to whether or
not it has modulated rather than by straying from the previously confirmed makam’s
cins material per se.
Given these provisional refinements to Beken’s and Signell’s concept, we were able
to say the following about the three main “principles of melodic movement” in their
terms: that “pivots” are implicitly “confirming” because, whether or not a pivot has
effected a modulation, the minimum Arelian two-cins conjunction that identifies the
makam (and on which the pivot depends) will have been made explicit; that “species”
gestures in the recorded taksim-s were used with all three poetic strategies, though
most often to confirm new modulations; and that “direct cins changes at the same
level” were also used in all three strategies but these must be looked at more closely:
o “directs” resulting in a modulation: 230
 followed by a confirming conjunction of the new makam: 132
 not so followed (being therefore deceptive): 98
o “directs” not resulting in modulations: 191
 followed by a confirming conjunction of the most recently
confirmed makam (being therefore confirming): 73
 not so followed (being therefore delaying): 118
317
From an analysis of this material we were able to determine that most melodic
movement (in our examples) was functionally doing the work of confirming a
makam’s identity (whether it was that of the host/nominal makam or that of a
modulated-to makam). Delaying techniques took up the next largest amount of effort,
with deceptive movement receiving the least focus.20
PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
Effectively we have seen in the previous twenty-five pages of this Conclusion a
review of each of the elements presented separately in the various chapters: a
historical overview of the Turkish makam system; the effects of a government-
sponsored Westernization-qua-modernization campaign on what would become
current “Arelian” music theory; detailed responses to this theory by current
performers at personal as well as technical levels, in both verbal descriptions and in
the praxis of makam in the taksim genre; a recognition that in terms of the theoretical
conceptions of individual makam-s and their structures and modulatory capacities
there does not seem to be a great difference between the earliest performers for whom
20
Furthermore we saw that “direct cins changes at the same level” were the single most employed
technique used for effecting any of the three poetic strategies, while pivots are by nature effective only
in confirming a makam’s identity, and species were perhaps preferred for deceptive movement, then in
confirming, if very little for delaying confirmation of makam identity.
318
we have taksim recordings (beginning in 1910), current performers, and performers
recorded in between—the greatest (non-stylistic) difference appearing to be a
tendency in the earlier period to treat the boundaries of individual cins-es more
fluidly than current performers do (de facto resulting in a style more oriented around
melodic gestures thought characteristic of the makam than around the definitions of
makam-s in terms of conjunct cins-es); and finally an elucidation of the “principles of
melodic movement (and modulation)” themselves, as interpreted and formalized from
analyses of the 100 taksim-s made specifically for this study by 34 different
performers.
Before concluding, I feel that I should also make explicit several ways in which this
information—specifically the modifications to Arelian theory and the “principles”—
could be made useful. However, I prefer not to go directly from here to there without
traversing the subject of whether it is appropriate for me to advocate, in an
ethnomusicology dissertation, a change in the current status quo of the subject I have
been studying. As an ethnomusicologist it is necessary for me to remind myself and
my readers that it could be considered stepping beyond the bounds of my professional
“place” to make such suggestions; in recent times the goals and methods of
ethnomusicology have included observing Others and gathering information about
certain of their cultural practices in as “objective” a way as possible (if with an ever
decreasing faith in the possibility of actual objectivity at all in such circumstances,
319
and perhaps as human beings generally). But there have been periods in our discipline
during which the idea that we are allowed to use the information we gather and
analyze to advocate changing the cultural behaviors of the people we have studied
was considered antiquated at best (or perhaps better suited to the realms of sociology
or political activism), and potentially tending toward the destructive, oppressive, and
“colonial” at worst. I nonetheless am indeed advocating certain changes based on my
research. Alongside the fact that the field has newly embraced a growing
understanding of “applied ethnomusicology,” with an expanding sense of engaged
interactivity on the part of the ethnomusicologist, I have “on my side,” if you will, the
fact that I and the people with whom I worked on this project were in explicit
agreement about the potential of this information to ameliorate deficiencies perceived
(independently by each of us) to exist in the current theoretical model. In that sense I
would be remiss not to advocate for the remedial potency of the information they
provided, as I implicitly promised I would do. In any case, I admit that in part it is as
a player, a composer, a fan, and a student of classical Turkish music and not merely
as an ethnomusicologist that I advocate that the findings of this study be considered
for inclusion in a revision of current classical Turkish music theory.
Furthermore, if it is to remain the case that “no-one teaches how to make taksim-s,” I
would think that a resourceful student would be able to apply the “principles” to their
analyses of taksim-s (live or recorded) in ways that provide a structural understanding
320
of the system inherent in those taksim-s better than simply memorizing and imitating
them does.21 Conversely, the principles may be applied to the planning of possibilities
to be executed in taksim-s—for instance writing out chains of pivots, and exploring
movement between species—thus removing some of the guesswork in the trial-and-
error process of learning to make taksim-s.22 It is my opinion that this sort of
interactivity with the taksim genre is the sort of thing likely to be able to remedy the
oft-lamented losses of makam variety, compound makam-s, and vitality in
composition in classical Turkish makam music. I base this opinion on the assumption
that what caused the eighteenth-through-nineteenth-century explosion of new makam-
s—especially compound makam-s—new modulations, and new composition was not
a reliance on previous repertoire as a source for models, nor on a version of music
theory that defined discrete makam-s without saying anything about their
relationships (which is arguably analogous to today’s situation), but was rather based
on a deep and detailed understanding of the relationships between makam-s and of
the means of moving fluidly between them.23
21
For instance see the accompanying DVDs, which compare to the analyses in Appendix K.
22
To those who might claim this to be “cheating”—by knowing anything of what one might play in a
taksim—I give the example of Tanburi Cemil Bey; Eymen Gürtan recounted to me that he has seen
such planned taksim-s in the master’s handwriting in the collection of master neyzen Niyazi Sayın. In
any case, the knowledge is still in the realm of structural possibilities, as is that already needed to make
a taksim.
23
Of course traditional repertoire should continue to be studied, for many reasons, but there is the
question: if the whole repertoire were lost and forgotten today, would the understanding of the makam
system now in students’ minds be sufficient to recreate pieces of equal sophistication? If the answer is
“no,” then how can we expect any sophisticated new composition, even having the traditional
repertoire on hand?
321
We began this dissertation with a quote from music historian Bülent Aksoy,
reproduced below:
In our music, we tend to go to the theorists with debates on makams. The

issue is continually looked at through the abstract window of theory, and often
enough, that of one particular theoretician. However, it is the performer who
removes the makam from the realm of abstraction and breathes life into it. If a
theory book could be written with an eye focused directly on performance, it
would shed a very new light on the discussion of makams. (2006)
I would like to conclude this text by stating my hope that the study within it has
brought us a step or two in the direction of elucidating a theory for classical Turkish
music that synthesizes the best of both academic methodology and of practical
knowledge of the subject available today.
322
APPENDIX A: LIST OF INFORMANTS AND THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS
Immediately below are the performers—listed alphabetically under their
instruments—who made the taksim-s recorded for this project (see Appendix
L/DVDs); the main makam-s and timings of their taksim-s appear under their names.
Those who analyzed their own taksim-s for the project are marked by an asterisk (*);
those with whom I did not meet at all are marked by a dagger (†). Below this list is
another of interviewees with whom I also met outside the context of recording
taksim-s.
Clarinet (Klarnet):
Şükrü Kabacı †
• Muhayyer-Kürdi 1:18
Kanun:
Agnès Agopian *
• Rast 1:58
• Rast 4:14
• Beyati-Araban 1:24
• Hicaz to Nihavend geçiş 2:52
Göksel Baktagir
• Hüseyni 1:00
Şehvar Beşiroğlu *
• Kürdili Hicazkâr to Bestenigâr geçiş 4:20
• Rast 1:41
• Zavil 2:00
Turgut Özefer
• Hüseyni 5:32
• Kürdili Hicazkâr 2:13
Erdem Özkıvanç
• Nihavend 1:59
• Hüseyni 0:52
323
“Erkin” (surname unknown) †
• Suzinak 0:47
• Rast 1:34
• Segâh 1:36
• Nihavend 0:40
Kemençe:
Furkan Bilgi
• Hicazkâr 1:27
• Hicaz 1:17
Emre Erdal
• Segâh 1:47
Selim Güler †
• Segâh 1:00 (audio only)
• Nihavend 1:00
İhsan Özgen *
• “Beyond Makams” (avant-garde) 3:46 (audio only)
Aslıhan Özel
• Suzinak 0:47
• Hümayun 2:18
Ney:
Eymen Gürtan *
• Beyati 4:32
• Nihavend 2:42
• Suz-i Dilara to Nihavend 5:45
• Acem Aşiran 2:02
• Pençgâh to Sultani Yegâh 9:07
Kemal Karaöz
• Hüseyni 1:33
Nurullah Kanık
• Basit Suzinak 1:47
• Dügâh 3:26
• Hümayun 1:02
324
Ahmet Toz
• Uşşak to Hicaz geçiş 4:43
• Segâh 4:13
• Rast 4:16
• Rast 1:30
Volkan Yılmaz †
• Nev’eser 1:00
Tanbur:
Murat Aydemir *
• Arazbar-Buselik 2:09
• Bayati-Araban 1:21
• Gerdaniye to Gülizar geçiş 2:13
• Isfahan 1:25
• Muhayyer-Sümbüle 1:19
• Suzinak 2:17
Furkan Esiroğlu
Firuz Akın Han (see also under Yaylı Tanbur)
• Nev’eser to Şedd Araban geçiş 3:43
• Nikriz to Rast geçiş 2:48
Özer Özel *
• Bayati 2:59
• Suz-i Dilara to Kürdili Hicazkâr geçiş 5:15
• Hicazkâr 2:26
• Suz-i Dilara 2:47
• Uşşak 1:41
• Basit Suzinak 1:00
• Nihavend 0:56
• Bestenigâr 1:52
• Hüseyni 1:52
• Segâh 1:35
• Müstear :50
• Hümayun 1:25
Murat Salim Tokaç
• Pesendide 3:46
325
Ud:
Mehmet Emin Bitmez *
• Evcara to Ferahnak geçiş 3:37
• Eviç to Evcara geçiş 7:19
• Nişabur 2:07
• Nişaburek 3:53
• Pençgâh 3:28
• Rast (on dügâh) 3:22
• Rast (zemin only) 3:34
• Hicaz 5:42
• Hicazkâr 3:05
• Uşşak 4:56
Necati Çelik *
• Bestenigâr 3:18
• Muhayyer 4:52
• Rast 12:01
• Şevk’efza 2:26
• Hüseyni 0:57
Bilen Işıktaş
• Uşşak 3:40
• Şedd Araban to Sultani Yegâh geçiş 4:30
Osman Kırklıkçı
• Şevk’efza 4:53
Yurdal Tokcan
Violin (Keman):
Ünal Ensari *
• Hicaz 4:13
Sinan Erdemsel (see also under Yaylı Tanbur)
• Rast 2:10
Hasan Şendil †
• Beyati to Hüseyni 5:45
• Mahur 3:23
Baki Kemancı †
• Acem-Kürdi 1:32
326
Voice (Ses):
İhsan Cansever †
• Beyati to Hüseyni 5:45
Yaylı Tanbur:
Vasfi Akyol *
• Hicaz 3:53
• Nihavend 2:31
• Rast to Hüseyni-on-rast geçiş 3:11
Ahmet Nuri Benli *
• Rast 11:06
• Uşşak 10:31
Sinan Erdemsel *
• Nihavend 3:33
Firuz Akın Han
• Hicaz 3:01
• Hüseyni 3:30
Interviews (apart from those associated with the above performances):
Bülent Aksoy
Şehvar Beşiroğlu
Mehmet Emin Bitmez
Necati Çelik
Ünal Ensari
Sinan Erdemsel
Selçuk Gürez
Eymen Gürtan
Kemal Karaöz
Özer Özel
İhsan Özgen
Ahmet Toz
Yavuz Yektay (Yekta)
Zeki Yılmaz
327
APPENDIX B: MAKAM-S REPRESENTED IN THE 2009 RECORDINGS
The makam-s played in the 42 performer-analyzed taksim-s made specifically for this
study were chosen by the performers themselves, just moments before their taksim
performances. (Of course, the 58 taksim-s made in concerts were chosen in accord
with the surrounding repertoire, and often by someone other than the performer).
Performers were given only the request that one makam be “much used” (çok
kullanılan), one be “little-used” (az kullanılan), that one taksim be a modulation
(geçiş) from any makam to any other, and that they tell me if a makam were
“relatively new.” Although not every performer complied precisely with the requests,
the makam-s used in all taksim-s in this study are listed below in terms of these
categories:
“Much-used”: Hicaz* (7 taksim-s made), Hicazkâr (3), Hümayun* (3), Hüseyni*

(11), Kürdili Hicazkâr (also “relatively new,” 6), Muhayyer (1), Nihavend (9), Rast*
(13), Segâh† (5), Uşşak* (5) [Total: 63]
“Little used”: Acem Aşiran (4), Acem-Kürdi (1), Arazbar-Buselik (1), Basit
Suzinak* (4), Bestenigâr † (3), Beyati (4), Beyati-Araban (2), Dügâh † (1), Eviç † (1),
Evcara (2), Ferahfeza (1), Ferahnak† (1), Gerdaniye (1), Gülizar (2), Isfahan (1),
Mahur (1), Muhayyer-Kürdi (also “relatively new,” 3), Muhayyer-Sümbüle (1),
Müstear † (1), Nev’eser † (2), Nikriz † (1), Nişabur † (1), Nişaburek (1), Pençgâh †
(2), Pesendide † (1), Sultani Yegâh (1), Suz-i Dilara (3), Şedd Araban (2), Şevk’efza
(2), Zavil (1), Zirgüleli Suzinak (1) [Total: 53]
Note that although there was a total of 100 taksim-s, the performance count above
comes to 116; this is because I have counted both the beginning and ending makam-s
328
in geçiş taksim-s (both of which need to be well articulated for a successful taksim).1
Makam-s that fall into the Arel-Ezgi-Uzdilek system’s category of “basic” (in the
sense of having both tetrachords that span a perfect 4th and pentachords that span a
perfect 5th interval) are marked with an asterisk (*); those with cins-es that Arel
considered “incomplete” are marked with a dagger (†). It is further interesting to note
that the makam Basit Suzinak is at once one of A-E-U theory’s “13 basic makam-s”
and is considered “little used” (and that another, Neva, was never used at all). As
mentioned in Chapter III, only six of these thirteen were used as the nominal makam
of a taksim. Both convenient and instructively, there was no crossover in performers’
categorizations of makam-s as much-used, little-used or relatively new, despite there
being no standardized reference for these categories.2
I now question whether the category “relatively new” is useful; the point of asking
was to see if performers relied less on motifs and modulations found in the repertoire
when playing in makam-s with (presumably) a smaller catalogue of pre-composed
pieces, but there is plenty of repertoire in the two makam-s designated as “relatively
new” (Muhayyer-Kürdi and Kürdili Hicazkâr, both being over 100 years old, see
Kutluğ 2000), and performers playing these makam-s treated them no differently than
others they played.
1
Additionally there are such makam-s, listed below, that appeared in taksim-s for which no analysis
was given.
2
Appendix C contains a list of makam-s considered little-used by the Turkish Republic’s Ministry of
Culture and Tourism for the purposes of a composition competition in 2005, but it is not widely known
or used as a reference.
329
Below, the same makam-s are listed in order of the frequency with which they were
played.
Makam-s used in taksim-s recorded by the author, Istanbul 2009 (by frequency):
Again, this list includes each endpoint of a geçiş taksim, but excludes internal
modulations (which see below). The term müşterek refers to group taksim-s, that is,
more than one player played during the session, one after the other (were they to play
simultaneously, it would be called a beraber [“together”] taksim, though I recorded
none of these); the “2 x 2 müşterek” next to Hüseyni, below, indicates that of the 9
taksim-s counted in that makam, 4 of them occurred in group taksim-s—2 pairs of 2
performers each. The “4 müşterek” next to Basit Suzinak means that in a single
sitting, 4 players each performed their own Basit Suzinak taksim one after the other.
Rast 13
Hüseyni 11 [2 müşterek + 1 (1 partner played Muhayyer-Kürdi)]
Nihavend 9 [2 müşterek + 1 (1 partner played Nev’eser)]
Hicaz 7
Kürdili Hicazkâr 6
Segâh 5
Uşşak 5 [2 müşterek]
Acem Aşiran 4
Basit Suzinak 4 [4 müşterek]
Beyati 4
Bestenigâr 3
Hicazkâr 3
Hümayun 3 [2 müşterek]
Muhayyer-Kürdi 3
Suz-i Dilara 3
Beyati-Araban 2
Evcara 2
Gülizar 2
Nev’eser 2 [1 müşterek (partner played Nihavend)]
330
Pençgâh 2
Şedd Araban 2
Şevk’efza 2
Acem-Kürdi 1
Arazbar-Buselik 1
Dügâh 1
Eviç 1
Ferahfeza 1
Ferahnak 1
Gerdaniye 1
Isfahan 1
Mahur 1
Muhayyer 1
Muhayyer-Sümbüle 1
Müstear 1
Nikriz 1
Nişabur 1
Nişaburek 1
Pesendide 1
Sultani Yegâh 1
Zavil 1
Zirgüleli Suzinak 1
Forty-one “whole” makam-s are represented. Note that Marcus reported that there
were about 12 maqāmāt in the core repertoire in use in Cairo (1989a: 334) but that
while the total number of known maqāmāt might range from 70 to 100 (ibid.: 316),
the true number of them was difficult to ascertain precisely (see ibid.: Chapter VIII
[330-361]); Signell (2007 [1973]) gave 60 to 70 as the number of makam-s in use in
Istanbul in the early 1970s; Wright (2000: 29) puts the total at as high as 90 modal
entities in Cantemir’s time (ca. 1700); Yekta reported “upward of 90” in 1913 (1922
[1913]: 3010).3
3
Readers interested in historical trends in the popularity/frequency of use of makam-s might compare
the above list with Feldman 1996: 234-5 Table II-7 (“Frequency in the use of modal entities”) and II-8
(“Frequency of makams in modern Turkish music after Türk Müsikisi Ansiklopedisi [Öztuna, 1969-
331
Makam-s used in internal modulations: Makam-s marked by an asterisk (*) were
used in internal modulations only; the rest also appeared as the main makam of at
least one taksim. There are twelve of the former kind, bringing the total number of
makam-s recorded during this project to fifty-three.
Acem*
Acem-Kürdi
Araban-Kürdi*
Basit Suzinak
Beyati
Bestenigâr
Buselik*
Çargâh*
Dügâh
Evcara
Eviç
Ferahfeza
Ferahnak
Hicaz
Hümayun
Hüseyni
Hüzzam*
Isfahan
Karcığar*
Kürdi*
Mahur
Muhayyer
Müstear
Nev’eser
Nihavend
Nikriz
Pesendide
Rast
Rehavi*
Saba*
Segâh
76]”). Regarding the most popular makam-s (i.e., primary modes) of the seventeenth century as
garnered from Cantemir, Feldman lists: Hüseyni, Rast, Irak, Nevâ, and Segâh; of the modes using
secondary perde-s the most popular were then: Beyâtî, Sabâ, Acem, and Uzzal (ibid.: 197).
332
Sultani Yegâh
Şehnaz*
Şevk’efza
Uşşak
Uzzal*
Zirgüleli Hicaz*
Modulations (geçiş/“external”) Made:
Geçiş (Modulatory) Taksim-s:

• Suz-i Dilara to Kürdili Hicazkâr [little-used to relatively new; unrelated/same
tonic]
• Suz-i Dilara to Nihavend [little-used to much-used]
• Rast to Hüseyni-on-rast [much-used to transposition of much-used; slightly
related/same tonic (artificially)]
• Gerdaniye to Gülizar [little-used to little-used/related/same tonic]
• Şedd Araban to Sultani Yegâh [little-used to little-used/slightly related/same
tonic]
• Uşşak to Hicaz [much-used to much-used/same tonic]
• Uşşak to Hüseyni [much-used to much-used/closely related/same tonic]
• Hicaz to Nihavend [much-used to much-used/slightly related/different tonic]
• Evcara to Ferahnak [little-used to little-used/related/same tonic]
• Eviç to Evcara [little-used to little-used/related/same tonic]
• Kürdili Hicazkâr to Bestenigâr [relatively new to little-used; quite
unrelated/diff. tonic]
• Nev’eser to Şedd Araban [little-used to little-used/related/different tonic]
• Nikriz to Rast [little-used to much-used/related/same tonic]
• Şedd Araban to Sultani Yegâh [little-used to little-used/related/same tonic]
• Pençgâh to Sultani Yegâh [little-used to little-used/unrelated]
• Beyati to Hüseyni [much used to much used/related/same tonic]
• NB: 2 performers made complex taksim-s intended as geçiş, but ended up in
the same makam they started in, saying, “well, just stop anywhere and it’s a
geçiş.”
333
Context (note that these are not all mutually exclusive categories):
• Standalone (unmetered) 56
• Mid-song/Solo metered 8
• Group metered 6
• Baş/Giriş 31
• Geçiş 13
• Ara 0
• Fihrist 0
• Müşterek 16
• Beraber 0
• Gazel/Kaside 1
Venue:
• Private 52
• Concert 45
• Mevlevi Ayin/Sema 2
• Lesson 1
Canonical Arelian “13 Basic Makam-s” Used as Main Makam-s in Taksim-s:

Çargâh 0
Buselik 0
Kürdi 0
Rast 13
Uşşak 5
Hicaz 7
Hümayun 3
Uzzal 0
Zirgüle 0
Hüseyni 10
Suzinak (Basit) 4
Neva 0 (not even as internal modulation)
Karcığar 0
334
APPENDIX C: MAKAM-S LISTED IN AREL, YILMAZ, ÖZKAN, KARADENİZ,
AND STATE’S “RARELY USED MAKAM-S”
Below are listed the 233 makam-s for which definitions are given in four music
theory texts—Arel 1991 (1943-48), Yılmaz 2007 (1973), Özkan 1984, and Karadeniz
2000—and also a list of “little-used” makam-s so defined by the Turkish Republic’s
Ministry of Culture and Tourism (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı;
TCKTB) for purposes of a composition competition in 2005 (TCKTB Az Kullanılan
Makam ve Usûllerde Beste Yarışması: “TCKTB Competition for Songs in Little Used
Makam-s and Usûl-s”). Note that all are given with their own spelling conventions.
Italicized names mark makam-s that appeared among the taksim-s recorded for this
study as an internal modulation; bold names mark those that appeared as the main
makam of a taksim recorded for this study; underlined names mark the canonical “13
basic makam-s” of the A-E-U system.
Arel: Acem, Acem-Aşiran, Acem-Bûselik, Acem-Kürdî, Acemli Yegâh,

Anberefşan, Arazbar, Arazbar-Bûselik, Aşk-Efzâ, Aşiran-Zemzeme, Beyatî, Beyatî-
Araban, Beyatî-Araban-Bûselik, Beyatî-Bûselik, Beste-Isfahan, Bestenigâr, Bûselik,
Bûselik-Aşiran, Büzürk, Çargâh, Dilkeş-Haveran, Dilkeşide, Dügâh, Dügâh-Bûselik,
Eski Sipihr, Evçârâ, Eviç, Eviç-Bûselik, Ferahfezâh, Ferahnâk, Ferahnümâ,
Gerdaniye, Gerdaniye-Bûselik, Güldeste, Gülizar/Hüseyni-Gülizar, Heftgâh,
Hicaz, Hicaz-Bûselik, Hicazkâr, Hisar, Hisar-Bûselik, Hümayun, Hüseyni,
Hüseyni-Aşiran, Hüzzam, Hüzzam-ı Cedid, Irak, Isfahan, Isfahanek, Karcığar,
Kûçek, Kürdî, Kürdîli Hicazkâr, Lâle-Gül, Mahur, Mahur-Bûselik, Mâye I/Dügâh-
Mâye, Mâye II/Segâh-Mâye, Muhayyer, Muhayyer-Bûselik, Muhayyer-Kürdî,
Müstear, Nevâ, Nevâ-Bûselik, Nevâ-Kürdî, Neveser, Nihavend, Nihavend-i Kebir,
Nikriz, Nişabur, Nişaburek, Nühüft, Pençgâh, Pesendide, Rahatfezâ, Rahatülervah,
Rast, Rehavi, Revnaknümâ, Ruhnevaz, Ruy-i-Irak, Sabâ, Sabâ-Aşiran, Sabâ-Bûselik,
Sabâ-Zemzeme, Sazkâr, Segâh, Sultani Irak, Sultani Segâh, Sultani Yegâh, Suzidil,
Suzidilârâ, Suzinâk, Sünbüle, Şedaraban, Şehnaz, Şehnaz Bûselik, Şerefnümâ,
Şevk-Âver, Şevk-Efzâ, Şevkidil, Şevk-u Tarab I, Şevk-u Tarab II, Şivenümâ, Tahir,
335
Tahir-Bûselik, Tarz-ı Cedid, Tarz-ı Nevin, Uşşak, Uzzâl, Vechiarazbar, Yegâh, Yeni
Sipihr, Zavil, Zengüle/Zirgüle, Zirefkend, Zirgüleli Suzinâk
Yılmaz: Acem, Acem Aşiran, Acem Kürdi, Bayati, Bayati Araban, Bestenigâr,
Buselik, Çargâh, Dügâh, Evcara, Evc (Eviç), Ferahfeza, Ferahnak, Hicaz,
Hicazkâr, Hisar Buselik, Hümayun, Hüseyni, Hüzzam, Irak, Isfahan, Karcığar,
Kürdi, Kürdili Hicazkâr, Mahur, Muhayyer, Muhayyer Kürdi, Müstear, Neva,
Nev’eser, Nihavend, Nikriz, Nişaburek, Rast, Saba, Sazkâr, Segâh, Sultaniyegâh,
Suz-i Dil, Suz-i Dilara, Suzinak (Basit), Şedd Araban, Şehnaz, Şehnaz Buselik,
Şevk-efza, Tahir, Tahir Buselik, Uşşak, Uzzal, Zavil, Zirgüleli Hicaz, Zirgüleli
Suzinak.
Özkan: Acem, Acem Aşîrân, Acem’li Yegâh, Acem Kürdî, Anber-efşân, Arazbâr,
{Aşîrân Mâye}, Aşîrân Zemzeme, Aşk’efzâ, {Bahr-i Nâzik}, Basit Isfahan, Basit
Şehnaz Bûselik, Basit Sûz’nak, {Bend-i Hisar}, Beste-Isfahân, Bestenigâr, Beyâtî,
Beyâtî Arabân, {Bezm-i Tarab}, Bûselik, Bûselik Aşîrân, Büzürk, Can-fezâ, {Cihâr-
Agâzîn}, Çargâh, {Çargâh Gerdâniye}, Dilkeş-Hâverân, Dilkeşîde, {Dil-rübâ},
Dügâh, {Dügâh-ı Hicaz}, Dügâh Mâye, Evcârâ, {Evc-Hûzî/Eviç-Hûzî}, Eviç, {Eviç-
Isfahân}, {Eviç-Mâye}, {Eviç-Muhâlif}, {Eviç-Nihâvendî}, Ferahfezâ, Ferahnâk,
Ferahnümâ, Gerdâniye, Güldeste, Gülizâr, Gülizâr/Hüseynî Gülizâr (Mürekkeb),
{Gülzâr}, Hicaz, Hicaz Aşîrân/Râhat-fezâ/Hicaz-ı Muhâlif, {Hicâzeyn}, {Hicaz-
Irâk}, {Hicâzî Uşşak}, Hicazkâr, {Hicaz Zemzeme}, Hisâr, Hisâr Bûselik, {Hûzî-
Aşîrân}, {Hûzî/Uşşak Hûzî}, Hümâyün, Hüseynî, Hüseynî Aşîrân, Hüzzâm,
Hüzzâm-ı Cedîd, Irâk, Isfahan (Mürekkeb), Isfahânek, Karcığar, Kûçek, Kürdî,
Kürdî’li Hicazkâr, Kürdî’li Hicazkâr (Mürekkeb), Lâlegül, Mâhûr (Şed), Mâhûr
(Mürekkeb), Muhayyer, Muhayyer Sünbüle, Müstear, Nevâ, Nev’eser, Nihâvend,
Nihâvend-i Kebîr, Nikrîz, Nişâbûr, Nişâbûrek, Nühüft, Pençgâh-i Asıl, Pençgâh-i
Zâid, Pesendîde, Râst, Râhatü’l-Ervâh, Rehâvî, Reng-i Dil, Revnak-nümâ, Ruhnüvâz,
Rûy-i Irâk, Sabâ, Sabâ Aşîrân, Sâzkâr, Segâh, Segâh Mâye, {Selmek}, Sipihr (New),
Sipihr (Old), Sultânî Irâk, Sultânî Segâh, Sultânî Yegâh, Sûz-i Dil, Sûz-i Dilârâ,
Şedd-i Arabân, Şehnâz, {Şehnâz-Hâverân}, Şerefnümâ, Şevk-i Dil, Şevk-âver,
Şevk’efza, Şevk-i Tarab, Şîve-nümâ, Tâhir, Tarz-ı Cedîd, Tarz-ı Nevîn, Uşşak, Uzzâl,
Vech-i Arazbâr, Yegâh, Zâvil, Zîrefkend, Zîrgûle’li Hicaz, Zîrgûle’li Suz’nak.
Karadeniz: Acem, Acem Aşiran, Acem Bûselik, Acem Dilfirib, Acem Kürdî, Acem
Murassâ, Acem Tarab, Âheng-i Tarab, Anberefşan, Araban (I & II), Araban Kürdî,
Araban Uşşak, Arak, Arak Aşîran, Arazbar, Arazbar Bûselik, Aşkefzâ, Baba Tâhir,
Bahrinâzik, Bayâti (I & II), Bayâtî Araban, Bayâtî Araban Bûselik, Bayâtî Bûselik,
Bayâtî Can Kurtaran, Bend-i Hisar, Beste Isfahân, Bestenigâr, Bûselik Aşîran,
Büzürk, Bûselik, Canfezâ, Cihar Ağâzin, Çargâh [NB: not Arel’s version], Dalpâre
Uşşak, Dertli Uşşak, Dilnişîn, Dilkeş Hâverân, Dilkeşîde, Dügâh, Dügâh Bûselik,
Dügâh Dilküşâ, Evicârâ, Eviç, Eviç Bûselik, Eviç Hûzî, Ferahfezâ, Ferahnak,
Ferahnümâ, Gerdâniye, Gerdâniye Aşîran, Gerdâniye Bûselik, Gerdâniye Kürdî,
Gonca-ı Rânâ, Güldeste, Gülizâr, Gülzâr, Gülşen-i Vefâ, Heftgâh, Hicaz, Hicaz
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Acemî, Hicaz Arak, Hicaz Aşîran, Hicaz Bûselik, Hicazkâr, Hicaz Karabatak,
Hicazkâr Bûselik, Hicazkâr-ı Kadîm, Hicaz Rûmî, Hicaz Sebzezâr, Hicaz Şehsuvar,
Hicaz Zengûle, Hisar, Hisar Aşîran, Hisar Bûselik, Hûzî, Hümâyun, Hümâyûn Rûy-i
Arak, Hümâyûn Sultanî, Hümâyun Zengûle, Hüseynî, Hüseynî Aşîran, Hüseynî
Bûselik, Hüseynî Kürdî, Hüseynî Zemzeme, Hüzzam, Isfahân (I & II), Isfahânek,
Kara Dügâh, Karcığar, Kûçek, Kürdî, Kürdili Hicazkâr, Mâhur, Mâhur Bûselik,
Mâverâünnehr, Mâye, Mâye Aşîran, Mâye Segâh, Muhâlif Uşşak, Muhayyer,
Muhayyer Bûselik, Muhayyer Kürdî, Muhayyer Sünbüle, Muhayyer Zengûle,
Müberka`, Müsteâr, Nârefte, Necid Hüseynî, Nevâ, Nevâ Bûselik, Nevâ Kürdî,
Nev’eser, Nevruz, Nigâr, Nihâvend, Nihâvend-i Kebir, Nihâvend-i Rûmî, Nikriz,
Nişâbur, Nişâburek, Nühüft, Ömer Horasanî Bayâtî, Pençgâh, Pençgâh-ı Asıl,
Pesendîde, Râhatfezâ, Rahatülervâh, Rast, Rast Aşîran, Rast Hâverân, Rast-ı Cedîd,
Rast Güldevri, Rast Lâlezâr, Rast Mâye, Rast Menekşezâr, Rast Mevc-i Deryâ, Rast
Murassâ, Rast Muzaffer, Rehâvî, Rengidil, Revnaknümâ, Ruhnüvaz, Rûy-i Arak,
Sabâ, Sabâ Aşîran, Sabâ Bûselik, Sabâ Perîşan, Sabâ Zemzeme, Sâzkâr, Sâzkâr
Mâye, Segâh, Segâh Araban, Segâh Karabatak, Selmek, Sipihr, Sultanî Arak, Sultanî
Eviç, Sultanî Hicaz, Sultânî Segâh, Sultânî Yegâh, Sûzidil, Sûzidilârâ, Sûzinâk (I &
II), Sûzinâk Karabatak, Şahnaz, Şahnâz Bûselik, Şahnaz Hâverân, Şedaraban, Şeref
Hamidî, Şerefnümâ, Şevkâver, Şevkefzâ, Şevk-i Cedîd, Şevk-i Dil, Şevk-i Serab,
Şevk-i Tarab, Şîvenümâ, Tâhir, Tâhir Bûselik, Tâhir Karcığar, Tâhir Gerdâniye, Tarz-
ı Cedîd, Tarz-ı Nevin, Tavr-ı Mâhur, Tebriz, Tebriz Hâverân, Uşşak, Uşşak Renk
Gerdâniye, Uşşak Renk Hicaz, Uzzal, Vech-i Arazbar, Vech-i Dügâh, Vech-i
Hüseynî, Vech-i Şahnâz, Yegâh, Zâvil, Zengûle, Zevk-i Dil, Zevk-i Tarab, Zirefken,
Zirkeşîde.
Turkish Republic’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism (TCKTB)’s 2005 “Rarely

Used” makam-s:
1. Acem-bûselik, - Arazbar, - Arazbar-bûselik, - Beste Isfahan, - Bûselik-aşîran,
2. Büzürg, 3. Cân-fezâ, 4. Dilkeşîde, 5. Dilnişîn, 6. Hisar, 7. Hisar-vech-i Şehnâz, -
Hisar vech-i şehnaz çember peşrev [sic], -Hisar vech-i Şehnaz saz semai [sic],
8. Hûzî, 9. Kûçek, - Lâle-gül, 10. Mâhur-bûselik, 11. Maverâü’n-nehir, 12. Mâye,
13. Muhayyer-sünbule, 14. Nevrûz, 15. Nigâr, 16. Nişâbur,
17. Nühüft, 18. Pençgâh (in asl and zâid versions), 19. Pesendîde, 20. Peyk-i Safâ,
21. Rahat-fezâ, 22. Rahat-ü’l-Ervâh, 23. Rehâvî, 24. Reng-i dil, 25. Revnaknümâ,
26. Ruhnevâz, 27. Rûy-i Irak, 28. Sabâ-bûselik, 29. Sabâ-zemzeme, 30. Sazkâr,
31. Selmek, 32. Sipihr (in old and new versions), 33. Sultânî Irak, 34. Sûz-i dilârâ,
35. Şerefnümâ, 36. Şevk ü Tarab, 37. Şevk-i dil, 38. Şîvenümâ, 39. Tarz-ı Cedîd,
40. Tarz-ı Cihân, 41. Tarz-ı Nevîn, 42. Tebriz, 43. Vech-i arazbar, 44. Zevk-ü Tarab,
45. Zirefkend.
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APPENDIX D: THEORY TEXT SAMPLES
Following are translations of the entries in Arel 1991 (1943-48), Ezgi 1933,
Karadeniz 1983, Özkan 1984, Kutluğ 2000, and Yılmaz 2007 (1973) describing the
makam Rast. These examples may be taken as typical of each authors’ style of
makam definition, and generally reflect the way each makam described by an author
is presented in his text. See Chapter IV regarding the sorts of makam details that
informants note are not represented in theory texts. Translation from the Turkish (in
which all were written) is mine.
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Arel (1991 [1943-48]: 47) [Appears as the fourth makam, after Çargâh, Buselik, and
Kürdi. It begins with the following prose description.]
Rast makam is ascending. Its scale is in the form 4 + IV; that is a Rast fifth
[pentachord] with a Rast fourth [tetrachord] added to its top side. The
intervals of the scale from bottom to top are arranged “T K S T + T K S” and
from top to bottom are arranged “S K T + T K S T.” [4] The place where the
fifth and the fourth conjoin (the fifth degree) has the duty as the dominant.
The makam’s essential position is on the perde Rast.
When writing the notes of Rast the signature takes for the “Si” one comma flat
and for “Fa” on the fifth line a bakiyye [four-comma] sharp.
This is Rast makam’s scale:
Figure 41: Rast according to Arel.
As shown by the lines, the notes have eight “niseb-i şerif” [“sacred measures”
(see 29-31)]: one perfect octave, four perfect fifths, and three perfect fourths.
[an 8-measure example of Rast follows.]
4
These letters, also used in some examples below, represent interval sizes; see p. 368 for the full list of
these.
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Ezgi (1933: 54-7) [Appears as the second makam, right after Çargâh. It begins with
the following prose description.]
There is much gentle unity in the makam Rast. This makam’s tones’
[nağmelerin] names from low to high are rast, dügâh, segâh, çarigâh, neva,
hüseynî, evic, gerdaniye; as for note names they are sol, lâ, si one fazla
[comma] flat, do, re, mi, bakiyye [four-comma] sharp fa, sol.
As was seen on the chart [in a previous chapter], from the low end there’s a
complete rast pentachord upon which is added a complete rast tetrachord. The
dominant tone [küçlü nağme] is the fifth (neva - re). This makam is ascending.
The beginning is made either from the first, rast, or the fifth, neva, in the low
pentachord, then there is made a cadence on the first or the fifth and perhaps
even the third degree; after traveling about the upper tetrachord it rests on the
tonic. A repose on the seventh leading tone gives the cadence a generous
feeling.
The eight tones which together form the Rast scale have these intervals, one
from the next, (1) whole step 9/8 (2) large mücennep 65536/59049 [8-comma]
(3) small mücennep 2187/2048 [5-comma] (4) whole step, (5) whole step, (6)
large mücennep, (7) small mücennep. The intervals from the tonic are (1)
whole step, (2) large third 8192/6561 (3) perfect fourth 4/3 (4) perfect fifth 3/2
(5) sixth 27/16 (6) seventh 4096/2187 (7) whole octave 2/1.
Rehavî makam, being a showing of yegâh after a rast melody [lahn] is written
in existing works at hand and in witnessed Turkish language song-cycle
books. Its scale is none other than rast’s and it is outside science and logic to
accept it as a separate makam.
As we wanted to write the rast scale in its position, it is necessary to set it

down as upward right from the çarigâh scale’s fifth tone; because of this,
according to the intervals of rast, we change the accidentals from those of
çarigâh: between Rast’s first and second tones there is a whole tone, and
between çarigâh’s fifth and sixth tones is also a whole step, so it does not need
an accidental; there being a large mücennep between rast’s second and third
tones, but a whole step interval between çarigâh’s sixth and seventh we need
to use a one fazla flat accidental to show the large mücennep; between rast’s
third and fourth is a small mücennep, and between çarigâh’s seventh and
eighth, and this accidental sign shows also the small mücennep difference;
there is a whole step between rast’s fourth and fifth tones, and a whole step
between çarigâh’s first and second degrees, so no sign is needed; between
rast’s fifth and sixth tones there is a whole step as there is between çarigâh’s
340
second and third tones so there is no accidental; the interval between rast’s
sixth and seventh is a large mücennep, so since there is a bakiyye [4-comma]
interval between çarigâh’s third and fourth tones it is necessary to put a
bakiyye sharp on its fourth degree; there is a small mücennep interval between
rast’s seventh and eighth tones and a whole tone between çarigâh’s fourth and
fifth tones, so the accidental we last put also shows this small mücennep;
according to these words, by putting on the staff a bakiyye sharp on çarigâh’s
fourth tone and a fazla flat on its seventh tone we have written rast in its right
position.
In common and natural scales, while proclaiming rast’s flat and sharp signs,
agreeable, performable transpositions are written:
[This is followed by staff notation of 18 transpositions of Rast (5 of them actually
have two written versions, so this is Rast from 13 different tones; NB: Nişabur is
shown with its own name where the others are called “Rast on…”)]
[This is followed by a notated song in Rast, followed by the lyrics and a biographical
note on its composer, “Şakir ağa”]
341
Karadeniz (1983: 85-6) [Makam-s are presented in order of their tonics, moving
upward from yegâh; Rast is number 14.]
This makam has been known and used as the mother makam in Turkish music
since long ago; we are also taking its scale as the mother scale. Because in our
book we are presenting makam-s that explain their seyir-s according to their
tonics, from low to high, we are explaining the mother Rast scale here. A
portion of music experts have taken the Çargâh makam and scale as essential.
Nevertheless, as we have also said in Chapter I, Çargâh makam’s structure has
not the characteristics of a mother scale.
ENTRY AND CADENCE: Rast makam usually begins with a ditty

[terennüm] from Rast or a nearby perde. Many composers also entered this
makam by way of Segâh or Nevâ perde-s, also. Though it is preferred to start
with the Rast perde due to its appropriateness for a required ascent, there is no
objection to starting from any tone in the Rast scale; however the ending tone
is the Rast perde.
SCALE: This makam uses two different scales, ascending and descending.
The difference between the two is that ascending the perde Eviç is used, and
descending the perde Acem is used in its stead. A portion of music experts
consider the descending version, which they call “Acemli Rast,” to be a
separate makam. However there is no such makam. Rast makam without
exception uses Eviç in its scale ascending, and Acem in its scale descending.
Some musicians also use the perde Hüseyni in the place of Hisârek, but if we
will only look at the makam’s seyir and çeşni we will see that Hüseynî is
inappropriate—as we have shown in our scale—and the necessity of using the
perde Hisârek will clearly be explained.
[There follow two tables showing the perde names in the two Rast scales (one
ascending, one descending) with the interval, cent, and frequency values between
them.]
[There follow four tables showing all of the fourths, fifths, seconds, and thirds
between the tones in the “Rast Scale.”]
342
It is seen that after most seconds, fourths, and fifths, the intervals of a third are
given importance.
SEYIR AND ÇEŞNİ: Rast makam begins with a ditty from the Rast perde or
another appropriate perde, first traveling about in the area as high as the perde
Neva. [NB: avoidance of the term “pentachord.”] Returning often to the Rast
perde and making short stops on it, after bringing forth çeşni belonging to the
makam and traveling about the scale’s perde-s, returning in the same fashion,
a cadence on the Rast perde is given. In the course of its seyir, a stop is made
on the Neva perde. A portion of music experts show the Arak [Irak] perde and
from there descend to the Yegâh perde before rising again to the cadence on
Rast. Showing the makam’s çeşni and the Rast perde in all their majesty, with
a short stop on the Neva perde, is what it comes to be.
[There follows a note pointing to a notated example, a Rast Peşrevi by Buhûrîzâde
Mustafa Itrî, found on pp. 310-1]
343
Özkan (1984: 115-9) [Appears after Çargâh, Buselik, and Kürdi (i.e., the “basic
makam-s” having diatonic cins-es). It begins with an alphabetical list of the makam’s
attributes. Note that Özkan uses the term “çeşni” for cins-es: trichords, tetrachords,
and pentachords.]
a-its Tonic: it is the Râst perde

b-its Seyir: it is Ascending
c-its Scale: It comes to be a Râst pentachord to which is added at Nevâ a Râst
tetrachord (Râst pentachord + Râst tetrachord at the 5th degree).
Figure 42: Rast according to Özkan.
This scale, especially in descending melodies sometimes exchanges the

bakiyye [4-comma] sharp fa (Eviç) for fa natural Acem Perde. In this case a
Bûselik çeşni on Neva comes to replace the Râst çeşni. This shows a new-like
scale. This scale with a Râst pentachord to which is added a Bûselik
tetrachord is called the Acemli Râst scale.
Figure 43: Acemli Rast according to Özkan.
344
d-its Dominant: the place where the pentachord and tetrachord join, the Nevâ
perde.
e-its Suspended Cadence Perde-s: 1-A whole step above the Râst çeşni there
is an Uşşak çeşni. Making use of this closeness, a suspended cadence in Uşşak
is made.
Figure 44: Uşşak within Rast according to Özkan.
2-Up to our day, making a suspended cadence on the perde Segâh was only
thought of as [playing] a Segâh çeşni. A suspended cadence can also be made
on it.
[NB: both recognition and erasure of Segâh (by substituting Ferahnak, whose 4th
degree is hüseyni rather than dik hisar) and the older Rast (whose sixth degree was
once apparently this tone).]
Figure 45: Segâh according to Özkan.
Doubtlessly, if it is desired, a suspended cadence on Segâh using the needed

Nim Hisar can be made. Otherwise, it can be just a Segâh trichord. Beside
these, a place for a suspended cadence is the perde Yegâh. In the development
345
stage a suspended cadence using a Râst çeşni on Yegâh can be made. A stop
in Uşşak or Nişabur on Hüseynî Aşîrân can also be made.
Figure 46: Rast on yegâh according to Özkan.
f-its Key Signature: A comma flat for Si and a bakiyye [4-comma] sharp for
Fa are used.
g-The names of the perde-s in T.M. [Turkish Music]: Râst, Dügâh, Segâh,
Çargâh, Nevâ, Hüseynî, Eviç or Acem, Gerdâniye.
h-its Leading Tone: it is on the perde on the first bakiyye sharp interval fa
Irak.
ı-its Development: Râst is an ascending and serious-minded [ağır başlı]
makam. Because of this its development is from the lower end, below the
tonic. It is made by falling down to Yegâh (re).
Figure 47: Rast as bottom-heavy according to Özkan.
Essentially Râst is not developed in the upper region. But though it be rare, if
a melody should go above the upper tonic it is known what tones are needed.
Because of this the development of the upper area is necessary. That is done
thus: The Râst pentachord found on the tonic perde is transferred to the upper
tonic.
346
Figure 48: upon the upper tonic of Rast according to Özkan.
i-Seyir: It begins its path [seyir] with a development from the tonic, around
the tonic of the scale, and moving downward from there. Traveling around in
various ways it makes a half cadence on the Nevâ perde. At this point or
before or after hanging cadences are shown on the needed places. Afterward,
moving throughout the whole scale or even developing it more, and a final
cadence is made, usually showing the leading tone.
[This is followed by 18 transpositions of Rast (5 of them are duplicates with alternate
“key” signatures—NB: Rast on Dügâh is so called, distinguishing it from Nişaburek,
cf. Ezgi above). Following this there is a list of 11 tones on which transpositions of
Rast are not made “because the intervals are not appropriate.”]
[This is followed by the notation for a piece in Rast, “Râst Kâr-ı Muhteşem”
attributed to Abdülkadir Meragî]
347
Kutluğ (2000: vol. I, pp. 160-4) [Appears after Çargâh, Buselik, and Kürdi.]
Even today some musicians accept the Rast scale [as primary], and the Rast
makam born from it, fixing it as the mother scale as had the Systematists (for
whom it was one of the twelve “edvâr-ı meşhure” makam-s), and Rauf
Yekta’s system.
In Safiyüddin’s Kitâbü’l Edvâr, Mevlânâ Mübarek Şah’s Şerhü’l-Edvâr, and

Abdülkdair’s Câmi’ü’l-Elhan, Rast makam is founded on the perde Yegâh
and was a mirror of the makam we today call Yegâh. Its scale’s schema is
thus:
Figure 49: Old Rast according to Kutluğ.
A makam known before the foundation of the Systematist school, Rast was
amongst the most played and demanded makam-s of the era, along with such
makam-s as Uşşak, Beyatî, Irak, Buselik.
Although no piece in Rast composed in those times survives to today, we have

at hand the compositions from Rast by Abdülkadir’s Düyek Kâr-ı Muhteşem,
Sofyan Nakış Beste and others, as well as semai-s. The notations we have
today are written from the perde Rast. However in Abdülkadir’s Câmi’ü’l-
Elhan the Rast makam begins from Yegâh. This makes for an interesting
problem. Let’s take a look at it:
Before the foundation of the Systematist school, musicians constructed Rast

on Yegâh and counted the five tones up from it thus: Kaba Re: Yegâh, Kaba
Mi: Dügâh, Kaba Fa sharp: Segâh, Sol: Çargâh, and Lâ: Pençgâh.
We know from the enlightening books of Hızır bin Abdullah and Bedr-i
Dilşad from the time of Sultan Murad II [r. 1421-1451] that Rast, counted
among the 12 makam-s, was transferred from Yegâh to the Rast perde and its
scale was given thus:
348
Figure 50: intermediary Rast according to Kutluğ.
Still, these two musicologists changed the names of Rast scale’s Şeşgâh,
Heftgâh and Heştgâh perde-s to Hüseyni, Eviç and Gerdaniye. At this time
Hızır bin Abdullah also changed the names of Nevâ to Yegâh Isfahanı,
Hüseynî to Dügâh, Eviç to Segâh Hisar and Gerdaniye to Yegâh.
After transferring the Rast scale to the Rast perde, the Acem perde was
transformed into and accounted as the Eviç perde [i.e., changed the seventh
degree from a whole step to a “4-comma sharp” leading tone]; in our opinion
here is the reason supporting this:
In order to complete the Systematist school’s octave (devri) it is necessary to

apply the rule tetrachord-whole tone-tetrachord. In this way the Eviç perde
took its place in the upper tetrachord. If, not applying this formula, it were
necessary to use the Systematist school’s Rast founded on Yegâh [reaching
the octave] by a tetrachord and from it upward a pentachord, a difficulty
arises. In this case, the Hüseynî perde would be lowered a bit, and would
come to be the Dik Hisar perde. Because in this transformation Dik Hisar
would be the symmetric equivalent of the Segâh perde.
Some of our musicians, transferring this scale to Rast, accept Rast makam as
having this form.
M. Ekrem Karadeniz, in his book named Türk Musıkisinin Nazariye ve

Esasları, along with the Eviç perde, use the Hisarek (Dik Hisar) perde and
have a sign [accidental] for it. For our part, we cannot agree with that view
because the melodies made by lowering the Hüseyni perde establish no
concordance either with Rast makam’s scale or its çeşni. Only when Acem is
used descending straight to Rast can the role of a Rast pentachord on Çargâh
be explained.
After the founding of the Systematist school, the Rast makam scale as
transferred to Rast in the time of Sultan Murad II is the Rast we perform
today. The Arel system, without touching this scale or the character of its
tones, gives to the bottom area a Rast pentachord and forms the scale in this
form:
349
Figure 51: Arel’s Rast according to Kutluğ.
It can be seen that the makam Rast, in music history, especially after the
foundation of the Systematist school, was newly fixed, apart from the Yegâh
scale, as the basic scale formation.
[A similar narrative continues for another two pages, detailing the descriptions of
Rast given by Cantemir, Abdülbaki Nâsir Dede, and Arel; the issue of this makam’s
seventh degree being historically acem rather than the current eviç; that although
composers have the makam descend as far as yegâh this is used sparingly so as not to
confuse it with the makam Yegâh; the importance of the tone segâh as a place for
suspended cadences and its use as a point for modulations such as to Segâh Mâye,
Dügâh Mâye and Rast Mâye; that the tone çargâh can be used as a stopping place but
neva is the makam’s dominant according to Arel and receives more attention, being a
point for modulation to, for example, Pençgâh, Sûzinâk, Nikriz and Nihavend; that
hüseyni is little used; that the highest tone is gerdaniye and there the “miyan” section
{of a piece or taksim} often begins, for instance, using the rast tetrachord below it or
modulating to Segâh on tiz segâh, Muhayyer, Tahir, Sünbüle or Nihavend, etc.; that
other modulations may be made, such as Uşşak on neva {though that this might
account for a former use of hisarek/dik hisar in Rast’s scale is not explored}; that at
the final cadence the tone segâh will certainly be played flatter for a while, then
350
return to normal just at the end; that the leading tone ırak will be shown at the final
cadence; that Rast’s written signature has the accidentals for segâh and eviç.]
351
Yılmaz (2007 [1973]: 85-7) [Appears after Çargâh and Buselik.]
Rast
Basit Makam 3
a) Tonic: Rast perde
b) Seyir: it is Ascending
c) Scale: it comes to be a Rast Pentachord in its place, to which is added a
Rast Tetrachord on Neva
d) Dominant: it is the Neva perde
e) Leading Tone: it is the Irak perde
f) Signature: Si (q) Fa (s)
Figure 52: Rast according to Yılmaz.
g) The scale’s path [seyir]: As Rast is an ascending makam it begins around

the tonic. The scale is developed around the bottom end. Most times the seyir
begins development around these tones. Using the Rast Pentachord a
suspended cadence is made on the Neva perde. Afterward it passes to the Rast
Tetrachord found on the top end. Although usually the perde Evc is used
ascending, Acem is turned to when descending. Again it makes a rest on
Neva. Using various tones from the Rast Pentachord in its place, suspended
cadences are made, especially on the Segâh perde. The end is made with the
tones of the Rast Pentachord, generally with the leading tone.
Figure 53: beneath the tonic in Rast according to Yılmaz.
352
h) Specialties of the makam: Rast makam’s seventh degree is the Evc perde.
This perde is used in the seyir when ascending. But this perde is usually not
used in a descending seyir. Thus breaking the Rast Tetrachord it becomes
Bûselik on Neva. In this form, falling to the tonic, the scale is called Acem’li
Rast scale.
Figure 54: Acemli Rast according to Yılmaz.
[This is followed by “Rast makam’s seyir,” a notated sample of Rast 10 measures
long.]
[This is followed by the notation of a piece in Rast, “Rast Yürük Semai” by Hafız
Post.]
353
APPENDIX E: PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE INSTRUMENTS REPRESENTED IN
THE STUDY
Figure 55: Tanbur.
354
Figure 56: 2 Ney-s.
355
Figure 57: Kemençe.
356
Figure 58: Ud.
357
Figure 59: Kanun.
358
Figure 60: Klarnet (Clarinet).
(NB: a G clarinet with Albert/Oehler fingering system; a metal-bodied version is also popular in
Turkey.)
359
Figure 61: Keman (Violin).
360
Figure 62: Yaylı Tanbur.
Photos of tanbur, ney-s, kemençe, ud, kanun, and violin presented with the kind permission of Ali
Tutan of “Türk Mûsikîsi” (http://www.turkmusikisi.com/calgilar/index.html). Photo of yaylı tanbur
taken by the author; thanks to Mary Hofer Farris for the G clarinet.
361
APPENDIX F: INTERVALS, NOTE NAMES, AND “AHENK-S” IN THE
STANDARD TURKISH SYSTEM
The names of notes in the current standard Turkish music system have been
represented herein in two ways: at concert pitch, and also in the normative written
transposition a perfect fourth higher. This coupling is known as the transposition
scheme (ahenk) called “bolahenk.” Written music and solfège are nearly always
expressed in this transposition scheme, wherein the tone rast is sounded at D, written
as the G above it, and sung as “sol.”5 Ayangil explains how this came to be:
The western notes assigned to the Turkish makam pitches by Emin Efendi
[Mehmed Emin (d. 1907)] were those that had been selected to fit the pitches
in Hamparsum notation by Maestro Donizetti [Giuseppe Donizetti (d. 1856)].
In the determination of these equivalents, one cannot trace a detailed technical
method, which would have tried to guard all the requirements of makam
music. The determining motive was the transference of the pitches, in use in
the makam music system of the day, immediately into western notation in an
empirical way. As a result of this transference by Emin Efendi (and of
Donizetti), ümmü̈lmakaamat (the major makam/gamme naturelle), that is the
Rast makam scale, was transposed one pentachord [sic: tetrachord?6] up, in a
way fitting the bolâhenk nısfîye accord system of ney (the flute) and was
written from “sol”/g note (the fifth sound in the “do” scale of the western
notation) on the second line of the staff. Consequently, Çargah pitch, which is
the 4th pitch of the Rast makam scale, corresponded to the “do”/c sound (the
first sound in the “do” scale of the western notation). Accordingly, although
they seemed to be sharing the same notation, right from the start, there was a
5
Ayangil 2008 gives a full history of Western notation in Turkish music, including explanations of the
ahenk-s (438-41), of the origins of today’s normative transposition (415), and alternatives to the
standard intonation and notation schemes (429-37). “Standard” here means in regard to classical and
other “makam musics”; it must be noted that Turkish folk music theorists have used other terminology
and note choices (see Markoff 2002). I must note here that it is John Morgan O’Connell’s opinion that
the term “ahenk” (lit. “harmony” or “tuning”), with the sense of “transposition level,” was introduced
only in the late-twentieth century by Ruhi Ayangil himself (p.c. 2/26/2010).
6
This would mean that rast sounded at C at that time (as it currently does in Arab maqām music),
rather than at D, where it sounds now in KTM; if this was so, neither Ayangil nor any source I have
seen explains the when or wherefore of the upward whole tone shift of the entire system.
362
difference of a tetrachord transposition between western music notation and
the makam music notation. (Ayangil 2008: 417)
In effect, this transposition scheme came “packaged” with the use of Western
notation for performance and pedagogical use in 1828 and was well established by
the time today’s notation system was developed (see Chapter III).
AHENK-S
Figure 63 below represents the “ahenk-s” (transposition schemes) of KTM as
presented in Ayangil 2008: 440. The columns represent the lengths of the ney flutes
from whose names the ahenk-s are drawn (the longest one having the lowest sound,
the shortest having the highest sound); the lowest rows of each column have the note
names associated with the holes in the ney.
The principle is that a person may play a makam at any pitch level (ahenk)—with or
without a change in the notation7 —and without it becoming some other makam, that
is, playing the makam Buselik a whole step lower does not make it Nihavend, it
simply makes it Buselik in the “süpürde” ahenk. Depending on the natural octave
transposition of the instrument played, the intervals of these ahenk-s may be inverted,
e.g., if a ney player suggests playing a piece in kız ney ahengi, an udist will likely
7
Music specifically intended to be played at a pitch level other than the normative one is occasionally
written accordingly—that is, a perfect fourth higher than the new sounding pitch level (e.g., see
Çevikoğlu n.d.)—but it is more common that musicians would sight read music written in bolahenk
while playing it at the new pitch level.
363
accompany by playing a perfect fourth down from bolahenk rather than a perfect fifth
up. Also somewhat misleading is the way players refer to the ahenk-s: süpürde is
often called “bir ses” (one tone [down], though technically it is a minor 7th up), kız
neyi is referred to as “dört ses” (four tones [down], technically a perfect 5th up),
mansur is called “beş ses” (five tones [down], technically a perfect 4th up), etc.
The names of the ahenk-s, spaced apart at 4- and 5-comma “half-steps” (and merely
abbreviated in figure 63) are (low to high):
• Bolahenk [e.g., rast sounds at D]
o Bolahenk-Davud mabeyni (“between Bolahenk and Davud”) [rast
sounds at Ds/Ee]
• Davud [rast sounds at E]
• Şah [rast sounds at F]
o Şah-Mansur mabeyni [rast sounds at Fs/Ge]
• Mansur [rast sounds at G, where it is written]
o Mansur-‐Kız Neyi mabeyni [rast sounds at Gs/Ae]
• Kız Neyi [rast sounds at A]
o Kız Neyi-Müstahzen mabeyni [rast sounds at As/Be]
• Müstahzen [rast sounds at B]
• Süpürde (Mehtabiye) [rast sounds at C]
o Süpürde/Mehtabiye-Yıldız/Bolahenk Nısfiye mabeyni [rast sounds at
Cs/De]
364
• Yıldız/Bolahenk Nısfiye [rast sounds at d, an octave higher than bolahenk]
440 Ruhi Ayangil
Table 8. Âhenks of the Turkish makam music
Figure 63: Ahenk-s according to Ayangil (2008: 440).
365
INTERVALS AND NOTE NAMES
Two octaves and a major second are represented here; formerly yegâh (concert A)
was considered the lowest note, and the highest one was tiz neva two octaves higher,
but the notes below yegâh as far down as kaba çargâh (concert G) were added in the
twentieth century, apparently to make the lowest fundamental tone appear as (written)
C, apparently with the idea that this made it parallel to a European standard.8 In fact
even lower tones are used on some instruments but they are referred to with the name
of the closest-octave tone, adding the word kaba (low) before it, e.g., the lowest string
of the ud may be tuned to “kaba acemaşiran” when playing in the makam Acem
Aşiran.
No exact pitches in terms of register are given because they are always relative to the
instrument; an instrument’s lowest tone is taken as the lowest octave equivalent and
the rest are named upward accordingly. It is therefore common for groups to play in
multiple octaves (see Bayhan 2008, Yavuzoğlu no date regarding this issue).
The actual pitches used are a matter of great debate, especially for those tones
officially unrecognized by the system, here represented within <angle brackets> (see
Bayhan 2008, Yarman 2007). These especially are chosen by performers rather
8
See Arel 1991 [1943-48]: 1; also Ezgi 1935-53, Yekta 1922; cf. Wright 1992a: xv-xvii for the tones
used in Cantemir’s time, which in the transcriptions—but not in his theory treatise—occasionally
included one note a whole tone below yegâh; nerm çargâh.
366
idiosyncratically and are only approximated here—performers may speak of “two and
a half commas,” for instance, but the smallest unit shown here (and accepted by the
“official” Arelian theory) is the comma (koma); each short line in the list of note
names below (starting on p. 369) represents one comma, e.g., there are four commas
between kaba çargâh and kaba nim hicaz. A few tones are so rarely used that tanbur
players do not usually tie frets for them;9 these are marked with an asterisk (*).
Current theory represents the system as a 53-tone equal temperament (53-tET)
system, that is, the octave is divided into 53 equally-spaced koma-s.10 The whole tone
is divided into 9 commas (not all of which are named or employed), thus:
Division of the whole tone into nine koma-s:
D Da Ds Dd Df Dx
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
| | | | | | | | | |
E ee Er Ee Ew Eq E
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
Figure 64: division of the whole tone into nine koma-s.
9
As noted in Chapter IV; conversely they may tie other, unnamed frets to be able to achieve certain
transpositions. Note that although the chart on p. 369 begins on the note kaba çargâh, the note yegâh is
the open playing string on a tanbur (i.e., its lowest tone).
10
The idea of using a “comma” comes originally from Pythagorean theory, but rather than his comma
of 23.46 cents, here the Holdrian comma (Holder koması) of 22.64 cents is used (1200 cents ÷ 53
commas); see Yarman 2007b: 58, Özkan 1987, cf. Yavuzoğlu no date.
367
Note in the chart above that 12-tone equal temperament would put D s/E e at the exact
halfway point, at 4.5 commas, that is to say, in KTM these accidental signs represent
tones half a comma flatter than they do in Western music notation.
Intervals (aralık-s) are also named and given a letter-symbol:
Interval Name Sharp/Flat Value in terms of commas Symbol

(Araliğin adı) (Diyez/Bemol) (Koma olarak değeri) (Simge)
koma or fazla a q 1 F
eksik bakiye (none) 3 E
bakiye s w 4 B
kücük mücenneb d e 5 S
büyük mücenneb f r 8 K
tanîni x ee 9 T
artik ikili (none) 12 - 13 A
Figure 65: intervals of classical Turkish music.
368
Note Names:
Note name Concert Pitch (sounding) Written (up a P4)
kaba çargâh __________ G C

-
-
-
kaba nim hicaz __________ G /A
s e C /D
s e
kaba hicaz __________ d w
G /A C /D
d w
-
-
kaba dik hicaz __________ f q
G /A C /D
f q
yegâh __________ A D [Open string on the tanbur]
-
-
-
kaba nim hisar __________ s e
A /B D /E
s e
kaba hisar __________ d w
A /B D /E
d w
-
- <“hüzzam” (written as hisar or dik hisar; possible “unnamed” tanbur fret; may be ½ comma lower)>
kaba dik hisar __________ f q
A /B D /E
f q
hüseyni aşiran __________ B E
-
-
-
acem aşiran __________ C F
dik acem aşiran __________ a r
C /D F /G
a r
- <unnamed tanbur fret>
- <unnamed tanbur fret>
ırak __________ s e
C /D F /G
s e
geveşt __________ d w
C /D F /G
d w
-
-
dik geveşt* __________ f q
C /D F /G
f q
rast __________ D G
-
-
-
nim zirgüle __________ D /E
s e G /A
s e
zirgüle __________ D /E
d w G /A
d w
- <possible unnamed tanbur fret>
- <possible unnamed tanbur fret>
dik zirgüle __________ D /E
f q G /A
f q
dügâh __________ E A
-
-
-
kürdi __________ F A /B
s e
dik kürdi __________ a r
F /G A /B
d w
369
- <“uşşak” (written as segâh; possible “unnamed” tanbur fret)>
- <“beyati” (written as segâh; possible “unnamed” tanbur fret)>
segâh __________ F /G
s e A /B
f q
buselik __________ F /G
d w B
-
-
dik buselik* __________ F /G
f q C
q
çargâh __________ G C
-
-
- (possible unnamed tanbur fret)
nim hicaz __________ G /A
s e C /D
s e
hicaz __________ G /A
d w C /D
d w
- <“saba” (written as hicaz; possible “unnamed” tanbur fret; may be ½ comma higher)>
-
dik hicaz __________ G /A
f q C /D
f q
neva __________ A D
-
-
-
nim hisar __________ A /B
s e D /E
s e
hisar __________ A /B
d w D /E
d w
-
-<“hüzzam” (written as hisar or dik hisar; possible “unnamed” tanbur fret; may be ½ comma lower)>
dik hisar __________ A /B
f q D /E
f q
hüseyni __________ B E
-
-
-
acem __________ C F
dik acem __________ a r
C /D F /G
a r
-
-
eviç __________ C /D
s e F /G
s e
mahur __________ C /D
d w F /G
d w
-
-
dik mahur* __________ C /D
f q F /G
f q
gerdaniye __________ D G
-
-
-
nim şehnaz __________ D /E
s e G /A
s e
şehnaz __________ D /E
d w G /A
d w
-
-
dik şehnaz* __________ D /E
f q G /A
f q
muhayyer __________ E A
-
-
370
-
sümbüle __________ F A /Bs e
dik sümbüle __________ F /G
a r A /Bd w
- <“tiz uşşak” (written as tiz segâh; possible “unnamed” tanbur fret)>
- <“tiz beyati” (written as tiz segâh; possible “unnamed” tanbur fret)>
tiz segâh __________ F /G
s e A /Bf q
tiz buselik __________ F /G
d w B
-
-
tiz dik buselik* __________ F /G
f q C q
tiz çargâh __________ G C
-
-
-
tiz nim hicaz __________ G /A
s e C /Ds e
tiz hicaz __________ G /A
d w C /Dd w
- <“tiz saba” (written as tiz hicaz; possible “unnamed” tanbur fret)>
-
tiz dik hicaz* __________ G /A
f q C /Df q
tiz neva __________ A D
Figure 66: note names of classical Turkish music.
371
APPENDIX G: ON RAST AND ÇARGÂH
According to Kutluğ’s understanding of the Systematist School (2000: vol. I, p. 160),
the original basic scale in makam music appears to have been built upward from the
tone yegâh (lit. “first position”) and apparently its structure—written using today’s
Turkish accidentals and bolahenk transposition scheme (as are all examples below)—
was:
yegâh dügâh segâh çargâh pençgâh şeşgâh haftgâh haştgâh

(“1st”) (“2nd”) (“3rd”) (“4th”) (“5th”) (“6th”) (“7th”) (“8th”)
D E Fs G A Bq c d
Note that the names of the tones are literally the (Ottoman pronunciations of the)
Persian words “first position,” “second position,” etc., throughout the scale.11
At some point there occurred a transposition of the fundamental scale upward by a
perfect fourth, and a renaming of many of its tones; the latter (at least) was
understood by Kutluğ (ibid.) and Yekta (1924: 56) to be in the fifteenth century. Their
descriptions of exactly how these events occurred are vague, though it seems to have
had either to do with the addition of new tones below the previously lowest tone
(Kutluğ op. cit. and p. 67), and/or the renaming of tones such that the lowest tone
available on certain instruments became consistent with the lowest named tone, yegâh
11
See also in Tura 1988. The use of these names appears to have begun by the late-fouteenth century,
though the main Systematist theorists from Ṣafīuddīn through Merâgî used abjadic symbols rather than
note names through the early fifteenth century (Feldman 1996: 197-8; see also Shiloah 1981: 37). I am
following Feldman in using term “basic scale” to mean a set of tones considered a fundamental,
“natural,” most important scale, in contrast to the “general scale,” which includes all pitches
recognized by the system (1996: 195).
372
(Yekta op. cit.). I have no clearer information on what actually happened than they
had, but the discrepancy regarding the constitution of the makam Rast between Yekta
on the one hand and Arel and Ezgi on the other seems to have to do with their
conceptions of these events.
Yekta (like Töre and Karadeniz) appears to have thought that originally the
fundamental scale consisted of the tones of a makam called “Rast,” which at some
time in the past had been a perfect fourth lower (i.e., the scale given above), but came
to consist of the following tones:
yegâh dügâh segâh çargâh pençgâh şeşgâh haftgâh haştgâh

G A Bq c d eq f g
and that at some point by the fifteenth century three tones were added below the tone
yegâh:12
X Y Z 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th

D E Fs G A Bq c d eq f g
and that several tones were at that time renamed such that the new lowest tone was
called “yegâh,” and the tone formerly known as yegâh was renamed “rast” (Persian
12
More precisely, a new “rast tetrachord”—D E F G—was conjoined to yegâh (G). See Shiloah
s
1981: 37-8 for a sixteenth-century example of such a downward expansion by al-Ḥaṣkafī (though
applying totally unconventional note names).
373
“right, straight”; see Shiloah 1981: 37-8), presumably after the makam whose tonic it
was:
1st Y Z rast 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th
The tones represented above by “Y” and “Z” were given the names “aşiran” and
“ırak” respectively and the tones formerly known as “5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th position”
eventually came to be called neva, dik hisar, acem, and gerdaniye, respectively (see
Appendix F). The tones previously called “2nd position” (dügâh), “3rd position”
(segâh), and “4th position” (çargâh) retained their names, despite the confusion this
may have occasioned. For Yekta the post-fifteenth-century fundamental scalar
material was apparently therefore:
yegâh aşiran ırak rast dügâh segâh çargâh neva dik hisar acem gerdaniye
(“1st”) (“2nd”) (“3rd”) (“4th”)
D E F s G A B q c d e q f g
Yekta, then, seems to take the makam Rast of the twentieth century (and its founding
scale) as a makam based on the tones above the tone formerly called yegâh and now
called rast (G A Bq c d eq f g), and the twentieth-century makam called Yegâh as
based on the first seven tones of this “new” scale, i.e.: D E Fs G A Bq c d (both
having the same interval structure). Rast’s sixth degree is therefore eq (dik hisar), and
its seventh degree, f (acem), is a “minor seventh” from the tonic.
374
Arel and Ezgi, on the other hand, appear to have considered the situation differently.
It seems as though they thought that, whether or whenever an additional three low
tones/tetrachord had been added in the distant past, the fifteenth-century change in
nomenclature resulted only in changing the following:
yegâh dügâh segâh çargâh pençgâh şeşgâh haftgâh haştgâh (↑dügâh) (↑segâh) (↑çargâh)
D E F s G A B q c d e f g s
into:
yegâh aşiran ırak rast dügâh segâh çargâh neva hüseyni eviç gerdaniye
(“1st”) (“2nd”) (“3rd”) (“4th”)
D E F s G A B q c d e f s g
For them, therefore, the makam Rast consists of the tones with which it is represented
today: G A Bq c d e fs g, the 6th and 7th degrees differing from Yekta’s version.13
This configuration is consistent with Cantemir’s understanding of the tones of makam
Rast,14 and Feldman notes that both Ezgi and Arel (as well as Yekta, for that matter)
had transcribed repertoire from Cantemir’s notations (1996: 217). It is also apparently
the basic scale, beginning on rast, as understood by Tanburi Harutin, who had
13
Note that in Akdoğu’s introduction to the 1991 edition of Arel’s (1943-48) Turkish Music Theory
Lessons he reports Yekta’s “mother [basic] scale” as “Acemli Rast,” that is, Rast as Arel and Ezgi
understood it but with a “minor seventh” degree (i.e., using acem in place of eviç)(p. X). It is unclear
where he came upon this idea, which Arel does not mention in that text.
14
It is important to note, however, that Cantemir took the makam Hüseyni (using the same tones but
beginning on dügâh) rather than Rast as the main mode built from the basic scale, and did not feel the
need to defend this idea from the opinions of his late-seventeenth/early-eighteenth-century
contemporaries (as he did on other issues; see Feldman 1996: 195). This may be an indicator of the
general decline in theoretical education of the period; even though Ṣafīuddīn had not given Rast a
special place among the primary modes in his theory, Shiloah shows that from the fourteenth through
eighteenth centuries the note rast and the tones on which the eponymous makam was built were
enshrined as central in all the notable theory treatises (except Cantemir’s)(1981: 34-5).
375
traveled from the Ottoman court at Istanbul to live in Iran from 1736 to 1738, and
who noted the following differences in the nomenclature of tones between the
Turkish and Persian musicians of his day (ibid.: 199):
Persian name Turkish name Pitch

pas-panjgâh yegâh D
[intermediary tones unnamed]
yegâh rast G
dügâh dügâh A
segâh segâh Bq 15
çargâh çargâh c
panjgâh nevâ d
şaşgâh hüseynî e
haftgâh evç fs
haştgâh gerdaniye g
Figure 67: eighteenth-century Persian and Turkish note names.
At least from the mid-fifteenth century the reason that the “basic scale” was so
important was that it was upon its tones that the primary modes—the makam-s—were
situated; modal entities having “non-basic” tones were relegated a lower status and
referred to as şu`be, nağme, terkib etc., rather than as “makam-s” (Feldman 1996:
197-8). This was also a period during which the construction of scalar material was
understood not as a matter of conjoined genera (“cins-es,” i.e., trichords, tetrachords,
15
It must be noted that the exact intervals represented by the accidental signs herein are unknown:
Feldman opines that in the seventeenth century this “B ” would have been 2.5 commas flatter than B,
q
and the “f ” following it would have been 6.5 commas sharper than f (1996: 206-18). Today these
s
signs represent “one comma flat” and “four commas sharp” respectively.
376
pentachords) but as octave-scale species of the sort known as “church modes” in the
West.16 But Arel and Ezgi were not interested in a “basic scale” upon whose tones
octave-species modes were generated, or even in preserving a fundamental scale that
had served to do so, wanting rather to forge a link between “Western” and “Oriental”
music theories by declaring the tones of a certain makam Çargâh to be both identical
to the C major scale of the West and the true fundamental basic scale of classical
Turkish music. At this point we must say a few words about the elusive “makam
Çargâh” beyond what has been explained in Chapter III.
That by the twentieth century there had once been a makam called “Çargâh” was
apparently an obscure memory (see Wright 1990: 231), and it was this general
ignorance of it that allowed Arel to re-invent “Çargâh”—consisting for him of the
diatonic scale C D E F G A B c—as the fundamental scale, not coincidentally
mirroring the Western C major scale (ibid.). He apparently did so by looking at (and
slightly altering) material from older, out of currency repertoire in Çargâh (ibid.).
Wright notes that the earliest such repertoire—that which somewhat resembles what
Arel was looking for—dates from the second half of the seventeenth century (ibid.:
225), i.e., at least 150 years after the change in the nomenclature of the tones.17 This
16
I.e., wherein the tones of first mode (Rast) were G A Bq c d e fs g, the tones of the second mode
(Dugâh) were A Bq c d e fs g a, the tones of the third mode (Segâh) were Bq c d e f s g a bq, etc., each
moving up one tone to cycle through the scalar material seven tones at a time. (NB: the current
makam-s named “Dügâh,” “Çargâh,” and “Pençgâh” are vastly different in character from this sort of
structure.)
17
Arel’s own justification of Çargâh as the “ana” (“mother,” i.e., basic) scale are rather specious: he
claimed it to be “the most suitable scale for the foundation of the structure of all other scales” because
it requires no accidentals (1991 [1943-48]: 61, later merely excusing that the European staff notation
377
repertoire, and Arel following it, presumes that Çargâh (again, literally “fourth
position”) is the mode built on the fourth tone of the scale belonging to the makam
Rast, which tone (since the fifteenth century) is called “çargâh,” represented by the
note c above middle C.18
I would like to point out, however, that given the earlier version of the nomenclature:
yegâh dügâh segâh çargâh pençgâh şeşgâh haftgâh haştgâh (↑dügâh) (↑segâh) (↑çargâh)
D E F
s G A B q c d e f g s
the original fourth mode, naturally called “Çargâh,” would have had the same scalar
material as what Arel called (and what the great majority of Turkish musicians now
call) makam Rast. Since a mode called “Rast” was elucidated at least as early as the
thirteenth century (e.g., by Ṣafīuddīn, see Kutluğ 2000: vol. I, p. 160)—beginning on
which makes this true was invented entirely outside the context of makam music, pp. 62-3), and
because “all of the basic makam-s can be transferred to each of its perde-s” (p. 61, without explaining
the value of this novelty). He then resorted to a bait-and-switch maneuver to claim historical grounding
for it; in a footnote (number 12) on page 36 he had noted that the fifteenth-century composer Merâgî
had written about a makam called Uşşak—different from today’s makam of the same name—that, if it
were to exist today, we would call “Kürdîli Çargâh” because of its resemblance to (what he has called)
Çargâh but with a “minor 7th” (the tone kürdi, written B ), citing Merâgî as “recommend[ing] that
e
Turks use it, speaking of the correspondence between their temperament and the bold power of this
makam,” which was “among the Turks’ most used and beloved makam-s”; then on page 62, referring
to that footnote, he offers us this: “[A]s clarified in footnote number 12, we can add to the reasons for
taking Çargâh [i.e., with B ] as the mother scale the fact that the makam was by far the most used and
z
beloved makam-s among the Turks of old.” No further arguments are given on Çargâh’s behalf, and
though he speculates that the basic scale might once have been considered that of the makam-s Uşşak
or Beyatî (p. 63), he never mentions that he is the first person to regard “Çargâh” as the basic scale, nor
the idea that any form of the scale of the makam Rast might ever have been so considered.
18
One of the aspects of Çargâh that Arel had to alter was that in its earlier version, as an octave-
species of the basic scale, it had had an augmented 4th degree (c d e f g a b c’). This would today be
s q
thought of as a transposition of the makam Pençgâh. (Another major alteration—aside from the octave
transposition downward—required ignoring that in more recent times Çargâh’s scale had become a
transposition of Zirgüleli Hicaz, see Wright 1990, passim.)
378
the tone yegâh and apparently having the structure described by Yekta (ibid.)—and
yet in the twentieth century (when, for the first time, a precise and standard notation
came into use) the great majority of musicians were ready to accept makam Rast’s
tones as being those proceeding from the (post-fifteenth-century) tone rast as
explained by Arel and Ezgi, we can say that both camps appear to have been partially
right, if influenced by information from two different but far distant eras.
If it is the case that today’s version of makam Rast (or at least its scalar aspect) was
originally called Çargâh it may be seen as ironic that Arel sought an “older version of
Çargâh” in order to avoid using the tones of Rast as the fundamental scale. In any
case, this specific confusion seems to point to a more general one regarding makam
definitions that apparently occurred after the fifteenth-century change in tonal
nomenclature, evidence for which remains in certain of today’s makam definitions.
For instance, whereas for the most part the makam-s that were previously understood
as modes built from each tone of the fundamental scale—that is, “species” of it—
have disappeared, there are cases such as the current makam Segâh, whose tonal
material is commonly given as Bq c d eq f (s) g a(s) bq. Though its normal “place” is in
a transposition level indicating its position as the “third species” of the post-fifteenth-
century scale of Rast (thus its name: Segâh = “third position”), and the f s would also
seem to belong to the newer interpretation of Rast, the sometime fifth degree (f) and
especially the fourth degree (eq) can only be remnants of a “third species” built from
the Rast scale of Yekta and the Systematists. This structure of Segâh makam is
379
obscured in current theory books such as Özkan (see 1984: 276) and Yılmaz (see
2007: 226), which describe the makam’s scalar material as compound of a “segâh
pentachord” (Bq c d eq f s) below a hicaz tetrachord (f s g as bq) alternating with a
“deficient” (eksik) “segâh pentachord” (Bq c d eq f) overlapping an uşşak scale (A Bq
c d + d e f s g a), without acknowledging that the idea of a “segâh pentachord”
(whether “whole” or “deficient”)—not to mention such a convoluted explanation for
Segâh—appears to be an invention of the early-twentieth century (before which no
such construction is mentioned).19
Conversely, there is the makam Ferahnak, apparently invented by (or at least in the
time of) Abdülkadir Merâgî (1360-1435; see Kutluğ 2000: vol. I, p. 263). The makam
itself is a complex compound, but its fundamental scalar material is described by Arel
as though having a structure reminiscent of a “third species” of the later Rast scale,
but beginning on the third degree of yegâh (i.e., up from Rast’s supposed original
“place”): Fs G A B cs d e f s (ibid. p. 266-7, Arel 1991 [1943-48]: 197). But for that
matter it may once have been an octave transposition of the sixth species of Yekta’s
original scale, instead.
19
The earliest mention of it I have found is in Yekta 1922 (1913): 3000. Note that such a convoluted
explanation would be unnecessary if the mode were simply considered a species of the basic scale, as
its name so clearly implies it was. Furthermore, an explanation in terms of cins-es that would not cause
such confusion would require the recognition of the trichord, which neither Yekta nor Arel were
willing to do (see Chapters III and IV, and Appendix J).
380
There is also the current makam Yegâh, whose basic structure is described by Ezgi,
and Özkan as a compound of Neva makam (whose basic tones are A Bq c d + d e f s g
a) which then falls through a rast pentachord on Yegâh (D E Fs G A) (see Kutluğ
2000: vol. I, p. 213-16 and Özkan 1984: 545; cf. Feldman 1996: 251). This is
suspiciously like the supposed older version of Rast; if we arrange the tones as a scale
upward from the tone yegâh we see D E Fs G A + A Bq c d, that is, an exact
description of the apparent original Systematist/Yekta version of Rast, and the first
seven tones of what Arel et al. appeared to have taken as the fundamental scale before
the change in nomenclature. It is true that the first recorded appearance of a modal
entity called Yegâh comes only in the late eighteenth century (as a “şu`be
transposition of the makam Nevâ” according to Feldman),20 and that the makam
version current in the generation just before Arel (e.g., in the repertoire of the
nineteenth-century composer Dellalzade İsmail Efendi) fit the above description of
makam Neva falling through a rast tetrachord to yegâh (see Kutluğ 2000: vol. I, pp.
213-6), but it is the sort of curiosity that may harbor clues about a possible,
alternative and forgotten modal identity for this scalar material.21 The makam
Nişaburek, though found “in its place” on A/dügâh (A B cs d e + e fd g a/e fd gs a/e
fs g a) and despite having a descending-ascending seyir, may actually be a structurally
20
Described by Hızır Ağa (Feldman 1996: 251), although if Kutluğ’s description of Hızır (“bin
Abdullah”)’s makam Nevâ is correct (see Kutluğ 2000: vol. I pp. 173-5), it cannot have been simply a
transposition without a significant increase in the range of tones below yegâh (for which there is no
evidence).
21
It must be noted, however, that Arel himself described the makam Yegâh as a compound consisting
of makam Neva followed by the entirety of Rast—as he had defined it—on yegâh (1991 [1943-48]:
150).
381
more accurate reflection of an older version of both Rast and Yegâh (see Özkan 1984:
380, Appendix J, and DVD 3/25).
It might be noted in closing that apart from the late Dr. Fikret Kutluğ and a few
academics who peruse his 2000 Türk Musikisinde Makamlar, which I have cited so
often here, very few people in the current classical Turkish music world are interested
in such questions about a “basic scale,” or in historical changes in (or versions of)
makam definitions. Although in recent years there have formed a few groups, such as
Lalezar, and the Bezmara Ensemble, that play archaic Ottoman music on period
instruments, most performers seem content with the variety of makam possibilities
afforded by the Arelian interpretations of the repertoire of the last three centuries,
which the education systems, both conservatory and oral/aural, mainly favor.
What is being questioned, primarily by music theorists, is the appropriateness of the
imposition of Western musical norms (e.g., regarding notation, interval definitions,
and pedagogy—see Chapter III, and Bayhan 2008) to classical Turkish music, and
here it should be noted that the two main camps that struggled to create the current
KTM theory—Yekta’s and Arel’s—had in common an insistence on the essential
“sameness” of Western and Eastern musics, though they sought to demonstrate it in
radically different ways. The main and often reiterated point of Yekta’s 1922 (1913)
article in the Lavignac encyclopedia is that “Oriental” music had correctly interpreted
and maintained the true and ancient music theory once common to both Eastern and
Western music traditions, and that European musicians should recognize this and
382
abandon the newfangled equal temperament and the limitation of having merely two
modes so that East and West could better make beautiful music together. Arel’s
creation of the makam “Çargâh” as the major scale-qua-fundamental Turkish scale
(and the positioning of Buselik makam as its de facto “relative minor”) show the
opposite side of the same ideology; Eastern and Western musics are basically the
same, he declares, but it is “Oriental” music that has erred and must be made to
reflect the correct theory as held by Western theorists.
At least part of the current critique of the Westernizing influences of Yekta-Arel-Ezgi
theory may be a result of the erosion of the aspect of early-Republican nationalist
discourse that insisted on establishing this “sameness” with European cultural norms
as a strategy for establishing Turkish cultural legitimacy. But in terms of establishing
the “fundamental scale” today, there is still a compromise of some sort at work;
although theorists have agreed to return the tones of makam Rast to its traditional
place as KTM’s fundamental scale (see Chapter III, and Bayhan 2008: 296-7)—as
Yekta would have done—those tones consist of Arel’s understanding of the makam
Rast rather than the apparently older Yekta/Systematist version. In a sense this does
not matter since both Rast-s are apparently historically correct versions, and since
there is no push for a scheme categorizing makam-s by their relation to the tones of a
“basic scale” in the way there had been (e.g., hierarchically and/or as octave-species,
as in Cantemir’s time). Perhaps the great proliferation of new makam-s since such a
categorization was last a central idea makes a return to it impractical, anyway. Today
383
simply the act of reclaiming an historic “basic scale” with tones other than those in
the European system is a symbolic as well as sonic victory for maintaining the
traditional distinctiveness of classical Turkish music.
384
APPENDIX H: THE HÜZZAM TETRACHORD
The material in this appendix is intended to show historically rooted reasons for
introducing the “hüzzam tetrachord” (d – eq – f s – g) mentioned in Chapter V. This
suggestion comes coupled with another suggestion: that KTM theory abandon the
cins that Arel called a “hüzzam pentachord” (Bq – c – d – e w – f s). The practical
reasons for both of these changes have been addressed in Chapter V.
Let us begin by clarifying that there appears never to have been a cins named
“hüzzam” before Arel named his such. However there has existed a tetrachordal
interval structure similar to current performers’ interpretations of the span d – g in the
makam Hüzzam; certainly more similar to them than is either the hicaz tetrachord
now often used to explain it, or than Arel’s “hüzzam pentachord.” The earliest
references I have seen to such a structure are in Kutluğ, first in his descriptions of the
earliest versions of Hicaz (2000 Vol I, p. 176-86) and Karcığar (ibid.: 186) where he
mentions that Ezgi had “shown” such an arrangement as given by Ṣafīuddīn in his
Şerefiye in a scale called “Hicâzi”: A – Bq – c – d – eq – fs – g – a; the second (ibid.:
291) occurs where Kutluğ described the Systematist’s version of the makam Rehavi
as having G – Aq – Bq – C as its first four tones. Transposed up a fifth, this tetrachord
is d – eq – fs – g, that is, the cins I am proposing. Kutluğ gives no date for these
particular “Systematists” but he notes that the Aq in Rehavi had been replaced by A
385
by the time of the reign of Murad IV (d. 1640).22 The earlier interval arrangement,
however, did not disappear at that time; Feldman shows that Cantemir understood the
first four tones of the makam Uzzal to be the same arrangement: A – Bq – cs – d
(Feldman 1996: 208).
Uzzal deserves a short introduction before we move on. In Cantemir’s understanding
of the makam system of the seventeenth century, there was a clear hierarchy of modal
entities; the first order were the müfred (“independent”) makam-s, consisting only of
tones of the “basic scale” (see Appendix G); the next order were makam-s that
included one tone outside the basic scale—that tone’s name being taken as the
makam’s name;23 following these were mürekkep (“compound”) makam-s and finally
terkib-s (ibid.: 196). Uzzal is the name of a makam of the second order, so named
because it contains the perde uzzal, which corresponds to the perde known today as
cs/nim hicaz; the makam Uzzal—today a lesser-played member of the Hicaz family of
makam-s—is apparently the forerunner of that family (ibid.: 208).24 In the
seventeenth century, however—uzzal being the only of makam Uzzal’s tones not
from the basic scale—the makam’s second degree was segâh, and the scalar aspect of
Uzzal (A – Bq – cs – d – e – fs – g – a ) was the same as Hüseyni’s (A – Bq – c – d – e
22
He also noted that Ṣafīuddīn (d. 1294) had referred to what Kutluğ calls the “Sabâ tetrachord” A –
Bq – C – Dq as “Rahavî” (ibid.: 333).
23
This is how Cantemir described this category of makam-s, but it must be noted that some of those he
listed as being in this category had more than one “na-tam perde”—tones outside the basic scale (ibid.:
195-216).
24
No mention is made there of Ṣafīuddīn’s “Hicâzi scale,” much less of Ezgi’s apparent interpretation
of its intervals as mentioned above and in Kutluğ 2000 Vol. I, p. 186.
386
– fs – g – a ) except for the one na-tam or “outside” tone (ibid.: 208-9). This
arrangement also occurs in Uzzal’s transposed relatives Şehnaz a 5th up, Zengüle a 4th
down, and Araban a 4th up (ibid.).
But Feldman also investigated a question regarding the intonation of the second
degree here— Bq/segâh—and concluded that rather than the tone that the perde-name
represents today,25 it was likely meant to represent at that time a tone 2.5 commas
flat, that is, 2.5 commas flatter than B/buselik, 1.5 commas flatter than today’s segâh,
and 6.5 commas higher than A/dügâh (ibid.: 206-13). Feldman contends that the same
was true of the intonation for the perde eviç, a perfect 5th up from segâh, i.e., that it
sounded 1.5 commas flatter than it does today (ibid.: 246). In order to show the
relevance of this for the proposed hüzzam tetrachord, we will need to look at it “in its
place”—d/neva – eq/dik hisar – fs/eviç – g/gerdaniye—and with respect to two other
makam-s of Cantemir’s day, the Uzzal-related makam Araban, and an older version
of today’s makam Beyati.
Araban today is a more or less defunct member of the Hicaz family of makam-s;
since it was the only member situated “in its place” on d/neva, current players may
refer to any formulation of “Hicaz on neva” as “Araban” (see Chapter V, fn. 30; cf.
Kutluğ 2000 Vol. I, pp. 384, and Özkan 1984: 309-11). In any case Feldman shows us
25
Let us follow Rauf Yekta in approximating it as the 5:4 just intonation major 3rd from the perde
G/rast, or a 10:9 just intonation “neutral” second from A/dügâh, see Chapter III. This is represented
today as “B one comma flat,” that is, one comma flatter than B/buselik.
387
that in Cantemir’s time it was a current makam and apparently corresponded to Uzzal
makam transposed a fourth up. Beyati makam is one that is played today, but whereas
today’s Beyati shares a scale with Uşşak makam (A – Bq – c – d – e – f – g – a ), in
the seventeenth century this was not the case: Beyati was a second-tier makam whose
non-basic tone was (predictably) beyati, which today corresponds to eq/dik hisar
(Feldman 1996: 216). Feldman notes that “the tetrachord above nevâ is one of the
most complex and variable in modern Turkish music” (ibid.), but apparently this is
not merely a “modern” situation; while today classical Turkish music theory has no
name for any of the tetrachord varieties described in regard to the Hüzzam makam in
Chapters IV and V, there were two in Cantemir’s time that might be written with
today’s accidentals “d – eq – fs – g”; the one in Araban has its 2nd degree as the “2.5
comma flat” basic scale tone Feldman described, and its 3rd degree as the “non-basic”
tone, while the one in Beyati had its second degree as the non-basic tone and its 3rd
degree as the “2.5 comma flat” basic scale tone.
So how does Hüzzam makam fit into this? For Cantemir “Hüzzam” was of the lowest
order of modal entities, a “terkib” (literally “combination”) which he deemed
adequately described thus: “go from neva to hüseyni to neva to uzzal” (ibid.: 246).
This looks today like a gesture or “çeşni” from a makam in the Hicaz family—of the
3 tones named, only neva is even in Hüzzam as it came to be understood when the
terkib-s were turned into makam-s (see Chapter II). Feldman himself refers to
Hüzzam as “…compounded of Segâh and an altered version of Arabân…” (Feldman
388
1996: 239), and in fact refers to an unnamed fret tied today on tanbur-s at
approximately 2.5 commas flatter than e/hüseyni which he calls “hüzzam” (ibid.: 214,
Table II-5, see also Appendix F).26 The implication is that Feldman’s informant(s)
(probably in this case tanbur master Necdet Yaşar) understood the tones spanning d –
g in Hüzzam as: d – eq minus 1.5 commas – fs – g (cf. Agnès Agopian’s version in
Chapter V and DVD 1/1, ca. 5:47-6:13).
Whatever the intonation was, Hızır Ağa in the mid-1700s used the same
description—a compound of Segâh and Araban makam-s—for what he understood to
be Hüzzam, and Abdülbaki called this Hüzzam-ı Cedid “New Hüzzam” (ibid.: 246).
Kutluğ reports two things that may suggest that the distinction between Hüzzam and
the aforementioned makam-s Beyati and Araban—including the intonation of their
constituent perde-s—may not have been so clear: first, he mentioned that the
compound makam Beyati-Araban was invented by the composer Gazi Giray Han at
the end of the sixteenth century; this would seem to indicate either that, at that time,
the intonation of the two makam-s was thought identical, or that switching between
the two types of intonation in a single makam was considered aesthetically
desirable.27 And second, Kutluğ wrote that by the mid-nineteenth century Abdülkadir
Nasır Dede was describing this makam thus: “Beyati Araban is, after playing in
26
I would add that I own a lâvta and a bowed tanbur that came with a fret tied in the same position,
though I never heard a name given for it.
27
Note that no mention is made of the intonation issues of the supposedly earlier “Hicâzi scale” in
Kutluğ 2000 Vol. I, p. 186 regarding a forerunner of Karcığar makam.
389
Hüzzam, making a cadence in Beyati” (Kutluğ 2000 Vol. I, pp. 357-9).28 It would
seem from all of this that some combination or compromise between the two
intonations given above—those of Beyati (d – eq – fs minus 1.5 commas – g) and of
Araban (d – eq minus 1.5 commas – fs – g)—was accepted as appropriate within a
single makam, and that whatever this sounded like it was a) used as constituent of
Hüzzam and b) not the hicaz tetrachord as known today (d – ew – fs – g), i.e., as it
appears inside the Arelian “hüzzam pentachord” (Bq – c – d – ew – fs – g).
But if the Uzzal makam—and later the entire Hicaz family of makam-s apparently
derived from it—originally partook of the interval construction “d – eq minus 1.5
commas – fs – g” yet eventually became today’s “d – ew – fs – g” “hicaz tetrachord,”
then perhaps it is appropriate to assume that the same change should apply to
Hüzzam, and to think of the intervals in Hüzzam as basically a hicaz tetrachord, as
performers in this study have done, though often altering it.29 The main argument
against such an interpretation is simply today’s practice, that is, the fact that so many
performers understand that the span from d to g in Hüzzam is something other than a
hicaz tetrachord. We must note this as something they can only have learned through
an oral/aural tradition (since no written theory mentions it), and one that also contains
a separate understanding of the Hicaz family and its intonational issues.
28
“Beyatî Araban, Hüzzam âğâze idüp Beyatî karar verir.” See also pp. 384-5 regarding Araban
makam itself.
29
And indeed we may also ask if this change in Hicaz should be applied to Araban and Beyati-
Araban; the reader may wish to compare two taksim-s in the latter makam, by Agnès Agopian and
Murat Aydemir (DVD 1/2 and 1/11 respectively), with the moments in Hüzzam mentioned in Chapter
V; both Beyati-Araban taksim-s clearly use a hicaz tetrachord to span d – g.
390
Feldman notes:
“The system of basic and secondary scale degrees, with the particular names
in use since the early 17th century, continued with little change at least until
the middle of the 18th century and possibly until the end of the century. The
great systemic changes which were occurring on the level of makam and
terkib, modulation, transposition, rhythmic expansion, melodic density and
compositional structure were not yet reflected in the general scale. This fact
suggests that the intonational changes which were then taking place did not
disrupt the entire system of the general scale until the beginning of the 19th
century. After this time the notes lowered by a single comma (ırha) and notes
lowered by four commas (bakîye), i.e. bemol notes raised by a single comma,
became standard features of all whole tone intervals, and were
institutionalized by a nomenclature (the latter distinguished by the word dîk =
high) and by frets on the tanbûr. The originally undifferentiated segâh neutral
tone (koron) acquired distinct intonations for (1) the Segâh and Rast family of
makams, (2) the ‘Uşşak and Hüseynî family, and (3) the ‘Uzzal/Hicaz family.
Transpositions necessitated the filling of empty areas of the general scale. The
new forms of the ‘Uşşak and the ‘Uzzal tetrachords (or sections of them)
could now be played on almost every basic scale degree.” (1996: 217)
This acknowledges that the segâh issue was resolved in three different ways, and as
we have seen in the main body of this text, microtonal interpretations of each of the
three are common in current performance practice (see Chapters III and IV). Since in
all of the examples in Hüzzam that we have seen by current performers the second
degree is higher than that of the hicaz tetrachord (ew/hisar), and as far as I can tell the
third degree is never as low as fa/dik acem,30 to my mind it simply makes sense to
represent these four tones within Hüzzam as the tetrachord “d – eq – f s – g,” with the
understanding that the Arelian accidental signs merely get the performer as close as
30
We must note that neither in the quote above nor later in that text does Feldman say what happened
to the perde “f s/eviç minus 1.5 commas,” but it would seem from current intonational practices to have
risen rather than fallen.
391
possible to a preferred intonation that, for the time being, must be learned (as it
already is) by means of oral/aural transmission.31
At this point there remains the question of what to name this tetrachord; Rehavi?
Hicâzi? Karcığar? Uzzal? Araban? Beyati?32 These names all deserve a claim upon
the cins, for reasons we have seen above, but each of them refers to makam-s that are
understood currently as having only cins-es other than the one we are trying to name.
Since Hüzzam is the only makam in which the cins in question is generally
understood to appear33—and at least on tanbur-s (according to Feldman) there is a fret
named for the perde “hüzzam,” I propose calling it the “hüzzam tetrachord.”
31
If it were necessary to speculate as to the range of interpretations, in terms of commas, we might
posit the 8-9-5 tetrachord represented literally by the Arelian accidentals at one end, and a 6.5-9-6.5
tetrachord mixing the Araban and Beyati versions of Cantemir’s time at the other (cf. Murat Aydemir’s
Suzinak Taksim mentioned in Chapter V and shown whole on DVD 2/15).
32
Indeed if it is to be accepted as representing the proper tones for the makam-s Araban and Beyati-
Araban also then we should include the pentachord version “d – eq – f s – g – a” as well; see Kutluğ
2000 Vol. I, pp. 384, and Özkan 1984: 309-11 on Araban having a central cins-structure of hicaz-5 +
kürdi-4, otherwise unused in the Hicaz family. Note that in calculating the possible cins-combinations
presented in Chapter VI, I included this hüzzam-4 but not a hüzzam-5; Araban is simply too rare at this
time to merit it—the two recordings I made representing Beyati-Araban having used hicaz cins-es.
33
Note however that for purposes of historical re-creation this cins might also prove useful as a rising
version “açan level” cins in archaic iterations of Rast and Yegâh (see Appendix G and Chapter II).
392
APPENDIX I: CİNS CONSTELLATIONS BY NAME
Rast
Figure 68: constellation of rast-5 (2).
393
394
Uşşak
Figure 71: constellation of uşşak-5 (2).
395
Segâh
Figure 74: constellation of segâh-3 (2).
Müstear
Figure 75: constellation of müstear-3 (2).
396
Pençgâh
Figure 76: constellation of pençgâh-5 (2).
Hüzzam
Figure 77: constellation of hüzzam-4 (2).
Buselik
Figure 78: constellation of buselik-5 (2).
397
Kürdi
Figure 81: constellation of kürdi-3 (2).
398
Çargâh
Figure 84: constellation of çargâh-5 (2).
399
Figure 85: constellation of çargâh-4 (2).
Hicaz
Figure 86: constellation of hicaz-5 (2).
400
Figure 87: constellation of hicaz-4 (2).
Nikriz
Figure 88: constellation of nikriz-5 (2).
401
APPENDIX J: MAKAM DEFINITIONS
This appendix is intended to give a “bare-bones” definition for each of the 53 makam-
s demonstrated by informants during the research for this dissertation, as well as for a
few additional makam-s that are closely related to certain of these and/or generally
considered too important to omit. It will be remembered from Chapter IV that this
sort of abbreviated description of individual makam-s—a staple of twentieth-century
KTM theory texts—on the one hand represents a basic level of knowledge without
which a musician may not be considered educated in makam, and on the other hand is
a form of representing the makam-s that is widely understood as inadequate to
capture the full flavor, meaning, character, or definition of any single makam. I wish
to clarify that I am not attempting here to improve upon the representations of makam
definitions given in Turkish music theory texts (except by couching them in
performers’ terms where these have proved more useful than those of the
theoreticians); the descriptions below will in fact mostly be in an even more
abbreviated form than those normally found in such texts (cf. Appendix D), and are
necessarily bereft of the individualized melodic gestures (as discussed in Chapter IV)
that are so important to current performers’ sense of a makam’s identification.
The first reason for including this basic information is to make more intelligible the
examples presented in the main body of this dissertation, but additionally, because
there is to date a dearth of makam descriptions in a language other than Turkish, this
402
appendix-qua-primer is intended to provide that most basic level of knowledge
regarding makam definitions in a more accessible language. The previously offered
caveat must apply here as well: it is widely accepted in the KTM world that only
concentrated study with one or more master musicians, along with much attentive
listening to repertoire and taksim-s, is adequate to turn the knowledge here presented
into a full education in makam (keeping in mind that the study of rhythmic cycles
[usul]—here not treated at all—is also a required element of musicianship, along with
the appropriate instrumental and/or vocal training).
The makam-s are grouped below using a concept of “familial” relationships based on
shared “root-level” cins-es displayed in the karar (final cadence) in the praxis of the
makam. This holds for compound makam-s (to be explained as such in their
definitions) as well as for simple ones—the family-defining cins acting in the way a
surname does for the purpose of identifying affiliation. Since the cins-es used here for
both classification and definition are those derived from performers’ practice (as
demonstrated in the main text above), certain makam definitions must be understood
as necessarily differing from those in standard KTM theory texts; I will explain such
discrepancies as they arise. Note that even at this level of simplicity, there are bound
to be people whose interpretations would differ from those presented below.
As elsewhere in this dissertation, music notation is presented in the conventional
“bolahenk” transposition scheme, written a perfect fourth higher than sounded (and
403
ignoring octave transpositions particular to the variety of instruments played).
Students and scholars of (Eastern, non-Iraqi) Arab maqām may find it useful to
transpose the makam definitions a perfect fifth down from where they are notated
(and a whole step lower than sounding), taking care to adjust the accidentals
accurately. The information given in each makam definition consists of the following,
represented on one or more staves:
• the makam’s seyir (melodic direction) in its simplest form:
o ascending ↑ (çıkıcı: beginning its melodic movement at or around the
tonic, moving upward toward the upper tonic, and returning to the
tonic)
o descending ↓ (inici: beginning at/around the upper octave of the tonic
and moving downward toward the dominant, then the tonic)
o ascending/descending ↑↓ (çıkıcı-inici: beginning around the dominant
and moving mostly in the upper region before rising to the upper
octave of the tonic and falling to the tonic)
o descending ascending ↓↑ (inici-çıkıcı: beginning around the dominant
and moving mostly in the lower region before rising to the upper
octave of the tonic and falling to the tonic)
• the cins combinations of the makam’s central octave
o notice of which cins-es should be played if this combination does not
repeat at the octaves will be given in prose below—it may otherwise
be assumed that they do, i.e., that the “destek” cins is the same as the
404
“açan” cins, and the “tiz” cins is the same as the “kök” cins (see p.
474)
• the makam’s tonic (represented by a whole note), dominant (represented by a
hollow diamond note-head), and if applicable, second dominant, etc.
(represented by solid diamond note-heads)
• the customary “makam signature”—donanım
o since these are in accord with Arelian theory, note that they reflect that
theory’s concepts of makam definitions and affiliations, which may
require adjustments (by way of accidental signs) to reflect a more
performance-oriented understanding
Below this in prose will be presented:
• additional information as needed
• track numbers of taksim-s in the accompanying DVDs in which the makam
defined was put into practice
In order to avoid excessive duplication of information, I have written the makam
descriptions such that some cross referencing may be necessary to find all the
components of many compound makam-s, but all makam-s mentioned in the
descriptions will also be presented in this appendix.
One further comment is warranted here, on the spelling of makam names. Most
makam names are of Persian or Arabic derivation, by way of the Ottoman language.
405
Since the language reform laws of the early Republic strongly encouraged the
abandonment of such “borrowed” and “non-Turkish” vocabulary, the official
standardization of Turkish language spelling in the new, Latin-based alphabet was not
extended to such terms as constitute the old makam names. There are therefore
varieties of certain such names—for instance Beyati and Bayati—and names that are
similar but spelled with different conventions, such as Suzinak and Suz-i Dilara
(which could have been Suz-i Nak and/or Suzidilara, respectively). In one case I have
used two versions consistently (merely following what seemed to me to be more
common usage): “Acem Aşiran” makam as distinct from the perde F/“acemaşiran.”
Since it is beyond my brief to standardize these names, I have mainly chosen the
motley mix of them as given me by the artists themselves, supplemented by spellings
in Özkan 1984 when none was specified by the artist. Immediately below is a list of
the makam-s presented organized by family.
Rast Family (p. 409)

Rast (and Acemli Rast)
Rehavi
Yegâh
Suz-i Dilara
Basit Suzinak
Nişaburek
Pençgâh (Pençgâh-ı Asıl and Pençgâh-ı Zâid)
Pesendide
406
Uşşak Family (p. 418)
Uşşak (and Dügâh-Maye)
Beyati
Neva
Tahir
Acem
Beyati-Araban (and early historic Araban)
Karcığar
Isfahan (Basit Isfahan, Bileşik Isfahan, and Isfahanek)
Nişabur
Hüseyni
Muhayyer
Gülizar (Basit Gülizar and Bileşik Gülizar)
Gerdaniye (and Selmek, and Dilnişin)
Saba
Segâh Family (p. 433)

Segâh (and Heftgâh, Segâh-Maye)
Hüzzam
Irak
Eviç
Ferahnak
Müstear
Bestenigâr
Rahat-ül Ervah
Buselik Family (p. 442)

Buselik (and Şehnaz-Buselik)
Nihavend
Sultani Yegâh (and Ruhnüvaz)
Ferahfeza
Arazbar-Buselik
Kürdi Family (p. 447)

Kürdi (and Aşk’efza, Ferahnüma)
Kürdili Hicazkâr
Muhayyer-Kürdi
Acem-Kürdi
Araban-Kürdi
Muhayyer-Sümbüle (and Sümbüle)
Saba-Zemzeme
407
Acem Aşiran Family (p. 455)
Acem Aşiran (and Çargâh, Şevk’aver)
Mahur
Zavil
Hicaz Family (p. 458)

Hicaz
Hümayun
Uzzal
Zirgüleli Hicaz (and Suz-i Dil)
Şehnaz
Hicazkâr
Zirgüleli Suzinak
Evcara
Araban (late historic)
Şedd Araban
Dügâh I (traditional)
Nikriz Family (p. 468)

Nikriz
Nev’eser (and Reng-i Dil)
Şevk’efza (and historic Çargâh, Şevk-u Tarab)
Dügâh II (newer version)
Parethetically we may note here that I have treated each named makam as its own
entity, in contrast to the Arelian idea that some named makam-s are really merely
transpositions (see Chapter IV, Arel 1943-48 [1968]: 317-56). The following are
Arel’s 14 “transpositions”: of “Çargâh”: Acem-Aşiran, Mahur; of Buselik: Sultani-
Yegâh, Ruhnevaz, Nihavend; of Kürdi: Ferahnüma, Aşkevza, Kürdili Hicazkâr; of
Zirgüleli Hicaz: Şedaraban, Suzidil, Evçara, Hicazkâr, Zirgüleli Suzinak; of Segâh:
Heftgâh.
408
THE MAKAM-S
RAST FAMILY
Rast
Figure 89: Rast.
(From the Persian “right, correct, straight”; also refers to the perde written “G.”) Rast
is often particularly bottom heavy at first, being played in the “kök” and “destek”
cins-es quite a bit before moving upward. The third degree is often lowered by a
small amount—perhaps one to two commas—when approaching a cadence, and when
this tone is the focal point of the melodic movement it often uses an as leading tone
(see definition of Segâh, below). An fz is often used in place of the fs when first
ascending (i.e., when trying to delay arrival at the upper octave), and when
descending from the upper octave. It would appear as though the fz was originally
normative in the makam (hear the Rast Nakış attributed to the fifteenth-century
composer Abdülkadir Merâgî, assumed to be one of the oldest pieces in the
repertoire—it neither uses fs nor reaches the upper octave),34 and the sixth degree is
thought by some theorists to have been one comma flatter once (e q ; see Appendix
G). Rast’s scale is widely regarded as the basic scale of makam music, and the Rast
34
There is some debate as to whether there really exists an independent “Acemli Rast” makam (Rast
with acem, that is, f natural) or whether it is merely Rast that does not use f sharp/eviç (much).
409
makam is in a sense considered the grandfather (of) makam.35 Rast also has a
reputation of being welcoming of extensive internal modulation. Like all members of
its family, Rast has a rast-4 below the tonic by default. Note typical melodic gestures
of Rast given in taksim examples in Chapter V, and hear Rast in the following
recordings: DVD 1/1, 1/5, 3/27, 3/30, 3/35, 4/36, 5/45, 6/53, 6.55, 7/66, 7/74.
Parenthetically, in Istanbul the second call to prayer of the day (öğle ezanı) is
traditionally “recited” in makam Rast (i.e., everyone in the city hears it at least once
per day).
Rehavi
(Meaning “from Rehav,” present-day Urfa, Turkey.) Rehavi makam is described by
Özkan as having two forms, one basic (i.e., simple) and one compound. The first
form is nothing other than playing Rast and, before the final cadence, showing a rast
tetrachord below the tonic, on yegâh—Özkan also notes that because this is normal
also in Rast itself, there really is not a reason to give it the special name “Rehavi”
(1984: 440). The compound form consists in mixing the makam-s Rast and Uşşak
(and/or Beyati, q.v. below) before showing a rast tetrachord on yegâh and cadencing
in Rast. Examples of Rehavi in our taksim recordings can be heard on DVD 1/1.
35
At this point in time it can only be posited as speculation that this is more than figuratively true, but
a researcher wishing to make an argument for the deep antiquity of a Rast-like scale may profit by
comparing Appendix G above, the just intonation ratios given in, for instance, Yekta 1922 (1913) and
Karadeniz 1983 (including those for the archaic “flat” 6th and 7th degrees mentioned above), the
cyclical, “octave-species” aspect of early makam (e.g., in Ertan 2007, Feldman 1996: 195-259) and
Dumbrill 2008 (1997) a, b, and c regarding the basic “scale” (a tuning, actually) and modal formation
in third millennium BCE Mesopotamian musics. Also note that the name of the Babylonian “basic
scale” (tuning)—išartum, which may be interpreted as the “archaic” Rast—is literally translatable by
the Persian term “rast” (“right, correct, straight”).
410
Yegâh
(From the Persian “first position”; also refers to the perde written “D.”) The makam
Yegâh is explained today as a compound consisting of the makam Neva (which see
under Uşşak Family) followed by/mixed with the makam Rast (or Acemli Rast, q.v.
under Rast—in this case employing cz as the “flat” 7th degree) on yegâh:
Neva
Figure 90: Neva.
followed by/mixed with
Rast (or Acemli Rast) on yegâh
Figure 91: Rast on yegâh.
There would seem to be reason to suspect that Yegâh (which literally means “first
position” in Persian) was once identical with Rast, that is, not a compound (see
Appendix G). Like Rast, Yegâh is thought to be particularly open to internal
modulations (see Chapter IV). Yegâh was not identified in any of the taksim-s made
for this research.
411
Suz-i Dilara
(Ottoman for “fire that soothes the heart.”) Suz-i Dilara is a relatively rare compound
makam, ascending or descending-ascending in seyir, whose tonic is G/rast and whose
dominant is c/çargâh, invented by Sultan Selim III (1761-1808).36 Some would put it
in the Rast family and others would put it with Acem Aşiran and Çargâh. In Özkan’s
version,37 which we may take as an Arelian interpretation, Suz-i Dilara is a medium
for showing what in the West is thought of as closely related major keys (resulting
from adding one flat or one sharp to the key signature) and their relative minors; there
are two core major scales treated thus: 1. Çargâh-as-C-major with its “neighbor” F
major, and their relative minors (A minor and D minor, respectively), and 2. Çargâh-
on-rast as G major and its neighbor D major, and their relative minors (E minor and
B minor). An application of the makam might go: Çargâh as C major to Buselik as A
minor to F major (note that he does not mention Acem Aşiran-as-F major) to D minor
(often with a hicaz-4 as the upper tetrachord, imitating the Western harmonic
minor—this may have a stop on G/rast as a Nikriz gesture) to D major to G major,
returning to Çargâh/C major and finally to a cadence in G major. At the very end of
his description Özkan notes, however, that players almost always throw Rast in and
often end in that makam, and he quotes Rauf Yekta as saying rather that Suz-i Dilara
“comes to consist of the contrasting and uniting of makam-s such as Rast, Buselik,
36
Selim III is acredited with the invention of at least the following makam-s (and sometimes others):
Isfahanek-i Cedid, Hicazeyn, Şevk-i Dil, Arazbar-Bûselik, Hüseyni-Zemzeme, Rast-ı Cedid,
Pesendide, Neva-Kürdi, Gerdaniye-Kürdi, Sûz-i Dilârâ, and Şevk’efzâ (see Akdoğu 1989b).
37
NB: Özkan says this makam may also go by the name Nigâr; cf. Nigâr in Kutluğ 2000 vol. 1, p.
150-1.
412
and Hüseyni” (“Sûzidilara makamı Râst, Bûselik ve Hüseyni gibi yek diğerine
mübâvîn (Ayrı, zıt) olan üç makamın birleşmesinden hasıl olmuştur,” 1984: 427),38
which is quite like E. Gürtan’s exposition of the makam (see DVD 1/9).
The other two taksim-s recorded for this project in which Suz-i Dilara is the nominal
makam are both by Özer Özel, and they differ considerably from Özkan’s conception
of the makam (and, since he purports to have learned the makam from the repertoire,
are presumably closer to Selim III’s conception of it than to Özkan’s). For Özel it is
definitely in the Rast family, though it stands out among fellow members in that its
dominant is c/çargâh, a perfect 4th from the tonic, rather than d/neva at a perfect 5th.
Here the makam is basically Rast on G/rast and Çargâh on c/çargâh; when
emphasizing the dominant (c/çargâh) that tone has B/buselik instead of segâh as its
yeden (leading tone). Özel’s single-makam Suz-i Dilara taksim, intended to serve as a
definition of the makam, proceeded thus: Rast, climbing to stop on c/çargâh (with
B/buselik leading tone), shows the tone e/hüseyni and plays Uşşak from that tone as
the dominant of the makam Hüseyni; shows a “taste” of Nikriz, returns to Rast, falls
to show Buselik on D/yegâh (with a half-step leading tone below), another taste of
Nikriz, a return to Çargâh/çargâh, again showing Hüseyni/hüseyni, and finally a Rast
cadence (though it must keep çargâh as the [upper] dominant). See DVD 2/18 and
2/19.
38
Component makam-s mentioned here (such as Acem Aşiran, Buselik, Nikriz, Hicaz, et al.) are
defined under their respective families, below.
413
Basit Suzinak
Figure 92: Basit Suzinak.
(Suz-i nak is Ottoman for “fiery.”) Basit (“basic, simple”) Suzinak is counted as one
of Arel’s “13 basic makam-s,” and is usually (but not ubiquitously) the “default”
Suzinak, meaning it is unnecessary to say “Basit” to distinguish it from Zirgüleli
Suzinak (which see with the Hicaz family). It is frequently used as a brief modulation
within Rast, and may itself end in Rast or Acemli Rast. By way of emphasizing
variously the makam’s 4th, 3rd, and 2nd degrees Suzinak allows internal modulations to
Nikriz-on-çargâh, “Hüzzam” (actually Rahat-ül Ervah-on-segâh; see Chapter V and
Appendix H), and Karcığar, respectively, in the manner of “species” of a scale, before
a final cadence on rast. See DVD 2/15, 8/82.
Nişaburek
Figure 93: Nişaburek.
(“Little Nişabur” [a Persian city].) Nişaburek is a fairly rare makam whose definition
may be glossed as “Rast on dügâh that begins around its dominant (hüseyni),” but
more specifically it is often mostly “Acemli Rast” (i.e., with a “flat” 7th degree, in this
414
case g/gerdaniye)—and may sometimes use the subtonic rast as well as the leading
tone nim zirgüle (though preferably using the latter when ending). It also differs from
Rast in characteristically having an internal modulation to Uşşak on the dominant in
the meyan section of a piece/taksim. There is also often a suspended cadence on the
2nd degree, from which a Nişabur çeşni (in this case, showing Uşşak from B/buselik)
may be made.39 See DVD 3/25 (which compare to DVD 3/27, a taksim in Rast on
dügâh made specifically for comparison).
Pençgâh
(Persian “5th position.”) According to Özkan there are two forms of the makam
Pençgâh: Pençgâh-ı Asıl (“Essential Pençgâh”) and Pençgâh-ı Zâid (“Extended
Pençgâh”). This may be, but I have to say that I have never heard the former, which
apparently consists of a descending-ascending mixture of the makam-s Beyati, Neva,
Acemli Rast and Rast, ending in the last of these (1984: 418; cf. Selmek makam
under “Gerdaniye” in the Uşşak family, below).40 For most performers the word
Pençgâh immediately conjures the characteristic (4 comma) sharp fourth degree,
without having to qualify it as “zaid,” but there seems to be some confusion about
exactly how it is put together. Arel seems to have invented the idea of a pençgâh
pentachord (G A B cs d), but did not use it in his description of this—or any—
makam, which for him consisted of a mixing of Nişabur (q.v. in the Uşşak family)
39
Note that Özkan refers to the use here of a “nişabur tetrachord,” which is really nothing other than a
transposition of an uşşak-4 (1984: 380-2).
40
That is, Özkan’s description of Pençgâh-ı Asıl sounds like an ascending-descending version of
Selmek makam.
415
and Rast, ending in the latter (1991 [1943-8]: 26). Özkan actually includes it,
sandwiching the “pençgâh-5” between Isfahan (q.v. in the Uşşak family) and
(sometimes Acemli) Rast (1984: 421). Operationally, an important distinction to
make when playing Pençgâh is to keep two pairings of tones differentiated: B/buselik
+ cs/nim hicaz (whether as part of Nişabur or of a “pençgâh-5”—often used when
ascending) as distinct from Bq/segâh + c/çargâh (as part of Rast, often used
descending, and for the final cadence)—at the risk of accidentally playing Müstear
(q.v. under the Segâh family). It must be noted, however, that in practice it is at times
difficult to be sure of this distinction—that is, there would seem to be a choosing of
either Bq/segâh or B/buselik (1 comma, or ca. 22¢ apart) and sticking with it such that
one may instead interpret either a de facto switching between a çargâh-5 on G/rast (G
A B c d) and a pençgâh-5 (G A B cs d), or between a rast-5 (G A Bq c d) and an
unnamed pentachord (G A Bq cs d)—see DVD 5/51 and 7/74.41
One way to look at Pençgâh is as a makam on G/rast that has Isfahan makam (q.v.
under the Uşşak family) as a “species” on its second degree. Some feel that Pençgâh
should not have any internal modulations, but there is some precedent for including a
bit of Nikriz (see below under Nikriz family) in the meyan section (see Chapter V),
and note that Mehmet Emin Bitmez modulated briefly to Mahur in his Pençgâh
taksim (DVD 3/26), though perhaps this runs the risk of blurring a distinction from
Pesendide makam (which see below) and from Zavil (see under Acem Aşiran family).
41
One could also think of that “unnamed pentachord” as a rast-3 conjoined to a müstear-3 instead.
416
Pesendide
(Ottoman “enjoyed, chosen.”) Pesendide is a compound makam invented by Sultan
Selim III (1761-1808). In the repertoire he left behind in this makam (and as
portrayed as part of Zavil makam in DVD 1/6, q.v. also under Acem Aşiran family) it
would appear to have a descending seyir, beginning with Pençgâh falling from
g/gerdaniye to G/rast, then briefly becoming Nikriz, and cadencing in Rast; thereafter
there may come some Nihavend and some Mahur before a final cadence in Rast.
Özkan claims it is descending-ascending in seyir and describes it simply thus: “It
comes to be a part [i.e., B-cs-d-e-f-g] of the Nişabur scale in its place… to which is
added a part of the Buselik scale on neva [d-e-f-g-a-be-c’-d’ – NB: his diagram shows
the whole of the “scale”] to which is added the Rast makam or a rast pentachord”
(1984: 394). (Note that this sounds unfortunately similar to Arel’s description of
Pençgâh, above.) It seems to me that this makam’s closeness to Pençgâh and Zavil
makam-s is mitigated in taksim performance by including quotations from well
known pieces by Selim III, that is to say that such references themselves to some
degree define the makam. See an example in DVD 7/65.
417
UŞŞAK FAMILY
Uşşak
Figure 94: Uşşak.
(Archaic plural of aşık, a type of Central Asian bard; former spelling for Uşak
Province, western Turkey; may also refer to a tone approximately 2-3 commas flatter
than Bq/segâh.) One of the most basic makam-s and the “mother” of a large family of
makam-s, Uşşak exists as the second “octave species” of the basic scale (and as such
seems at an earlier time to have been called Dügâh, which is today a quite different
makam, q.v. below and see Feldman 1996: 195-204). One of its specialties is that it
needs to be somewhat bottom heavy, perhaps even more so than Rast—in fact Özer
Özel in an interview for this study opined that Uşşak’s true dominant is also its tonic,
since that receives the first and most attention, and that neva is really its second
dominant. It is normal for Uşşak to remain within the range of an octave above the
tonic, and to have a rast-4 conjoined below the tonic (as is normative also for all
members of the Uşşak family). Another characteristic is that at times its second
degree, segâh, is lower than it is “normatively” (for instance in Rast)—in fact some
players refer to a lowered version segâh as “uşşak”—but it must be noted that (unlike
in Arab maqām praxis) the normative segâh may also be used in Uşşak, especially
when beginning a piece or taksim, when ascending from the tonic, and when making
418
species-type modulations, e.g. to Rast, Segâh, Irak, etc.42 It is possible that the f/acem
be displaced briefly by fs/eviç in an ascending passage but it should be done sparingly
in order to maintain a distinction from Neva makam. See examples of Uşşak in DVD
2/20, 4/37, 6/56, 7/68, 7/70. Parenthetically, in Istanbul the fifth and last call to prayer
of the day (yatsı ezanı) is traditionally “recited” in makam Uşşak (or Beyati, q.v.
below—i.e., everyone in the city hears one of these at least once per day).
Bayati/Beyati
(Probably from “Bayat,” the name of a Turkoman tribe, but NB Arab maqām has
“Bayyāti” “of the boarder”; may also refer to a tone approximately 1-2 commas
flatter than Bq/segâh.) Bayati uses the same scalar material as Uşşak excepting, for
some interpreters, a version of Bq/segâh that is lower than that found in Rast but
higher than that found in Uşşak (see also Feldman 1996: 209-16 regarding a different
perde and makam with the name Beyati in the seventeenth century). Beyati also
differs from Uşşak in that as an “ascending-descending” makam it must begin around
its dominant, d/neva, where much of the melodic focus remains; its range is limited to
between G/rast and perhaps c’/tiz çargâh; and a brief show of a hicaz tetrachord on
d/neva (which may be interpreted as a modulation to Karcığar makam) is normative.
See examples of Bayati in DVD 1/7, 2/16, 8/84. (Note that in Arab maqām the term
42
I will mention here another makam, the rare Dügâh-Maye, which was not named as a makam used
in this study but which basically consists of an iteration of Uşşak followed by an iteration of Segâh,
returning to Uşşak. (This may be another phenomenon from which to investigate the idea of an
“original” Rast scale, see Appendix G, above; note that in today’s understanding, this combination
requires altering the perde e/hüseyni to e /dik hisar and back between the two makam-s—it almost
q
certainly did not always.)
419
“Bayyāti” generally signifies all the makam-s that in KTM are covered by the Uşşak
family, especially Uşşak, Beyati, Neva, Tahir, and Acem, and often Hüseyni,
Muhayyer, and Gülizar as well.)
Neva
Figure 95: Neva (2).
(Ottoman from Persian [?] “harmony, a beautiful sound, melody; protecting,
covering”; also refers to the perde written “d.”) Despite its absence from the recorded
taksim-s made for this study, Neva is traditionally a common makam, and is one of
Arel’s canonical 13 “Basic Makam-s.” Özkan notes that there is usually a buselik-4
above the rast-5, effectively making an Acemli Rast from d/neva in the upper register
(1984: 168-71; note that like all Uşşak family makam-s there is normally an implicit
rast-5 below the tonic). It is possible to replace fs/eviç with f/acem briefly in
descending passages, but this move should be made sparingly to maintain Neva’s
distinction from Bayati, Uşşak and Isfahan. Similarly, because Neva displays a lot of
Rast on d/neva, the tone cs/nim hicaz may be used as a leading tone to the
dominant/Rast, but excessive movement between that tone and the makam’s
normative 3rd degree, c/çargâh, runs the risk of blurring a distinction from Isfahan.
420
Özkan notes that in addition to brief species-type modulations or suspended cadences
on Çargâh, Segâh, and Rast, it is common also to play Eviç (q.v. below under Segâh
family) from Neva’s 7th degree, eviç (ibid.).
Tahir
(Ottoman “lofty breath/spirit/moment.”) Tahir is the descending version of Neva. No
example was played amongst the recorded taksim-s.
Acem
Figure 96: Acem.
(Ottoman from Arabic “non-Arabic speaker,” whence “Persian,” [from which the
chiding “greenhorn, inexperienced person, newcomer”]; also refers to the perde
written “f z.”) As noted in Chapter V and Appendix K, Acem is an unusual makam in
that there are de facto three conjunct cins-es at its core where most makam-s have but
two.43 A performance of Acem begins with “Çargâh” on Acem (which we may note
is called “Àjam” in Arab maqām) that then falls through a buselik trichord on
d/neva—if desired, using c/snim hicaz as a leading tone—which is de facto now the
43
Note that Özkan describes its scalar material instead as a Çargâh pentachord on acem that modulates
to descending Beyati (1984: 315).
421
dominant of Beyati, in which makam it ends. Özkan notes that internal modulations
to Hicaz on d/neva and its “species” Nikriz on c/çargâh are normative in Acem
(though I am not sure how to interpret his caveat, “Generally it is necessary that
Acem not be too radiant,” 1984: 315.44)
Beyati-Araban
Kutluğ mentioned that the compound makam Beyati-Araban was invented by the
composer Gazi Giray Han at the end of the sixteenth century (2000 Vol. I, pp. 357-9),
though his separate entry on Araban makam would seem to describe an original
version as the same makam (ibid.: 384; see also Araban below, under Hicaz family),
and the earliest understood version of Karcığar makam seems to have had the same
scalar material even in Ṣafīuddīn’s time (ibid.: 186).45 See Appendix H and Feldman
1996: 252 regarding these makams’ original intonation—that is, the relationship
between Hüzzam and Araban makam-s (both of which see below)—but we may note
that Kutluğ also said that by the mid-nineteenth century Abdülkadir Nasır Dede was
describing this makam thus: “Beyati Araban is, after playing in Hüzzam, making a
cadence in Beyati” (2000 Vol. I, pp. 357-9). Özkan’s understanding is similar (1984:
309-11), but “Araban” is there understood as a kind of Hicaz (in a diagram, Zirgüleli
Hicaz on d/neva; later a hicaz-5 + kürdi-4 conjunction otherwise not found in the
Hicaz family). We have two examples among our recordings: Agnès Agopian (DVD
1/2) analyzed hers as essentially a descending Karcığar makam (q.v. below), with a
44
“Genel olarak Acem makamının fazla parlak olmaması gerekir.”
45
Albeit with the name “Hicâzi.”
422
brief internal modulation to Acem in it; Murat Aydemir (DVD 1/11) analyzed his
version of the makam (which he referred to as “Bayati-Araban,” i.e., with the
alternate spelling of Beyati) as Araban (a hicaz-5 + kürdi-4 conjunction, alternating
with the makam Uzzal: hicaz-5 + uşşak-4) which descends through Bayati, with a
brief (species-type) modulation to Nikriz on c/çargâh. Here the Araban aspect is itself
descending-ascending in seyir, but since its dominant is also upper tonic of Bayati
(a/muhayyer), Bayati-Araban’s overall seyir is enacted as descending.
Karcığar
Figure 97: Karcığar.
Karcığar may in one sense be considered the descending-ascending version of Beyati-
Araban (which see above), but this may be anachronistic in that the scalar material
above the uşşak-4 in the modern version seems always to have been Uzzal (which see
under Hicaz family) rather than Hüzzam or Araban (see Kutluğ 2000 Vol. I, pp. 186-
9).46 Moreover, as Özkan pointed out (1984: 176-7), one major characteristic of the
46
Kutluğ notes that Ezgi made a claim for an Araban-like ancestor of Karcığar in a certain “Hicâzi
scale” found in Ṣafīuddīn’s Şerefiye, but the fullest early description we have of it as a makam is in
Cantemir, whose understanding of it reads like a version if Isfahan (see below) on d/neva (ibid.: 187).
Note that Kutluğ also (probably accidentally) misrepresented Yekta’s understanding of Karcığar (ibid.:
188, cf. Yekta 1922 [1913]: 3002—keeping in mind that for Yekta the 3rd line of the Western musical
staff represented B /segâh, not B/buselik.)
q
423
performance of Karcığar is the use of suspended cadences on each of the tones of the
lower uşşak tetrachord (as well as on the G/rast below the tonic) in order to show the
“species” inside the makam, i.e. Uzzal on d/neva, Nikriz on c/çargâh, “Hüzzam” on
Bq/segâh (though we may wish to understand Hüzzam differently; see Appendix H,
and Hüzzam below), Karcığar proper on A/dügâh, and (Basit) Suzinak on G/rast,
ultimately ending on A/dügâh. (Özkan also points out there that the tone bq/tiz segâh
is often replaced by be/sümbüle in descending passages.) Parenthetically, this makam
is known as “Shuri” in Arab maqām. Karcığar appears as in internal modulation in
DVD 1/2, 1/7, 1/12, 2/16, 3/29, 3/30, 4/37, 5/42.
Isfahan
(Isfahan is the name of a Persian city.) The Isfahan makam played in a taksim for this
study is not in normal discourse qualified by the terms mürekkeb or bileşik
(“compound”), but in light of the existence of a Basit (“basic, simple”) Isfahan
makam it is specified as such in Arelian theory.47 Kutluğ noted that a makam called
Isfahan was one of the Systematists’ 12 “mother” (original, basic) makam-s but that it
was then constructed as a rast-5 on D/yegâh (D E Fs G A) conjoined to an “ısfahan
47
Basit Isfahan—seemingly a very rare makam—is described by Özkan as a version of Beyati but
even more limited in scope, i.e. without internal modulation to Karcığar, etc., and with a lot of motion
between B /segâh and f/acem (1984: 130) ; Kutluğ cites Arel’s definition: Beyati with “a taste of
q
Isfahan, but no Nişabur” (2000 Vol. I, p. 342), though it is unclear what the elliptic “taste of Isfahan”
might mean, exactly.
424
pentachord” (A Bq c dq e),48 but that eventually it came to be the makam we know
today: an alteration between Beyati and a rast-5 on A/dügâh (though not Nişaburek
per se) with frequent “tastes” of Nişabur (2000 Vol. I, pp. 341-3; see a definition of
Nişabur below). Özkan’s Mürekkeb/Bileşik Isfahan also has no Nişabur—a makam
he does not even mention in regard to Isfahan—it is merely a descending-ascending
alternation between Rast on dügâh and Beyati or Basit Isfahan (1984: 301-2); for
both theorists the makam should not descend below the tonic, and rarely goes above
a/muhayyer except in the meyan section, when it may show either an uşşak-4 or
kürdi-4 on that tone.
Although none of these theorists include Nişaburek in the definition of Isfahan per se,
Kutluğ and Arel mention that it is invariably played as part of the makam, and the
only example of Isfahan we have in a taksim made for this study in fact eschews the
idea of Rast on A/dügâh altogether and presents the makam solely as alternations
between Beyati and Nişabur (Murat Aydemir, DVD 2/13), a definition that works
well with the idea of Isfahan being able to exist inside Pençgâh as a “species” (see
Pençgâh above).
48
Compare with Saba makam, below. Kutluğ does not give a source for this information, merely
stating that “Safiyüddin, Mevalâna Mübarek Şah” and “Abdülkadir [Merâgî]” knew the makam as
having that scalar material (p. 341).
425
Though surely it deserves a closer inspection, it would appear that the quite rare
compound makam Isfahanek may be effected simply by adding a quick iteration of
the makam Saba after playing Isfahan.
Nişabur
Figure 98: Nişabur.
(Nişabur is the name of a Persian City.) The name of this makam appeared attached to
un-notated repertoire in collections of song lyrics from at least the late-seventeenth
century (see Kutluğ 2000 Vol. I, p. 417) but an exact description seems not to have
existed before Arel and Ezgi recorded theirs in the twentieth century; Ezgi saw
Nişabur as Buselik on d/neva below which was “an un-named trichord” (which
Kutluğ nonetheless shows in a graphic as an uşşak-3, yet named “Bûselik Üçlüsü”—
buselik trichord), while Arel described the makam as an overlapping of Çargâh
makam on f/acem, a kürdi-4 on e/hüseyni, and an uşşak-3 on B/buselik (ibid.). Özkan
instead defined a “nişabur-4” and a “nişabur-5”—both of which may be employed
here—conjoined below a kürdi-4 and a çargâh-4 on f/acem respectively, all of which
426
alternates with Buselik on d/neva (1984: 273).49 Arel, and Özkan following him, did
not allow trichords in makam definitions, but since it would seem from this study that
they are de facto part of current performers’ vocabulary of cins-es I am presenting
Nişaburek as Dr. Ezgi did (see notated figure above), even though performers in this
study did not explain this particular makam in those terms (see an example on DVD
2/24). We might also note that Nişabur is the only member of the Uşşak family not to
have A/dügâh as its tonic, and the only one not to have a rast cins below its tonic
(here there is only the sub-tonic, A/dügâh), as well as the only member for which the
second degree (usually Bq/segâh, here cs/nim hicaz) is actually played as high as it is
written (i.e., at approximately a 10:9 relationship from the tonic).50
Hüseyni
Figure 99: Hüseyni.
(Turkish fr. Arabic “of Husayn,” diminutive of the given name Hassan “the
Beautiful”; also refers to the perde written “e.”) Whereas the makam-s so far
49
We might note the unusual conjunction of two tetrachords here; it is especially strange since even
though there is in effect no such thing as a kürdi-5 (excepting tacitly in an interpretation of Araban,
q.v. below), Özkan has defined such a cins (ibid.: 43), which he might have put to good use here.
50
Here I am betraying a preference for just intonation (with at least a limit of 5) in my interpretation of
the general scale, but let me reiterate that no interval measurements were made for this study, and
performers’ own interpretations may differ from mine.
427
presented as being in the Uşşak family (excepting the singular Nişabur) are often
considered derivative of the mother “makam” Uşşak, Hüseyni is generally
conceptualized as having an independence from it, that is, of not being derived from
Uşşak at all. As mentioned in Chapters IV and VI, even the cins I am calling the
“uşşak-5” (following Özer Özel, and the pattern of other cins names) is universally
known in Turkey today as the “hüseyni pentachord.” Feldman notes that Cantemir
appeared to think of Hüseyni as the primary makam of the Turkish music system
(1996: 195). Aside from its distinctive “çeşni-s,” Hüseyni’s main distinctions from
Uşşak are the dominant (e/hüseyni rather than d/neva), its seyir (descending-
ascending rather than ascending), and the normative upper (“açan”) cins (an uşşak-4
rather than a buselik-4, though it is possible in both makam-s to use the tone fs/eviç
when ascending to the upper octave and f/acem [often by a glissando from fs/eviç]
when descending). Hüseyni is also probably the single most popular mode used in
Turkish folk musics, and both repertoire and taksim-s in it may imitate or evoke a
folk feel. See examples of Hüseyni in DVD 5/42, 6/62, 7/68, 8/79, 8/80, 8/81, 8/84.
Muhayyer
(Ottoman fr. Arabic root hār/hūr “falling down” (though cf. khār/khīr “freely chosen,
having an option”); also refers to the perde written “a.”) Muhayyer is essentially the
descending version of Hüseyni. It is also found in compounds such as Muhayyer-
Kürdi and Muhayyer-Buselik (which, ostensibly, are to begin in Muhayyer and end
with the lower [“kök”] cins of the second makam). See DVD 3/29.
428
Gülizar
(Ottoman “rosy cheeked.”) Gülizar is also a derivative of Hüseyni makam. Özkan
notes that it is sometimes referred to as “Hüseyni Gülizar” (1984: 166-7), and gives
descriptions of two versions: Basit (basic, simple) Gülizar, and Mürekkeb
(compound) Gülizar. Basit Gülizar is described as like Muhayyer (i.e., descending)
but makes its first cadence on the dominant (e/hüseyni) rather than on a/muhayyer,
and is more circumscribed in tessitura—it generally should not rise above c’/tiz
çargâh (nor would it seem to fall below G/rast); otherwise it is (described as) a
mixture of Hüseyni and Muhayyer. Mürekkeb (or Bileşik) Gülizar is the same, but
includes internal modulations to (a descending) Karcığar. In this sense we might draw
a kind of parallel with two makam-s we have seen earlier: Beyati is to Uşşak as
(Mürekkeb) Gülizar is to Hüseyni (i.e., circumscribed as to tessitura, concentrating on
the upper [“açan” cins] and the dominant, modulating internally to Karcığar). See an
example of Basit Gülizar on DVD 7/69, and Mürekkeb Gülizar on DVD 1/12.
Gerdaniye
([? A sweet lamb dish.] cf. Arabic Kirdan; also refers to the perde written “g.”)
Gerdaniye is a compound makam consisting of a descending version of Rast that
modulates to and cadences in Hüseyni. In our sole recorded example (by Murat
Aydemir, see DVD 1/12) the artist also included a brief showing of a hicaz-4 on
e/hüseyni and attributed this move to Tanburi Cemil Bey, saying that this relatively
recent inclusion to the makam made it “perfect” (see Chapter IV). (We might note
429
that this combination itself—a hicaz-4 descending through an uşşak-5—could be
interpreted as being Hisar makam, though the artist did not mention it.)
Parenthetically, the inverse of Gerdaniye—that is, a makam that begins in Hüseyni
then modulates to descending Rast—is called “Selmek”; as noted above under
“Pençgâh,” the makam Özkan called “Pençgâh-ı Asıl” would appear to be an
ascending-descending version of Selmek makam.51
Saba
Figure 100: Saba.
(Saba [“Sheba”] is the name of a [pleasant] wind [in Yemen?]; may also refer to a
tone approximately 1 comma sharper than d w/nim hicaz.) Saba makam is essentially a
compound makam that begins with an ascending Zirgüleli Hicaz makam (q.v. under
Hicaz family) on c/çargâh (itself formerly known as “Çargâh makam,” see Wright
1990) which then falls through an uşşak trichord “in its place,” i.e., on A/dügâh. See
examples as internal modulations in DVD 1/17, 3/28. Parenthetically, in Istanbul the
first call to prayer of the day (sabah ezanı) is traditionally “recited” in makam Saba
(i.e., everyone in the city hears it at least once per day, quite early in the morning). It
51
Parentheticaly, a descending-ascending version of the same may be thought of as the basis for the
very rare Dilnişin makam.
430
is sometimes attributed with evoking a feeling of longing.52 The remaining
commentary on this makam regards competing ideas about representing Saba makam.
One issue is the idea of a “saba tetrachord”—Arel seems to have invented this to fit
his scheme in which all makam-s are constructed of one pentachord and one
tetrachord (though it must be pointed out that the notated diagram he gave in his
description instead showed the makam as I have: Zirgüleli Hicaz on c/çargâh
followed by an uşşak trichord, see 1968 [1943-8]: 247—just as Yekta had also done,
see 1922 [1913]: 2998).53 Furthermore, Arel gave e/hüseyni as the 3rd degree of the
Zirgüleli Hicaz aspect of the makam, making the augmented second interval
characteristic of the Hicaz family a “13-comma wide” version rather than the
normative 12-comma wide version of the augmented 2nd.54 As noted in Chapter VI,
there are occasions when, due to the limitations of the interface between fixed-pitch
instruments and the Arelian notation system, a 13-comma wide augmented 2nd is
needed for some transpositions of makam-s in the Hicaz family, but this is not such
an occasion; the proper perde in that position should be eq/dik hisar. Although Özkan
lists that tone rather than e/hüseyni, he follows the Arelian custom of leaving it out of
the makam “signature” (donanım, which see above), and it has become normative in
notation to use that “signature” without marking individual instances of eq/dik hisar.
This situation—apparently a result of Arelian representations of Saba makam—seems

52
Perhaps because it is perceived as “not reaching its upper octave” (see below).
53
Nonetheless, note the saba-reminiscent “ısfahan-5” (A B c d e) of “the Systematists” in Kutluğ
q q
2000 Vol. I, p. 341.
54
Again let me reiterate that Arel did not measure intervals in commas.
431
to have resulted in a widespread loss of understanding of Saba as a compound, and
therefore of the existence of (Zirgüleli) Hicaz inside of it. There is a concomitant
“mystery” as to why the makam does not “reach its upper octave” (that is,
a/muhayyer is misconceived as the upper octave of some octave scale on A/dügâh),
and confusion about whether or not the meyan section of a taksim should begin on
a/muhayyer (compare Saba in DVD 1/17 with that in DVD 3/28), and of what exactly
should be the intonations of the perde-s represented here as d w/hicaz and eq/dik hisar
(see Signell 2008 [1973]: 45, and Wright 1990: 232 fn. 37). Probably the official
“signature” of Saba makam should be changed minimally to Bq eq d w, and better still
to Bq eq Aw d w (i.e., that of Zirgüleli Hicaz on c/çargâh, giving A/dügâh its natural
sign as needed rather than altering a w/şehnaz every time).
432
SEGÂH FAMILY
Segâh
Figure 101: Segâh (1).
alternating with
Figure 102: Segâh (2).
(Ottoman via Persian, “third position”; also refers to the perde written “Bq/segâh.”)
Please note that the notated diagram above, though presenting the standard
“signature” (donanım) for Segâh makam, is a unique representation of the makam’s
structure, since (as demonstrated in Chapters III and IV) current theory recognizes
neither trichords nor a hüzzam cins of the type used here, and performers’ usage of
these is generally not standardized (or even agreed upon).
As explained in Chapter V, Bq/segâh and fs/eviç have “special leading tones” a 4-
comma interval below,55 in this case As/kürdi and f/acem respectively; the
55
As do their octave equivalents, and any tone acting as the third of a rast-5 or the root of a segâh or
müstear cins.
433
characteristic frequent use of these tones—often as replacements for the pitch
normally found below—seem to be the cause of an understanding of this makam as
having a hicaz-4 on fs/eviç, an understanding made official in the Arelian explanation
of the makam’s construction.56 The issue is: if there only exists a “segâh pentachord”
to work with (as declared by Yekta 1922 [1913]: 3000; Arel 1968 [1943-8]: 24-6; and
Özkan 1984: 276) then to what else could it be attached?57 Having necessarily to be a
tetrachord spanning fs to bq there is only one viable alternative to a hicaz-4 (fs g as
bq), that being a “segâh tetrachord” (fs g a bq), which none of these theorists accepted.
By accepting a segâh trichord and the hüzzam tetrachord (about which see Appendix
H) we give ourselves the vocabulary to represent the makam more in accord with an
understanding that is more practical (see Chapters IV-VI) and perhaps more
traditional.58
Arel, and Özkan thought of Segâh as a compound makam,59 minimally mixing their
“segâh-5” with Hicaz on fs/eviç and with an overlapping Uşşak/Beyati on d/neva.60 It
56
It might be instructive to note that in Arab maqām praxis the perde buzrak (= tiz segâh) is never
approached directly from muhayyar below it in maqām Sikah (≈ Segâh), but rather by a leap from
kirdan (= gerdaniye) (p.c. Scott Marcus).
57
We must note that such “special leading tones” for the same perde-s occur in many makam-s—in
fact, apparently regardless of makam—without changing the cins-es that constitute their structure.
58
Note the characteristic use of a /dik sümbüle in Segâh in such time honored pieces as the Segâh Saz
s
Semaisi of Nayi Ozman Dede (d. 1729), the Segâh Saz Semaisi of Kemani Hızır Ağa (d. 1760), the
Segâh Peşrev of Neyzen Yusuf Paşa (d.1884) et al.—which is in fact consistent with current taksim
praxis—only appears in the 3rd hane (which Feldman suggests as the original area of opening
modulation up to the eighteenth century [see 1996: 1, 16], equivalent to the meyan section of a
taksim); a /dik sümbüle is there used as a leading tone, neither outlining a hicaz cins nor played in a
s
manner consistent with characteristic melodic movement found in any member of the Hicaz family.
59
Though Yekta did not; for him there was not even f/acem in the definition of Segâh (see 1922
[1913]: 3000).
434
should be obvious from its name, however, that at least originally it was one of the
prototypical non-compound makam-s, an octave species of the original “basic scale”
(see Appendix G). If we accept that scale as the one understood by Yekta, Töre,
Karadeniz et al. (ibid.)—G A Bq c d eq f g, with the use of fs/eviç in ascending
passages since at least the mid-fifteenth century (see Chapter III)—and include the
use of “special leading tones” as idiomatic but not structural elements of the makam,
then indeed there is no reason to think of Segâh as a compound even today. Since the
Arelian simplification of the makam system eradicated the above understanding of
Rast, the idea of any form of Rast as the traditional basic scale, and the makam-
independence of idiomatic tone alterations such as the “special leading tone” and the
“rising/falling cazibe” (not to mention trichords and the possibility of a “hüzzam
tetrachord”), perhaps there was no alternative than to consider Segâh a compound.
Still, although I have portrayed an “octave scale” aspect of the makam, it would be
appropriate to note that current praxis often minimally extends the upper rast-3 to a
rast-5, making of the material shown in the second diagram a de facto Neva makam,
which is easily turned into Bayati et al. by fully flattening the bq/tiz segâh to
be/sümbüle by “cazibe” (cf. Irak makam, below), and that a “Hicaz on fs/eviç”—in
my opinion being the result of conditioning to Arelian theory—does currently appear
in taksim-s in Segâh, particularly in the meyan section.
60
See Özkan 1984: 276-8 for even more possibilities.
435
We may note that members of the Segâh family generally have a rast-3 below the
tonic by default (which may be obscured by the use of As/kürdi as the “special
leading tone” of the tonic). Parenthetically, in Istanbul the fourth call to prayer of the
day (akşam ezanı) is traditionally “recited” in makam Segâh (or alternately, Eviç, q.v.
below) i.e., everyone in the city hears one of these makam-s at least once per day.
Hear examples of Segâh on DVD 5/46, 5/48, 6/54, 6/63, A2.61
Hüzzam
Figure 103: Hüzzam.
(“Hüzzam” may also refer to a tone 1-2 commas flatter than eq/nim hisar) See
Appendix H and Chapter V regarding historical understandings of Hüzzam and its
internal construction. For our purposes in this section, we may describe Hüzzam as
closely akin to Segâh though having a descending-ascending seyir and for the most
part refraining from the use of f/acem and having much less (if any) use of “special
61
Note that Both Arel and Yılmaz claimed that the transposition of Segâh to the perde c /nim hicaz is
s
called “Heftgâh” (Arel 1968 [1943-8]: Chapter 12; Yılmaz 2007 [1973] :77). Since this means literally
“7th position/mode” and the name nim hicaz is of much later date than the time that the tonic of the
basic scale was D/yegâh, a 7th below it, there appears to be an anachronism here. In any case it is an
exceedingly rare makam, as is the related “(Segâh-)Maye,” which consists of Segâh, a species-type
modulation to Uşşak, and a return to Segâh (see Özkan 1984: 282).
436
leading tones” mentioned as characteristic of Segâh above.62 Hear Hüzzam as an
internal modulation in DVD 1/1 and 2/15, and compare Cinuçen Tanrıkorur’s
Hüzzam taksim on Türk Müziği Ustaları – Ud Kalan 2004c: 2/20.
Irak
Figure 104: Irak.
Irak (named for the country, Iraq; also refers to the perde written “Fs.”) is also very
much like Segâh makam (a perfect fourth lower) but without the eq/dik hisar/hüzzam-
4 aspect (though Özkan mentions this as a possibility; 1984: 446).63 The normative
“makam signature” includes fs but it would seem to be there more for the tonic ırak
than for eviç; effectively this puts the makam Uşşak atop the segâh trichord, which,
though an ascending makam, is often how Irak is played (though unfortunately it did
not appear in our recorded examples).
62
Standing as evidence for their independence from particular makam-s is the fact that such “special
leading tones” are sometimes explicitly excluded from certain makam-s’ definitions, but (except for
the unusual cases of Segâh and Ferahnak (q.v. below) where Arel’s theory clashed with alternative
explanations) are never so explicitly included.
63
Remembering that Özkan’s version of Hüzzam has e /hisar rather than e /dik hisar (ibid.). He also
w q
mentions on the same page that there may be included a hicaz-4 on C /kaba nim hicaz (cf. Fahri
s
Kopuz’s “Hüzzam taksim” Türk Müziği Ustaları – Ud Kalan 2004c: 1/16, analyzed in Chapter V).
437
Eviç
Eviç (Ottoman form of Arabic àuj, “highest, utmost” 64; it also refers to the perde
written “fs.”) is often described as the descending version of Irak, though it would
appear currently to be much more popular than that makam, and (at least to my ear)
more closely resembles a descending version of Segâh (but a perfect fourth lower).
Hear an example of Eviç on DVD 2/23. Parenthetically Eviç is sometimes used as the
traditional makam in which the 4th daily call to prayer (akşam ezanı) is “recited” in
Istanbul (as a replacement for Segâh).
Ferahnak
(Ottoman from Persian “spacious.”) Arel viewed Ferahnak as a compound makam
(1968 [1943-8]: 26-7, 179), which Özkan elaborated thus:
“[Ferahnak] comes to be the adding one to another [in descending order] of a

Rast pentachord on Nevâ, a Hicaz tetrachord on Nîm Hicaz, a Ferahnak
pentachord on Segâh, a Rast pentachord on Dügâh, and a Ferahnak
pentachord on Irak.” (1984: 477)
Both men insisted on the use of a “ferahnak pentachord” (Fs – G – A – B – cs) which,
like Segâh above, could only accommodate a hicaz tetrachord from its fifth degree in
order to complete Arel’s vision of every makam as an octave scale made of one
pentachord conjoined to a tetrachord.
64
Apparently referring to the position of the perde of the same name in the basic scale; it is the highest
tone of that scale before reaching the upper octave.
438
The examples made for our study (both by Mehmet Emin Bitmez, see DVD 2/22 and
2/23) appear more to be a descending combinations of:
• segâh-3 on Fs/ırak + rast-3 on A/dügâh +hicaz-4 on cs/nim hicaz and
• segâh-3 on Fs/ırak + rast-4 on A/dügâh + rast-3 on d/neva
But more succinctly, it is quite like a descending Segâh on ırak (or seemingly, like
Eviç) as the “third octave species of the basic scale” when the basic scale (here, as
originally, on D/yegâh) is understood as Arel and Ezgi did—with the sixth degree as
B/buselik rather than Bq/segâh as Yekta, et al., did (see Appendix G).65
Müstear
Figure 105: Müstear (1).
alternating with
Figure 106: Müstear (2).
65
As members of the basic scale per se, we should understand that buselik is here standing for hüseyni
and segâh is standing for dik hisar/hisarek.
439
Müstear (Ottoman from Arabic “borrowed; pen name” [possibly from the root sarra
in form 10, “to conceal”]) is described in Özkan as “…consisting of adding from time
to time a Müstear pentachord to Segâh makam” (1984: 285). While it is true that
performers have described Müstear as “barren” (kısır) and as a makam usually
appearing briefly within another makam (e.g., Evcara DVD 2/23, 2/24 and Rast DVD
3/30, 7/74; see Chapter IV; cf. “terkib” described in Chapter II) I would attribute to
the scalar material shown above slightly more prominence than to Segâh makam in
the overall makeup of Müstear—though I would concur that Segâh may enter into it
(though given the definition of Segâh given above rather than Özkan’s), and noting
(as Özkan also did, ibid.) that Müstear usually does not ascend as high as Segâh does,
perhaps only to its upper octave bq/tiz segâh.66 See an example of Müstear on DVD
6/64.
Bestenigâr
(Beste = song, composition; nigâr = that which engraves, a miniature painting.)
Bestenigâr is a compound of Saba makam (q.v. above) that ends by falling through a
segâh-3 on Fs/ırak; as our examples show it may also include a display of Irak
makam itself in cadences on that perde. See DVD 1/4, 3/28, 6/61.
66
Note that Özkan, probably by mistake, left the f out of Müstear’s “signature” (1984: 286-7).
s
440
Rahat-ül Ervah
(Ottoman from Arabic Rahat al-Arwah “Repose of the Souls.”) This makam is a
compound consisting of combinations of Hicaz, Hümayun and Uzzal (all of which are
described under the Hicaz family, below), which then makes its final melodic
gestures and cadence by falling through a segâh trichord on Fs/ırak. It does not appear
amongst our recorded examples, but see Chapter V and Appendix H, in which its
occasional confusion with Hüzzam makam is explained.
441
BUSELIK FAMILY
Buselik
Figure 107: Buselik (1).
alternating with
Figure 108: Buselik (2).
Buselik (formerly spelled “Puselik”; refers to the perde written “B z.”) is a relatively
rarely played makam that is accorded status above its popularity due to its name being
also that of a frequently employed pentachord, and because its basic form’s diatonic
structure (which needs no accidentals when notated on the Arelian version of the
Western staff) fit Arel’s notion of a “relative minor” type scale to pair with the
invented “Çargâh makam” that he posited as the basic scale of Turkish makam music.
The only time I heard a taksim played in Buselik it was given an internal modulation
to Uşşak on e/hüseyni (the dominant), and Özkan also reported that this is typical of
the makam; he also reported as typical an internal modulation to Hicaz on d/neva and
to its “species” Nikriz on c/çargâh. The descending version (beginning with the form
having a hicaz-4) is called Şehnaz-Buselik. Buselik is also a popular ending for a
442
class of compound makam-s whose names (and performances) end in “-Buselik”
(e.g., see Arazbar-Buselik, below). No recorded taksim examples were made in
Buselik proper.
Nihavend
Figure 109: Nihavend (1).
alternating with
Figure 110: Nihavend (2).
(Also spelled “Nihavent”; a city in Persia; may refer to a tone one comma flatter than
Be/kürdi.) Nihavend is listed in Arelian textbooks as a transposition of Buselik but its
much greater popularity (and the perhaps circumstantial evidence that its Arab
maqām equivalent, Nahāwand, is the only version in that sphere) makes me wonder
about this perception of Buselik’s primacy. Both appear to have long histories but for
whatever reason Nihavend is both more often played and less respected; see
comments in Chapter IV about the makam having no “çeşni-s” of its own, and of it
being a (mere) “song (şarkı) makam,” more suited to restaurant entertainment than
443
for serious works. I would suppose that some of this is due to its deployment as “the
minor scale” in musical theater of the “kanto” variety in the late-nineteenth and early-
twentieth century (see Ederer 2007: 57-61), in which imitating Western popular dance
music—waltzes, foxtrots, etc.—resulted in the inclusion of such techniques as
arpeggios, triadic parallel movement, and chromaticism. Members of the three
“diatonic” makam families—Buselik, Acem Aşiran, and Kürdi—are especially prone
to such treatment.67 A few artists have told me that (like Buselik) if it does not have a
little Uşşak played from the dominant (here d/neva – as on DVD 8/83) then it is not
“really” Nihavend. If that is the case, then much of what passes for this makam
currently is “not really Nihavend.” Note that members of this family generally have a
leading tone 4 commas below the tonic (or 5, implying a hicaz-4 below) though
occasionally a subtonic is used instead (implying a kürdi-4). See DVD 1/3, 1/8, 1/9,
3/34, 4/40, 5/44, 8/83, 8/87 for examples in this makam.
Sultani Yegâh
(“The sultan’s [version of the makam called] ‘first position.’”) This makam is
described as “the descending version of Buselik on the perde Yegâh” (Özkan 1984:
215). See DVD 5/51 for an example. (Parenthetically, the other named
“transposition”68 of Buselik beside Nihavend and Sultani Yegâh was invented by the
67
“Diatonic” meaning having scales constructed exclusively of whole tones and half tones.
68
As noted in Chapter IV, most artists reject the Arelian idea that these are mere transpositions; for
them if a makam has its own name it cannot be considered a mere transposition, and must have its own
distinguishing characteristics, however subtle (although I cannot name those of Sultani Yegâh,
specifically).
444
theorist Suphi Ezgi; it is played on E/hüseyni aşiran and called “Ruhnüvaz” [“soul-
rewarding.”])
Ferahfeza
(Ottoman for both “leisurely space” and “joy-increasing.”) This is a compound
makam consisting of the following (necessarily descending) sequence: a çargâh-5 on
f/acemAcem makam (or Acem-Kürdi, see DVD 7/71)Acem Aşiran
makamSultani Yegâh makam. In a general sense, the dominant is A/dügâh, but
emphasis follows usage in each of the constituent makam-s. See DVD 7/71 for an
example.
Arazbar-Buselik
Arazbar-Buselik is (predictably) a compound consisting of Arazbar makam that ends
with a cadence in Buselik (that is, minimally showing a buselik-5). Since Buselik is
described above, this description is really that of the makam Arazbar.69 Performers
will occasionally refer to any Uşşak family gesture on the perde d/neva as “Arazbar,”
ignoring—as they so often do with “Araban” (qua “Hicaz on d/neva”)—that the
makam proper continues to fall through an uşşak tetrachord in its place (i.e., on
A/dügâh). In Arab maqām, Arazbar would be called “Bayyātayn”—“Two Bayyati-s,”
that is, first Beyati played on d/neva, then played again on A/dügâh.70
69
Arazbar would normally be under the Uşşak family, but as it did not appear outside of this
compound I have placed its description here.
70
In Arab maqām practice, however, the notes would read g/nawā and D/dūkāh.
445
This is the basis of the makam, but it is not as simple as that. Our only recorded
example of the makam “without modulation” (DVD 1/10, but see also in an internal
modulation, DVD 3/30) shows the following sequence: Rast on c/çargâhUşşak on
d/nevaRast on c/çargâhHicaz on d/nevaBuselikRast on c/çargâhNikriz
on c/çargâhUşşak on d/nevaNikriz on c/çargâhBuselik. Note the “species”
relationships between Rast on c/çargâh and Uşşak on d/neva, and between Nikriz on
c/çargâh and Hicaz on d/neva. This analysis is more or less in alignment with
Özkan’s description of Arazbar: Beyati on d/neva falls to a rast-5 on c/çargâh falls to
Beyati proper, with occasional internal modulations to Hicaz on d/neva and/or Nikriz
on c/çargâh (which for this Arazbar-Buselik compound ends in Buselik).71
71
Another possible (certainly simpler) way to explain Arazbar would be to describe it as Beyati on
d/neva that becomes Karcığar, though I have not heard of such an explanation either from performers
or theory texts.
446
KÜRDİ FAMILY
Kürdi
Figure 111: Kürdi.
(“Of the Kurds”; also refers to the perde written “Be.”) Kürdi is currently spoken of
by performers as though it were a very popular, much used makam, but aside from
the kürdi tetrachord’s frequent use in the construction of other makam-s it is not, as
far as I have experienced it, played very often. Aside from its use in internal
modulations (mostly as a mere cins, see DVD 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/9, 1/11, 2/14, 2/15,
2/19, 2/21, 3/26, 3/29, 3/30, 3/32, 3/34, 4/36, 4/37, 4/39, 4/40, 5/41, 5/42, 5/43, 5/44,
5/51, 6/57, 6/58, 6/59, 7/67, 7/68, 7/69, 7/71, 7/72, 7/73, 7/76, 8/77, 8/79, 8/80, 8/81,
8/82, 8/83, 8/84, 8/85, 8/86, 8/87), or as part of compound makam-s such as Acem-
Kürdi and Muhayyer-Kürdi (q.v. below) no performer chose to record a taksim in it
for this study. Özkan notes that it may contain an internal modulation to Nihavend,
which is of the species type until that makam’s 6th degree is reached, in which case it
must be flattened to ee/nim hisar (1984: 111). He notes there also that Kürdi may be
played with an ascending-descending seyir rather than an ascending one. Other
makam-s that may be thought of as transpositions of Kürdi are: Aşk’efza (“love-
increasing,” on E/hüseyni aşiran, invented by Dr. Ezgi, see Özkan 1984: 233) and
Ferahnüma (“happy view” or “spacious view,” on D/yegâh, invented by H. S. Arel,
447
see Özkan 1984: 234), and one interpretation of Kürdili Hicazkâr (which see
below).72
Kürdili Hicazkâr
Figure 112: Kürdili Hicazkâr (1).
sometimes preceded by
Figure 113: Kürdili Hicazkâr (2).
(“‘In the manner of the Ḥijāz’ that has the tone kürdi.”) This makam has two distinct
forms. The first is merely a descending version of Kürdi, transposed a whole step
down to G/rast (see DVD 5/47). The other is a compound that begins in Hicazkâr
(which see under Hicaz family, below) and ends in Kürdi-on-G/rast (usually by
iterating the whole makam rather than just by a showing of the bottom cins, as in the
“-Buselik” compounds); see examples in DVD 1/4, 2/19, 4/39, 5/43, 6/57, 6/58.
72
Since on the one hand both Arel and Ezgi regarded these as “mere transpositions” (see Arel 1968
[1943-8]: 33, 132, 317) and yet both developed several such transpositions into distinct makam-s in
their own right we may note some hypocrisy regarding the subject.
448
This second version of Kürdili Hicazkâr may be the breeding ground of an interesting
melodic gesture: the “pre-cadential flat five,” in which, just before the final cadence,
a brief stop is made on the tone 4 commas below the fifth degree of the ending
makam, usually followed by a descent to the tonic and a rise that reiterates the
normative fifth degree before the final cadence. It had been mentioned to me as
specifically associated with Zirgüleli types of Hicaz (N. Çelik p.c., in a caveat that it
not be used in the praxis of other types of Hicaz),73 but is also common in all forms of
compounds ending “-Kürdi.” I suspect that the gesture traveled from the former into
the latter by way of Kürdili Hicazkâr because the dominant of Kürdi per se—the
ending gesture of both types of this makam—is its 4th degree, which a pre-cadential
iteration of variations of the fifth frustrates. I suggest that its normativity in Hicazkâr
(as a type of Zirgüleli Hicaz) was in a sense transferred to other “–Kürdi” compounds
even when a “pre-cadential flat five” melodic gesture would not appear in the other
makam-s per se (e.g., see Muhayyer-Kürdi and Acem-Kürdi below, which compare
with Muhayyer and Acem).
Muhayyer-Kürdi
As the name implies, this is a compound makam consisting of the makam Muhayyer
(q.v. above) which ends with the makam Kürdi. Generally in compounds of this
hyphenated or dual type—that is, those that basically consist of two makam-s played
73
Which see below: the Zirgüleli Hicaz type is constructed of a hicaz-5 + a hicaz-4, and has a
characteristic leading tone nominally 4 commas below the tonic (G /zirgüle, but in both current
d
practice and theory 5 commas below the tonic—G /nim zirgüle).
s
449
one after another—the first makam is played in full but the second makam may be
represented by as little as its lower (“kök”) cins (see the description of Kürdili
Hicazkâr above). But two of our examples of Muhayyer-Kürdi (on DVD 5/41 and
DVD 7/73), as well as such prominent composed pieces as Sadi Işılay’s Muhayyer-
Kürdi Saz Semaisi, use only a kürdi cins in the lower (“kök”) position (seemingly a
pentachord, though Kürdi proper has a tetrachord); in fact the example by Şükrü
Kabacı (DVD 5/41) treats it simply as Muhayyer’s seyir and note hierarchy with
Kürdi’s tones (perhaps as a “descending version of Kürdi,” with emphasis on the 5th
degree). (Note in both examples the “pre-cadential flat-fifth” gesture mentioned under
Kürdili Hicazkâr, though in both cases the melody continues to descend without re-
iterating either 4th or 5th degree as dominant.) The third example recorded for this
study (DVD 8/80) features two players introducing a piece of music in the makam:
the first player seems simply to play Hüseyni (though without the uşşak-4 expected in
the açan level), the second seems to play something like a Basit Gülizar using Kürdi’s
tones.
Acem-Kürdi
For the same reason mentioned in Muhayyer-Kürdi above, we expect Acem-Kürdi
basically to consist of the makam Acem (itself a compound makam, which see under
Uşşak family, above), followed by the makam Kürdi or minimally a kürdi cins. Our
450
only recorded example of the makam (DVD 7/76 74) appears very much as though it
were Acem Aşiran that ends on its third degree (A/dügâh); the tone Bq/segâh, which
appears in Acem but is replaced by Be/kürdi in Kürdi, is altogether absent (NB, in the
same way that it was absent in similar performances of Muhayyer-Kürdi).
Araban-Kürdi
Araban-Kürdi consists of Araban (whose disputed construction see under the Hicaz
family) which then falls through a kürdi-4 on A/dügâh. It appears for a brief moment
as an internal modulation on DVD 6/57.
Muhayyer-Sümbüle
(Sümbüle = hyacinth.) Sümbüle itself is a now obscure makam that consisted of
(what Arel called) “Çargâh” (or at least a çargâh-5) on f/acem that falls to Saba
makam.75 It would seem more apparent here than in the other “Muhayyer-” type
compounds we have yet seen that the term “Muhayyer” may serve as a trope meaning
“descending, from the perde a/muhayyer” rather than as a reference to the makam
Muhayyer per se; Muhayyer does not appear at all in Muhayyer-Sümbüle. For that
74
Mehmet Bitmez mentioned an extremely brief moment of Acem-Kürdi in his Acem Aşiran taksim
(DVD 2/21) that I suspect he meant to describe as “Saba-Kürdi” (or Saba-Zemzeme) instead.
75
It is probably the extension of this makam downward by another three tones of a çargâh cins to
F/acemaşiran that caused the makam Acem Aşiran habitually to have an internal modulation to Saba
(sse Acem Aşiran under Acem Aşiran family, below [but see also Şevk-u Tarab, under Şevk’efza,
below]). Although I have not counted it in the list of makam-s clearly presented in recordings made for
this study, it could be argued that there is a brief moment of Sümbüle as an internal modulation in a
Dügâh taksim on DVD 5/52 (q.v.).
451
matter, the fact that it ends in Kürdi (or at least in a kürdi cins) is obscured by its
name as well.
Özkan describes three types of Muhayyer-Sümbüle (1984: 369-70):
1. “a portion of Çargâh [diagram shows a pentachord + one tone]” on the perde
f/acem falling to Zirgüleli Hicaz on c/çargâh, falling through an
overlapping “saba tetrachord”76 [i.e., Saba makam]
2. a (Zirgüleli) Hicaz tetrachord on a/muhayyer falling toa çargâh-5 on f/acem
falling toSaba makam ending ina kürdi-4
3. “Acemli Hüseyni”77 on d/neva (inside of which exists a çargâh-5 on f/acem)
shifting toHümayun (q.v. under Hicaz family) on c/çargâh shifting
toSaba (Zirgüleli Hicaz on c/çargâh falling through an overlapping “saba
tetrachord”) shifting toa “Kürdi trichord”78
Our only recorded example (by Murat Aydemir, DVD 2/14) would seem to be closest
to the second sort, though he did not play Saba per se, but rather Zirgüleli Hicaz on
c/çargâh moving directly to Kürdi (i.e., eschewing Bq/segâh).
76
The Arelian “saba-4” is A – B – C – D , though I believe it to be obsolete; see “Saba” above.
q w
77
“Acemli Hüseyni” meaning the makam Hüseyni with a “flat” 6th degree—if Hüseyni were “in its
place,” that tone would be “acem” (whence “Acemli”), though in this transposition it is the tone
b /sümbüle.
e
78
We must note this as one of the very few instances in which a trichord is explicitly admitted into the
(otherwise) Arelian description of a makam’s constitution.
452
Saba-Zemzeme
(Zemzeme = a well supposedly dug or discovered by the biblical Abraham and his
son Ishmael near the Kaaba in Mecca.) The makam Saba-Zemzeme per se was not
played in any of our recorded examples,79 but I include it to mention a (small,
currently obscure) category of compound makam-s with the ending “-Zemzeme” that
also end in a kürdi cins of some kind; apparently “Zemzeme” is a former name of
Kürdi makam (see Kutluğ 2000 Vol. I, pp. 489-99). Saba-Zemzeme in particular is an
ascending-descending Zirgüleli Hicaz on f/çargâh that falls through a kürdi-3 instead
of the uşşak-3 expected of Saba.
79
Though see a possible very brief iteration of it in Mehmet Emin Bitmez’s Acem Aşiran taksim,
DVD 2/21.
453
ACEM AŞIRAN FAMILY
Before presenting the makam-s in this family it must be noted that in current Arelian
theory this would be understood as being the “Çargâh family,” since the “makam”
that Arel and Ezgi invented as representing the primary diatonic mode with a “major
3rd” up from the root (analogue to the Western C major scale) was called “Çargâh.”
As Yekta noted before that invention, Acem Aşiran is the former such “analogue”
(1922 [1913]: 2948; see also Appendix G). Since current theorists are in agreement
that Çargâh need no longer be considered the “basic scale” of makam music, and it is
agreed that there is really no repertoire in such a “makam” (see Chapter III), I am
using the pre-Arelian terminology to categorize actually extant makam-s in this
family.
Acem Aşiran
Figure 114: Acem Aşiran.
(Acem from Arabic Àjam = “Persian,” [orig. “non-Arabic speaker”]; Aşiran from
Arabic Ùshayran = “a companion” from the root àshara; refers also to the perde
written “Fz.”) In its essential form the makam Acem Aşiran is simply the scale shown
454
above, descending from its upper tonic to its tonic,80 which in Arab maqām is referred
to as Àjam.81 However by custom,82 the makam is usually executed as a compound
that begins and ends as the makam portrayed in the notation above but with internal
modulations to Acem, and to Saba; hear examples on DVD 2/21, 4/38, 5/50, 8/77.
Additionally, when concentrating on the dominant c/çargâh and using the Acem
aspect, there is a de facto possibility for including Pençgâh on F/acemaşiran; I have
heard this much exploited by some and I have heard it criticized by others, so I would
say that there is not currently a consensus as to whether it should be thought part of
the makam itself.83 There is also usually a moment when, after playing the Zirgüleli
Hicaz aspect of Saba that makam’s leading tone (Bq/segâh, i.e., Saba’s 2nd degree) is
overtaken by the “mother scale’s” Be/kürdi 4th degree; this is normally immediately
followed by showing d/neva, from which a descent through the “mother scale” to the
tonic ensues, but if it does not, there is the potential for a “taste” of Saba-Zemzeme
and/or its “species” companion Nikriz on Be/kürdi, though these are best avoided
unless a modulation (internal or external) to Şevk’efza is intended. (See definitions
for Saba-Zemzeme here above, and for Nikriz and Şevk’efza below under the Nikriz
family.)
80
Note that in another, equally valid representation, the upper tonic f/acem can be shown as the “first
dominant” and c/çargâh as the “second dominant.”
81
Which contrast with the Turkish makam Acem, above under the Uşşak family.
82
For at least 150 years, judging by a certain famous ayin in the Mevlevi repertoire, see Yekta 1931.
83
Compare the compound makam Şevk’aver, which Özkan has as: Rast on çargâh becomes Nihavend
becomes Acem Aşiran (1984: 492-3).
455
Mahur
(Persian “rising or sloping ground”; also refers to the perde written “fd”; its musical
meaning may originally be cognate with the English word “major.”) Mahur makam is
currently portrayed in Arelian theory as a descending “G major scale” ending on
G/rast (see Özkan 1984: for which reason its “signature” shows only fd) but it would
appear to have been explained otherwise in different eras, firstly as being a
descending form of Rast that has fd/mahur rather than fs/eviç (or f/acem) as its 7th
degree, sometimes as this but using B/buselik and fd/mahur when ascending and
Bq/segâh and fs/eviç when descending, and at times simply as descending Rast (see
Kutluğ 2000 Vol. I, pp. 438-41). Hear an example on DVD 7/75.
Zavil
(Ottoman from Arabic Zawil/Zaul “witty, ingenious; hawk.”) The single recorded
taksim example that we have in Zavil makam shows a descending mixture of
Pesendide, Mahur, and Nikriz makam-s (q.v. herein; see also DVD 1/6). Aydemir has
Mahur with an internal modulation to Nikriz (i.e., ending in Mahur) as sufficient
(2010: 52).
456
HICAZ FAMILY
(Arabic “Ḥijāz,” a region of the Arabian Peninsula; also refers to the perde written
“cd.”) Hicaz is the namesake of a makam family currently having four—perhaps
five—basic forms: Hicaz, Hümayun, Uzzal, Zirgüle (aka Zirgüleli Hicaz, aka
Zengüle), and a certain interpretation of Araban. It is clear that the original interval
arrangement characteristic of this family was quite different form today’s Hicaz (see
Appendix H, Kutluğ 2000 Vol. I, pp. 176-86, Feldman 1996: 208), though some
holdover elements may remain in non-classical versions,84 and in the makam-s
Hüzzam, Beyati-Araban, and Araban (all described elsewhere in this appendix). The
main distinguishing factors between the Hicaz types today (beside individually
identifying melodic gestures and seyir-s) are the construction of their scalar material,
though it must be noted that the practice of mixing hicaz types, that is, of fluidly
modulating from one to the next, is common; in one sense this is an invitation to a
discerning listener to follow subtle changes, but it sometimes makes it difficult to
distinguish the intended “base” makam, and more experienced musicians complain
that less experienced musicians today mix Hicaz types without knowing what they are
doing—the potential loss of these distinctions is certainly part of the general “loss
anxiety” described in Chapter IV.
84
Originally the second degree was much higher (some version of segâh, in fact) and the third degree
apparently lower (the perde “uzzal”); such an arrangement may be found in the “Istanbul Hicazı”
mentioned in Chapter IV, in the “Garip [Western/strange/nostalgic] Hicaz” of Romany musicians of
Western Turkey, and in the “Garip ayağı” of Anatolian folk music (see Kutluğ 2000 Vol. I, p. 527).
457
Part of that problem is that the phenomenon of using fs/eviç when rising and f/acem
when falling—which occurs in many makam-s, and may in fact be a makam-
independent gesture—takes place in exactly the spot where the basic distinctions are
made; perhaps such a confusion is inevitable. Beside this we might note other
common characteristics of members of the Hicaz family, for instance that—excepting
Zirgüle—they implicitly have a rast cins below the tonic (which allows them to use
Nikriz as a “species”) but otherwise tend to repeat at the upper octave by default, and
that, parenthetically, no makam in the Hicaz family actually contains the perde named
cd/hicaz.85
85
See Kutluğ 2000 Vol I, p. 186 regarding the earliest known reference to a “Hicâzi” makam (also
mentioned in Appendix H); see also Feldman 1996: 195-216 regarding both the naming of makam-s
for tones, and the seeming origins of today’s Hicaz family of makam-s.
458
Hicaz
Figure 115: Hicaz.
Hicaz proper is distinguished by having a hicaz tetrachord in the bottom (“kök”) cins
level and a rast pentachord in the upper (“açan”) cins level. Parenthetically, in
Istanbul the third call to prayer of the day (ikindi ezanı) is traditionally “recited” in
makam Hicaz (i.e., everyone in the city hears it at least once per day). Hicaz may be
heard on DVD 1/3, 3/32, 3/33, 6/56, 8/78, 8/85.
Hümayun
Figure 116: Hümayun.
Hümayun (“Imperial”) is distinguished by having a hicaz tetrachord in the bottom
(“kök”) cins level and a buselik pentachord in the upper (“açan”) cins level; Özkan
notes that it may be played with a kürdi-4 on a/muhayyer, de facto extending the
Buselik-on-d/neva of the makam (1984: 134-5). Hümayun may be heard on DVD
5/49, 8/86.
459
Uzzal
Figure 117: Uzzal.
Uzzal (possibly a Semitic tribal name; see Genesis 10:26-27) is distinguished by
having a hicaz pentachord in the lower (“kök”) cins level and an uşşak tetrachord in
the upper (“açan”) cins level. “Uzzal” appears to have once been the name of the
perde now called cs/nim hicaz, and may have been the progenitor of the Hicaz family
as we know it today (see Appendix H). Özkan notes that Uzzal may be played with a
buselik-5 conjoined above a/muhayyer, extending the Uşşak-on-e/hüseyni aspect of
the makam, and that additionally a hicaz-5 might be conjoined to e/muhayyer in order
to show an internal modulation to Karcığar-on-e/hüseyni (1984: 146-7). He also notes
the following:
“In Uzzâl makam, especially in descending melodies, because Eviç [fs/eviç] is

replaced by Acem [f/acem] a new variety of Hicaz results. This is in the form
Hicaz pentachord + Kürdî tetrachord. Although not used on its own, in the
Hicaz family makam-s, especially in Uzzâl in the course of its path and in
other makam-s in which it is a modulation it is used a lot. Having no other
name, we might call this Acem’li Uzzâl [Uzzal with acem].” (ibid.)
Regarding this, however, see the description of Araban makam, below. Uzzal was
named as an internal modulation in DVD 1/2, 1/3, 1/11, 3/32, 3/33, 8/85.
460
Zirgüleli Hicaz
Figure 118: Zirgüleli Hicaz.
Zirgüleli Hicaz (“Hicaz with [the perde] Gd/zirgüle”; both makam and perde have
also been called “Zengüle”) is distinguished by its conjunction of two hicaz cins-es,
and by its use of the leading tone Gs/nim Zirgüle beneath the tonic (NB: not
Gd/zirgüle) implicitly indicating a hicaz-5 in the “destek” level, mirrored by gs/nim
şehnaz below the upper tonic. It is not as often played per se as it is in transpositions
(or transposed variations) such as Hicazkâr, Zirgüleli Suzinak, Evcara, Şedd Araban
(whose descriptions see below), and Suz-i Dil (“fire of the heart,” descending, on
E/hüseyni aşiran). All members of this type of Hicaz may use—and would seem to be
the original locus of—a particular melodic gesture already mentioned in examples of
the Kürdi family: the pre-cadential “flattening” of the fifth degree.86 That this gesture
is sometimes played in a performance of one of the other previously mentioned Hicaz
types is (at least for Necati Çelik, p.c.) one of the lamented losses of distinguishing
boundaries between makam-s—and particularly amongst members of the Hicaz
family. (There were no taksim-s recorded for this study in Zirgüleli Hicaz makam.)
86
I would note, however, that it is rarer in the Zirgüleli Hicaz-on-c/çargâh aspect of Saba (though see
DVD 5/51 ca. 3:45); perhaps it does not appear there as often because it would not occur near enough
to the true final cadence.
461
Şehnaz
Şehnaz (Ottoman from Persian “very beautiful”) descends from Hümayun on
e/hüseyni through all forms of the Hicaz family in a freely morphing manner. It may
appear to be a descending version of Zirgüleli Hicaz (which at times, it indeed may
be). Hear an example of Şehnaz within a müşterek Hümayun taksim recorded for this
study on DVD 8/86 (and see Özkan 1984:333).
Hicazkâr
Figure 119: Hicazkâr.
Hicazkâr (“in the manner of the Ḥijāz,” i.e., Arab sounding), which we have seen
above in the compound Kürdili Hicazkâr, is a descending form of Zirgüleli Hicaz
makam based on the tonic perde G/rast. A strictly Arelian explanation might present
its (first) dominant as d/neva rather than the upper tonic g/gerdaniye, but Özkan
(1984: 240) and Özel (p.c.) assign the above interpretation (perhaps, in part, to
distinguish it from Zirgüleli Suzinak, which see below). See DVD 2/17, 5/47, 7/67.
Zirgüleli Suzinak
This makam may most easily be described as the descending-ascending version of
Hicazkâr. “Normal” (that is “Basit”) Suzinak—the same makam but having a rast-5
462
in place of the hicaz-5 (q.v. under Rast family)—is often used as an internal
modulation, though I have not seen that gesture described as part of the makam in any
theory text. See DVD 2/15, 8/82.
Evcara
Evcara (evc/eviç = Arabic àuj “highest”; ârâ = Persian “ornamenting”: lit.
“ornamenting the highest [tone],” fig. “the highest opinion/idea”87) is a descending
compound makam consisting of first a show of Segâh and Müstear makam-s (which
see above) on fs/eviç, followed by a descent through a transposition of Zirgüleli Hicaz
to Fs/ırak. Özkan notes that the Segâh aspect is most often “deficient” (eksik),
meaning there is a c’/tiz çargâh above fs/eviç rather than a perfect fifth (c’s/tiz nim
hicaz), and that it may substitute bz/tiz buselik for bq/tiz segâh, exchanging Segâh-on-
eviç for Ferahnak-on-eviç (1984: 246-7). See DVD 2/22, 2/23.
Araban
Please see Appendix H for greater historical depth into the definition of Araban
makam, and the definitions of Beyati-Araban and Karcığar above for contemporary
variant understandings, but as it has been noted in Chapter V, current performers’
first (if often vague) understanding of the term “Araban” is as a referent to (some, or
any, sort of) Hicaz on d/neva. Signell listed it as a transposition of Zirgüleli Hicaz
87
“Evcar” also means “a hunter’s ‘blind’” i.e., an object that hides a hunter from his or her prey; there
may be a pun in this name, as Evcar’a, meaning “to the hunter’s blind [we go].” We may note also in
this (possibly mere) coincidence the makam’s internal modulation to makam Müstear (whose name is
possibly from the Arabic root sarra in form 10, “to conceal”).
463
(2008 [1977/1985]: 144) after having earlier described it as “…the three variants of
Hicaz, Hicaz-Hümayun, and Zengüle…” (i.e., a mixture of all the Hicaz types except
Uzzal, on d/neva, ibid.: 101) but also noted that Araban “…no longer exists except in
compounds” (ibid.: 109).88 Kutluğ referred to Araban as “…a rejected and forgotten
makam” (2000 Vol. I, pp. 384-5), though he understood that which was rejected as a
(presumably older) version of Beyati-Araban or Karcığar.
Still, Kutluğ’s mention of the cins conjunction hicaz-5 + kürdi-4 in regard to Araban
(ibid.), as with Özkan’s in reference to Beyati-Araban (1984:309-10, his description
of this conjunction as otherwise “nameless” and deserving to be called “Acem’li
Uzzal” notwithstanding [see Uzzal above, and 1984: 146-7]) along with current
performers usage (see DVD 1/1, 1/3, 1/11, 2/15, 3/32, 4/39, 7/71, 8/82, 8/85, 8/86)
causes me to state the case differently. Although there is reason to understand Araban
as historically akin to Hüzzam (see Hüzzam and Beyati-Araban above, and Appendix
H), it appears also to be understandable currently, both in theory and praxis, as a fifth
type of Hicaz, one having the otherwise unusual characteristics of: being “in its
place” on d/neva; having a hicaz-5 conjoined to a kürdi-4; and being able to use either
a leading tone (cs/nim hicaz, implying a hicaz-4) or sub-tonic (c/çargâh, implying a
rast-4) beneath the tonic. It may indeed be rare, vaguely understood, and found
mainly in compounds, but Araban cannot in 2010 be said to have been completely
“rejected and forgotten.”
88
Özkan also referred to Araban in passing as Zirgüleli Hicaz on d/neva; he has no entry for Araban
per se, but included this idea in the description of “Şedd-i Arabân,” (which see below).
464
Şedd Araban
Though it literally means “Transposed Araban” (also spelled “Şed Araban,” “Şedd-i
Araban,” and “Şedaraban”), it is perhaps more clearly explained as a descending
makam whose basic scale material is that of Zirgüleli Hicaz, whose upper tonic is
also the (first) dominant, and whose fifth degree is the second dominant. In these
respects it would appear very much like a transposition of Hicazkâr a perfect 4th
down, but it differs from that makam in that:
• it often has Hümayun makam conjoined to the upper tonic
o which de facto places Nev’eser (see under Nikriz family, below) on
G/rast as a “species” to which to internally modulate, and
• as Dr. Signell noted of Araban (see above; also see Özkan 1984: 255-8), it
may transform from Zirgüleli Hicaz to Hümayun and/or Hicaz (always on
D/yegâh) before returning to Zirgüleli Hicaz (on D/yegâh) for the final
cadence
Curiously, this makam, which seems otherwise very open to the Hicaz family, does
not appear to include the hicaz-5 + kürdi-4 configuration described in “Araban”
above, nor its closest Arel-accepted relative Uzzal. It makes me wonder whether Şedd
Araban was once considered a transposition of Şehnaz (which see above) rather than
(whatever was considered at the time) Araban. See DVD 6/59, 7/71.
465
Dügâh (I)
Dügâh (Persian “second position”; also refers to the perde written “A”) must once
have been the name of the second mode built upon the basic scale but exists today in
two closely related forms both of which are far removed from any possible original
version of the makam (see Feldman 1996: 197, 204, 223-5; Kutluğ 2000 Vol. I, pp.
372-8). The other currently used version is described under the Nikriz family, below,
but the version now considered the more “traditional” consists of a compound makam
executed by playing Saba, then turning the root/”kök” cins into a hicaz-5, from which
Zirgüleli Hicaz is played, especially within that cins and in a hicaz-4 below the tonic
(see Özkan 1984: 347). Some of the examples we have in our recordings treat the
“kök” level hicaz-5 as the “tiz” level of a now descending version of the same
makam, as a kind of (transposed) Şedd Araban (see DVD 4/36, 4/40); see also DVD
1/7, 1/9, 3/29, 4/37, 4/38, 5/51, 5/52, 7/73.
466
NİKRİZ FAMILY
Nikriz
Figure 120: Nikriz (1).
alternating with
Figure 121: Nikriz (2).
Nikriz is possibly more often used as an internal modulation than as a makam
performed by itself, but it is by no means obscure. It often appears inside G/rast-
based makam-s (see descriptions of Rast, Pesendide, Pençgâh above, and Chapter V)
as well as in any iteration of (non-Zirgüleli-type) Hicaz as a “species” relative, and is
therefore often utilized to effect modulations between these two categories of makam-
s. By default, members of the Nikriz family have (at least implied) a hicaz-4 below
the tonic. See an example of Nikriz in DVD 6/60.
467
Nev’eser
Figure 122: Nev’eser.
(From Arabic Nawā Athar, “new sensation.”) Özkan notes that the hicaz-4 below the
tonic creates a de facto Şedd Araban “species” within Nev’eser, and that by using a
buselik-5 conjoined above the upper tonic (rather than the normative hicaz-5) it is
possible to play Hümayun on d/neva as another internal modulation. See examples in
DVD 6/59, 8/87. (Parenthetically, there is a makam that is at least nominally a
transposition of Nev’eser—though descending in seyir—on the perde F/acemaşiran,
called “Reng-i Dil” [“Color of the Heart”]. Özkan noted that it was “invented by
Mühendis Hâlis Bey and … refined by Dr. Subhi Ezgi” [1984: 261].)
Şevk’efza
Şevk’efza (“increasing [one’s] taste/pleasure”) is a compound makam consisting of a
descending Zirgüleli Hicaz on c/çargâh (NB itself once called “Çargâh,” see Chapter
III—not to be confused with Saba) which becomes Acem Aşiran and/or Nikriz on
F/acemaşiran (or rather, uses a nikriz-5 on that perde; see Özkan 1984: 487). It may
either end in the Nikriz aspect or (perhaps more rarely) return to Acem Aşiran and
end in that makam. It seems to me that without the Nikriz aspect this would nearly be
the even rarer makam Şevk-u Tarab (which Özkan describes as descending Saba
468
[rather than “Old Çargâh”] that becomes Acem Aşiran, ibid.: 483)—a subtle
distinction indeed, relying only on the perception of a distinct moment of an uşşak-3
on A/dügâh in otherwise identical scalar material. Note that in the transition between
“Old Çargâh” and Acem Aşiran there is also the possibility of playing Pençgâh on
F/acemşiran, and for a moment of Saba-Zemzeme, if desired. See DVD 3/31, 7/72.
Dügâh (II)
In contrast to the “Dügâh (I)” explained above under the Hicaz family, there is
another version—really just an extension (or modification) of the older one—that
Özkan claims is less traditional. It consists of the makam Saba, after which the
root/”kök” cins is exchanged directly for a hicaz-5, which becomes the upper/ “açan”
cins of Nev’eser makam on the perde D/yegâh. See DVD 1/9, 4/36.
A NOTE ON SPECIES RELATIONS BETWEEN MAKAM-S
As explained in Chapters V and VII, certain makam-s may be understood to be in
relation to each other—though necessarily crossing the boundaries of “makam
families” explained above—due to their shared scalar material, even though they
begin on different tonics; in fact they may be said to “exist inside” each other. Below
are listed all of the species relationships of the makam-s played in the taksim
recordings in Appendix L (the DVDs), arranged by “mother scales” (ana dizileri).
Note that the common characterization “mother scale” (ana dizi) presumes heptatonic
469
scalar entities as aspects of makam-s, a standard part of Arelian theory (see Öztuna in
Arel 1943-48 [1968]: X-XI; Arel ibid.: 61-5)—note that this idea is not applied to all
makam-s (e.g., not to compound makam-s). I have chosen the names of the “Mother
Scales” below arbitrarily—each could be named after any of the (non-“partial”)
constituent makam-s within each group. All makam-s shown in the taksim-s made for
this research project are shown below (those having no species relations being so
marked). The caveat “partial” signifies that the two scales in question are not entirely
identical but overlap sufficiently to use (as a performer, and to notice as a listener).
Note that only makam-s “in their places” and not transpositions are named, though
the latter may be used in performance.
“Rast Mother Scale” [NB: also that of Nişaburek (all makam-s below being
transposed up 1 whole step)]
• First scale degree: Rast, (an iteration of Mahur)
• Second scale degree: Hüseyni, Gülizar, Gerdaniye, Muhayyer
• Third scale degree: Ferahnak
• Fourth scale degree: Pençgâh, (partial: Suz-i Dilara)
• Fifth scale degree: Rehavi, Yegâh [NB: this makam did not appear in the
recorded taksim-s] [NB: the tonic of both of these makam-s is not actually the
fifth scale degree (neva) but an octave below it (yegâh)]
• Sixth scale degree: (partial: Nişabur), Hüseyni Aşiran [NB: this makam did
not appear in the recorded taksim-s; its tonic is not the sixth scale degree
(hüseyni) but an octave below it (aşiran)]
• Seventh scale degree: Eviç, Irak [NB: this makam did not appear in the
recorded taksim-s; its tonic is not the seventh scale degree (eviç) but an octave
below it (ırak)]
“Old/Yekta/Karadeniz Rast Mother Scale”

• Second scale degree: Arazbar [NB: this makam did not appear in the
recorded taksim-s]
• Third scale degree: Segâh, Vech-i Arazbar [NB: this makam did not appear
in the recorded taksim-s]
470
“Acemli Rast Mother Scale”
• First scale degree: Acemli Rast
• Second scale degree: Uşşak, Beyati, Acem
“Suzinak Mother Scale”

• First scale degree: Basit Suzinak
• Second scale dgree: Beyati-Araban [≈ Araban (old version, ending on
uşşak-3)], Karcığar
• Third scale degree: Hüzzam [if the açan-level cins is considered a hicaz-4]
• Fourth scale degree: Nikriz
“Hicaz Mother Scale”

• On the subtonic: Nikriz (with rast-4 as the destek cins, rast-5 as the açan
cins)
• First scale degree: Hicaz, Uzzal
“Hümayun Mother Scale”
• On the subtonic: Nikriz (with rast-4 as the destek cins, buselik-5 as the
açan cins)
• First scale degree: Hümayun
“Pençgâh Mother Scale”

• First scale degree: Pençgâh, [the Pençgâh aspect of Pesendide], [the
Pençgâh aspect of Zavil]
• Second scale degree: Isfahan
“Acem Aşiran Mother Scale”

• First scale degree: Acem Aşiran
• Second scale degree: Nihavend, Kürdili Hicazkâr (qua ↓ Kürdi)
• Third scale degree: Kürdi, Muhayyer-Kürdi (qua ↓ Kürdi), Acem-Kürdi
• Fifth scale degree: (partial: “Çargâh”)
• Sixth scale degree: Ferahfeza, Sultani Yegâh [NB: the tonic of both of
these makam-s is not actually the sixth scale degree (neva) but an octave
below it (yegâh)]
471
“Bestenigâr” 89
• First scale degree: Bestenigâr
• Third scale degree: Saba
• Fifth scale degree: “Old Çargâh” (like Hicazkâr on çargâh)
Makam-s used in the recorded taksim-s having no species relations (compound

makam-s)
Araban-Kürdi
Arazbar-Buselik
Dügâh
Isfahan
Muhayyer-Sümbüle
Şevk’efza
Makam-s used in the recorded taksim-s having no species relations (simple

makam-s)
Müstear
Nev’eser
89
NB: compound makam-s (such as Bestenigâr) do not have “Mother Scales” per se; note that while
the makam-s listed below may “exist inside” Bestenigâr as species, the reverse is not true.
472
APPENDIX K: ANALYSES OF THE RECORDED TAKSIM-S
Below are representations of the cins changes in the taksim analyses given by the 12
performers who both recorded for this project and gave their own theoretical
interpretations for their taksim-s, followed by representations of the cins changes in
the taksim-s that I analyzed myself. These are presented in an extended version of the
four-level modulation grid used in Chapter V that I used to show Agnès Agopian’s
second Rast taksim. As was the case there, the point of this type of representation is
to clearly show all changes of cins, and the makam-s that the performer meant to
evoke by those changes (if any). In cases of taksim-s considered by their performers
to be without modulations, I still represent any changes of cins in order to show how
such changes are part of that performer’s definition of the nominal makam. All told
there were 42 taksim-s analyzed by their players, although we have already analyzed
two of them in Chapter V (q.v.). The remaining 40 of these are presented
alphabetically, first by instrument, and within those groups by performer’s surname.
Following these there are similar analyses of the remaining 58 taksim-s on the DVDs,
which I have analyzed myself; they are included because although the performer-
analyzed taksim-s should be seen as privileged for the purposes of demonstrating a
performer-oriented “(music) theory,” principles derived from such analyses must also
be demonstrable for any taksim, and this is an opportunity to test such principles on
taksim-s made by performers who had no forethought of analyzing them for a
researcher.
473
Below is a key to the components of the grids used to represent taksim analyses:
tiz
açan
kök
destek
makam
change type
pivot tone
seyir used
(Fig. X)
Again, the terms “tiz,” “açan,” “kök,” and “destek” are my own application of
Turkish language terms to describe “cins levels”:
• the kök (“root”) level/cins represents the cins referred to as the “lower
pentachord/tetrachord/trichord” in the normative two-cins description of
makam-s’ scalar material, e.g., it is the place of the hicaz-4 in the description
“the scale of the Hicaz makam consists of a hicaz-4 that has a rast-5 conjoined
to its 4th degree”
• the açan (“opening”) level/cins refers to the cins that is conjoined to the upper
tone of the kök cins, i.e., the “rast-5” in the above example
• the tiz (“upper”) level/cins refers to the cins conjoined to highest tone of the
açan cins
• the destek (“support”) level/cins refers to the cins that is conjoined below the
tonic, that is, to the lowest tone of the kök cins
“Change type” in the grids refers to the following sorts of cins changes:
• pivot
474
o changed by way of a conjunct pivot cins shared by two makam-s, for
instance drawing on an example presented in Chapter V:
tiz
açan rast-4 hicaz-4
kök rast-5 hicaz-5
destek
makam Rast Suzinak Zirgüleli
Suzinak
change type pivot pivot
pivot tone dom-dom dom-dom
seyir used yes yes
o both the change from a rast-4 to a hicaz-4 in the açan level and the
subsequent change from a rast-5 to a hicaz-5 in the kök level happen
by way of a conjunct pivot cins shared by two makam-s (first the rast-
5 shared between Rast and Suzinak, then the hicaz-4 shared between
Suzinak and Zirgüleli Suzinak); to qualify as a pivot both cins changes
necessarily involved a change of level as well, that is, the melody went
from the rast-5 to the hicaz-4 to the hicaz-590
• direct
o change at the same level without pivoting through a conjunct cins
shared by two makam-s:
90
Note that if the first of these “change types” were to say “direct” instead of “pivot” it would indicate
that the melody had reached the modulation by passing directly from the rast-4 to the hicaz-4 in the
açan level, not from the rast-5 below, as the “pivot” here indicates.
475
tiz
açan (rast-4)
kök rast-5 nikriz-5
destek
makam Rast Nikriz
change type direct
pivot tone
seyir used
 this may occur even if they share a cins (e.g., the rast-4 in the
açan level above), but the change is effected without using it as
a pivot
o a direct change of cins may occur to show two iterations of a single
makam (i.e., where two types of cins at the same level are considered
normative/non-modulatory within a makam’s definition):
tiz
açan rast-4 buselik-4
kök rast-5
destek
makam Rast
change type direct
pivot tone
seyir used
 or:
tiz
açan buselik-5
kök rast-4 uşşak-4
destek
makam Isfahanek
change type direct
pivot tone
seyir used
476
• species
o where a cins is considered to exist within another cins or otherwise
within the host makam, e.g.:
tiz
açan (buselik-4) (buselik-5)
kök rast-5 uşşak-4
destek
makam Rast Uşşak
change type species
pivot tone
seyir used
• quote
o cins change by quoting a figure from known repertoire but not
otherwise adhering to other cins change types listed here
 this generally may be taken as being outside the “principles”
• unique-p
o a unique cins change that leads to a cins combination that is
recognized as “possible” in accord with the playable/not playable
combinations shown in Chapter VI
 (NB: could be a “quote” type from a piece of repertoire with
which I am not familiar)
477
• unique-i
o a unique cins change that leads to a cins combination that is not
recognized as “possible” in accord with the playable/not playable
combinations shown in Chapter VI
 (NB: could be a “quote” type from a piece of repertoire with
which I am not familiar)
As in Chapter V, any cins-names given in parentheses inside the grids’ cells represent
incomplete cins-es (i.e., the presentation of only some of the tones of the presumed
cins) which are named on the merit of the performer’s designation of the makam in
conjunction with the normative theoretical cins for that makam at that level (see
Appendix J). At any given cins level, once a cins is given in the grid it remains the
melodic material of that level unless/until named as a different cins.91
The category “pivot tone” in the grids is used to mark the use of a tone as both a pivot
point, and a hierarchically important tone in both makam-s. The hierarchically
important tone types are abbreviated thus: ton = tonic, u-ton = upper tonic, dom =
dominant, 2-dom = secondary dominant. When appropriate, the cells of the grids in
91
As a result of my not repeating this material in each cell there is the possibility that a change of cins
occurring at the same level look the same as one where the change occurs between levels. However the
information in the “change type” column clarifies this: if the change occurs at the same level (e.g.,
from a blank cell to one with a named cins) the change type must be “direct,” if it crosses levels it must
be one of the other types listed above.
478
the “pivot tone” row show the changing (or unchanged) meaning of the tone in
combinations of these abbreviated forms, thus:
• domdom
o where the dominant of the first makam is also the dominant of the
second, modulated-to makam
• u-tondom
o where the upper tonic of the first makam becomes the dominant of the
second, modulated-to makam
• etc.
The “seyir used” row is for indicating—with the word “yes”—that the modulated-to
makam immediately employs its own normative seyir, as though beginning a
definition of the makam from the beginning. Practically, it occurs only in conjunction
with some sort of “pivot tone” cins change.
479
TAKSİM-S WITH THE ARTISTS’ ANALYSES
1. KANUN
(1.1) Agnès Agopian – Beyati-Araban Taksim [“no modulation”] (DVD 1/2)
tiz uşşak-4 (kürdi-4) uşşak-4 kürdi-4

açan (rast-5*) hicaz-5
kök
destek
makam (Tiz) Uşşak Karcığar (see “***”)
change type direct ** direct direct
pivot tone u-tondom u-tondom
seyir used
(* Implicitly there is a rast-5 beneath Uşşak, though the incomplete cins played here may also be
thought of as part of the hicaz-5 to come.)
(** The switch[es] between an uşşak-4 and a kürdi-4 are normative in a certain treatment of Hicaz
family makam-s; here this represents the aspect of Karcığar that is Uzzal/Araban, q.v. in Appendix J.)
tiz
açan (çargâh-4 on buselik-5 on
acem***) neva
kök uşşak-4
destek (rast-5)
makam (“Beyati”) Beyati
change type (****)
pivot tone (2-domton)
seyir used
(*** Probably meant as an internal modulation to “Çargâh” on acem, which can be an aspect of Beyati
[or of Acem, or of Acem Aşiran, any of which would explain the b remaining in the tiz cins (i.e., the
e
“kürdi-4” by way of a species transition becomes part of a çargâh-5 on acem)—see Appendix J s.v.
Acem]; this makes the exact point of “modulation” vague. Nonetheless this did not form part of the
artist’s analysis.)
(**** This may be considered a “species” change, if the previous çargâh-4 is accepted.)
480
(1.2) Agnès Agopian – Geçiş Taksim from Hicaz to Nihavend (DVD 1/3)
tiz (rast-4)
açan (buselik-5**) rast-5*** segâh-3
kök hicaz-4
destek rast-5
makam Rast on Hicaz Segâh on
yegâh* eviç
change type (direct) species****
pivot tone domdom 2-domton
seyir used yes
(* The artist called this a “surprise beginning” for Hicaz that she had learned from her teacher, and that
it is not meant as Rast proper)
(** The artist noted that the buselik-5 was used to keep the melody from reaching the upper octave, but
did not here indicate the makam Hümayun [hicaz-4 + buselik-5], i.e., it is still Hicaz [hicaz-4 + rast-
5].)
(*** The rast-5 in the açan position being normative for Hicaz, there is not actually a modulation here,
but marking it allows us to better explain the coming change, which is not normative.)
(**** of the rast-5)
tiz (rast-4)
açan uşşak-4† kürdi/buselik- buselik-5 segâh-3
5††
kök (pençgâh-5) (hicaz-4)
destek
makam Uzzal Hümayun (Pençgâh†††) Hümayun Eviç††††
change type species direct pivot (direct) pivot/species
pivot tone domdom domdom 2-domton
seyir used yes yes yes yes yes
(† Implicitly this makes the kök cins below a hicaz-5)
(†† Here is an example of how members of the Hicaz family of makam-s are blurred. In terms of
theory, Hümayun must have a buselik-5 on neva as its açan cins, while the previous makam, Uzzal,
must have an uşşak-4 on hüseyni in that place; since the F at ca. DVD :57 marks it as Hümayun (or at
z
least as “not Uzzal”), yet the dominant remains E for another few seconds there is de facto the
construction hicaz-5 + kürdi-4. This structure is currently unnamed [i.e. has no makam], though it is
fairly commonly heard, and appears to have been normative of Araban makam, a “rejected and
forgotten” makam [see Kutluğ 2000 vol. I, pp. 384-5] that yet appears in certain compound makam-s
[cf. ibid.: 357-9, Özkan 1984: 309].)
(††† Not pointed out by the artist.)
(†††† Note a moment of ambiguity ca. DVD 1:25 as the “warming” of F to F removes us from Eviç
s z
without yet placing us in Hümayun on neva. The change type is marked “pivot/species” in relation to
an imagined rast-5 in that position, i.e., rast-5 would be a pivot, and this is a species of that.)
481
tiz buselik-5
açan hicaz-4 (chromatic) kürdi-4
kök hicaz-5 buselik-5
destek
makam Hümayun on Nev’eser Nihavend
neva•
change type direct pivot pivot (direct) (pivot)
pivot tone tondom domdom
seyir used yes
(• NB: some performers would refer to this—or any iteration of a Hicaz family makam from neva—as
Araban [see above], though the artist here did not.)
tiz (çargâh-5)
açan (çargâh-4) kürdi-4
kök (çargâh-5) buselik-5
destek (hicaz-5)
makam (Acem Nihavend
Aşiran••)
change type (species) (species)
pivot tone (2-domton) (ton2-dom)
seyir used
(•• This movement [from ca. DVD 2:33 to 2:42] could be interpreted as Acem Aşiran on kürdi, a
“species” existent within Nihavend’s scale, though the artist did not point it out as such.)
482
(1.3) Şehvar Beşiroğlu – Geçiş Taksim from Kürdili Hicazkâr to Bestenigâr
(DVD 1/4)
tiz (hicaz-5) kürdi-4**
açan hicaz-4 kürdi-4 (buselik- uşşak-4***
5/kürdi-4)
kök (*) hicaz-5 kürdi-4/-5
destek
makam Hicazkâr (Kürdili Kürdili
Hicazkâr) Hicazkâr
change type direct unique- unique-i
p/pivot
pivot tone domdom?**
seyir used
(* The C in use up to ca. DVD :37 is a leading tone, helping to keep the focus in the upper region of
s
this descending makam; the normative (i.e., implied) kök cins is a hicaz-5 on rast, which appears ca.
DVD :37.)
(** Here is an instance where there is a confusion as to the constitution of Kürdi/kürdi: at ca. DVD
1:08 she is preparing a [completely normal] move to Kürdili Hicazkâr-as-Kürdi on rast, but while the
makam Kürdi itself has the 4th degree as dominant, compound makam-s ending in Kürdi de facto most
often use the [previous makam’s] fifth degree as the dominant even after the move to Kürdi is made.
As a result, there is often a point [such as between ca. DVD 1:08 and ca. 1:24 here] where there are
two kürdi tetrachords conjoined. This anomaly is mentioned neither in theory texts nor by performers.
Here, Kürdi-on-rast’s proper dominant is not shown as such until ca. 1:24, at which point the artist
identified the overall makam as Kürdili Hicazkâr. Again between ca. DVD 1:44 and 2:00 it is unclear
which tone [the 5th from the tonic neva or the fourth çargâh] is serving as the dominant.)
(*** The momentary uşşak tetrachord at ca. DVD 1:41 is presumably a foreshadowing of the
modulation to come, but received no mention by the artist.)
tiz
açan (buselik- uşşak-4 (as hicaz-4
5/kürdi-4) kök)
kök rast-5 on hicaz-5 on nikriz-5 on
çargâh çargâh kürdi
destek
makam Uşşak on Basit Suzinak Zirgüleli Nikriz on
neva on çargâh Suzinak on kürdi
çargâh
change type direct direct direct direct species
pivot tone domton
seyir used yes yes
483
tiz (hicaz-4 on (rast-3) (rast-5)
gerdaniye)
açan hicaz-5 on (uşşak-4)
çargâh
kök kürdi-(4 or -5) uşşak-3 segâh-3 on
ırak
destek segâh-3 on
ırak †
makam Kürdili Saba Bestenigâr (Irak ††) Eviç
Hicazkâr
change type direct direct (leap) (pivot)
pivot tone tonton u-tondom
seyir used yes
(† Bestenigâr is a compound makam consisting of Saba [itself a compound of uşşak-3 + hicaz-5] that
falls through a segâh-3 on ırak; since this segâh-3 is now the proper kök cins, it is moved up one row
in the next column.)
(†† Technically there is an immediate modulation to the makam Irak, but the artist considered this part
of Bestenigâr. The following modulation is to Eviç makam, which is essentially the descending version
of Irak; since the Eviç passage could be understood as part of the Irak modulation, the entire passage
from ca. 3:19 [“Bestenigâr”] to 3:53 [“Saba”] could be seen as being in Irak makam. NB: the
conception of Irak as segâh-3 + uşşak-4 + rast-3 is my own [though derived from common practice
conceptions; see Chapter IV and Appendix J].)
tiz hicaz-5 on (rast-3)

çargâh
açan uşşak-3 (uşşak-4)
kök segâh-3 on
ırak
destek
makam Saba ††† Bestenigâr (Irak ††††)
change type direct (pivot)
pivot tone
seyir used
(††† The artist refers to this as a return to Saba but I am maintaining the column structure for
Bestenigâr [i.e., kök = segâh-3 on ırak], since it is now clear to the listener that the Saba is part of that
compound makam.)
(†††† Note that whereas most textbook [and in my experience even oral] definitions of Bestenigâr
makam would maintain the Saba/Hicaz on çargâh aspect through the final cadence, the artist views the
structure associated with Irak makam as appropriate ending material for Bestenigâr, without
mentioning Irak specifically.)
484
(1.4) Şehvar Beşiroğlu – Rast Taksim [“no modulation”] (DVD 1/5)
tiz
açan rast-4
kök rast-5 segâh-3* rast-5 (buselik-5) rast-5
destek rast-4
makam Rast (Segâh) (Rast) (Buselik**) (Rast)
change type (species) (species) (direct) (direct)
pivot tone (2-domton)
seyir used
(* The a /kürdi leading tone used here is normative in any use of a segâh trichord, and does not imply
s
a change of cins below it; here there is not really a modulation to Segâh, but rather a segâh çeşni—
quite normal within Rast.)
(** The artist described this also as a “taste” [çeşni] of Buselik rather than as a modulation; she
considered the taksim never to have modulated away from Rast.)
tiz (rast-5)
açan buselik-4
kök
destek
makam
change type direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(1.5) Şehvar Beşiroğlu – Zavil Taksim [“no modulation”] (DVD 1/6)
tiz
açan çargâh-4 buselik-4 çargâh-4
kök pençgâh-5
destek
makam Pesendide Mahur**
change type direct/quote* pivot
pivot tone domdom
seyir used yes
(* The quote is from Sultan Selim III’s Pesendide Saz Semaisi.)
(** Note that it is the çeşni-s [as melodic gestures] at ca. DVD :31 that make it a modulation to Mahur,
rather than a change of cins.)
tiz
açan buselik-4 çargâh-4 buselik
kök nikriz-5 çargâh-5
destek
makam Nikriz Mahur
change type direct pivot (pivot) direct pivot
pivot tone domdom domdom
seyir used yes
485
tiz
açan çargâh-4 buselik-4
kök nikriz-5 pençgâh-5 çargâh-5
destek
makam Nikriz Pesendide Mahur
change type direct unique-p*** pivot pivot pivot
pivot tone domdom u-tonu-ton domdom
seyir used yes yes
(*** This borders on the “not possible” among cins conjunctions, being one of the sort that may be
“fake-able,” but never used in the definition of any makam. Since neither Nikriz nor Pençgâh would
normally have a çargâh-4 in the açan level the following “pivot” is similarly dubious.)
Note that Zavil is a compound makam in which a mixing of Pesendide, Mahur, and
Nikriz makam-s are effected; these being the only makam-s used, the artist considers
this taksim to have no (internal) modulations.
2. KEMENÇE
(2.1) İhsan Özgen – “Beyond Makam” (DVD 4/A1)
The artist’s point in making this avant-garde “taksim” (commercially recorded in
1999) was to deconstruct both the rules and the aesthetic of traditional Turkish
makam music. It does so by way of frustrating the very categories that we have been
using here to analyze normative taksim-s, and therefore I have not attempted to
squeeze an analysis of that sort into the same framework of grids (but please see the
artist’s analysis in subtitles on the video clip); we might think of this performance as
an example of an “exception that proves the rule(s).” I would note that a successful
reception of the piece depends upon the listener’s knowledge of that which is not
being played “correctly.”
486
3. NEY
(3.1) Eymen Gürtan – Bayati Taksim (DVD 1/7)
tiz (hicaz-4)
açan (rast-5*) (hicaz-5) (hicaz-5***)
kök uşşak-4 uşşak-3 hicaz(-5)
destek (rast-5) (hicaz-4)
makam Bayati ** Saba Dügâh
change type direct direct direct
pivot tone domdom tonton tonton
seyir used yes yes
(* NB: textbook definitions would have a buselik-5 here instead [e.g., see Özkan 1984: 126-7, and “*”
in the grid below].)
(** This is common gesture in Bayati that is sometimes thought of as a brief internal modulation to
Karcığar [see Appendix J] or to Karcığar’s species-relative Nikriz-on-çargâh [see Özkan 1984: 127],
though the artist does not mention either of these makam-s in his analysis. [Also see recurrence at **
two grids below.])
(*** Here the hicaz-5 is from Saba’s dominant, c/çargâh, whereas the hicaz-5 just previous was from
d/neva a whole step higher. That is, the açan level is here a whole step lower than it was previously.)
tiz uşşak-4 (or -

5 ††)
açan rast-5 buselik-5*
kök uşşak-3 uşşak-4
destek
makam Saba**** Rast on Bayati Muhayyer
çargâh
change type direct unique-p † “pivot” pivot species
pivot tone domton
seyir used yes
(**** The artist mentioned this as a return to Saba, though it might also be thought of as a continuation
of Dügâh [a compound essentially switching between Saba and Zirgüleli Hicaz]. Incidentally, during
the “Dügâh” section the dominant—and therefore the limits of the açan level—temporarily shifted
upward by a major 3rd [from çargâh to hüseyni])
(† This borders on the “not possible” among cins conjunctions, being one of the sort that may be “fake-
able,” but never used in the definition of any makam. The next “pivot” is therefore not actually from
any particular makam, but is labeled as such because of the uşşak cins previously used at that level.)
(†† In modulating to Muhayyer, the dominant has changed from d/neva to e/hüseyni, therefore
implicitly the uşşak cins in the tiz level is now a pentachord rather than a tetrachord, even though we
only hear the first 3 tones of the cins.)
487
tiz
açan uşşak-4††† buselik-5†††† (hicaz-5**) (buselik-5)
kök
destek
makam Bayati
change type pivot direct direct pivot
pivot tone
seyir used yes
(††† Note that this cins begins on the dominant, e/hüseyni.)
(†††† Note that the dominant has returned to d/neva, on which tone this cins is based.)
(3.2) Eymen Gürtan – Nihavend Taksim (DVD 1/8)
tiz
açan (hicaz-4) hicaz-4 uşşak-4
kök rast-5 (pençgâh-5) nikriz-5
destek
makam * Uşşak on Nikriz on
neva** kürdi
change type unique-i (unique-i) direct unique-i
pivot tone domdom domton
seyir used
(* The artist did not comment on this unorthodox beginning for Nihavend; it would appear as though it
begins as Basit Suzinak, the single tone of the following pençgâh-5 [c /nim hicaz] being used to
s
tonicize d/neva.)
(** Even though the artist names this as a transposed makam, I here [and again below] leave it in the
açan level rather than transfer it to the kök level; the following modulation similarly frustrates the
normative levels but is so brief that I leave it also as described by the cins levels of the host makam.)
tiz
açan (chromatic) (hicaz-4) buselik-4
kök (chromatic) buselik-5 nikriz-5 buselik-5
destek
makam Nihavend Nev’eser Nihavend
change type (species***) direct direct pivot
pivot tone tonton tonton
seyir used yes yes
(*** NB: Nihavend is considered a makam that is particularly welcoming of chromaticism; in light of
this the “Nikriz on kürdi” just before this may be seen as a chromatic but “species type” gesture from
Nihavend’s secondary dominant, e /kürdi.)
e
488
tiz
açan uşşak-4
kök nikriz-5 buselik-5
destek
makam Uşşak on Nikriz on Nihavend
neva kürdi
change type direct unique-i direct
pivot tone domton domdom
seyir used
(3.3) Eymen Gürtan – Suz-i Dilara to Nihavend (DVD 1/9)
tiz
kök rast-5 nikriz-5 rast-5 uşşak-5
destek (rast-4)
makam Rast Nikriz Rast Hüseyni
change type direct direct species direct
pivot tone
seyir used
tiz
açan segâh-3 (uşşak-4) buselik-4
kök nikriz-5 uşşak-3 (on
buselik)
destek
makam (Nikriz*) (Nişabur*) Segâh on eviç Hüseyni
change type direct direct unique-i species direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(* The artist did not mention a new makam here.)
489
tiz (buselik-5) (hicaz-5)
açan (buselik-5) uşşak-4 uşşak-3
kök uşşak-5 uşşak-4 nikriz-5 (rast-5)
destek
makam Uşşak Nikriz Uşşak on Saba on
neva† neva††
change type (pivot**) species*** direct direct direct
pivot tone tonton **** domton tonton
seyir used
(** If keeping strictly to the analysis of changes in cins type at the same level, this is a “pivot” between
the earlier nişabur-3 and the uşşak-4 here—or the uşşak-5 implied at the point when the artist declares
Hüseyni—but in practice the prolonged absence of any movement in the kök cins combined with the
previous Hüseyni çeşni-s have already “erased” the memory of the nişabur cins and make the
appearance of the uşşak cins here seem as though it had not replaced another cins.)
(*** Note that the dominant [and therefore the starting tone of the cins-level] changed between Segâh
[in which it was segâh], Hüseyni [hüseyni], and Uşşak [neva].)
(**** Here the tonic has changed [back] from dügâh to rast; the previous change of tonic was part of a
“species” transition, but this one is unusually direct.)
(† Technically we might shift the “kök level” upward by a P 4th here, but I have left it in terms of the
host makam. The dominant here is g/gerdaniye, which is now the lower limit of the tiz cins.)
(†† Again a change of dominant and cins-level boundaries: the dominant is the third of the uşşak-3
[f/acem], whence the hicaz-5 begins in the tiz level.)
tiz (buselik-5)
açan hicaz-4 kürdi-4
kök (hicaz-5) (nikriz-5) buselik-5 (chromaticism)
destek
makam Dügâh on (Nev’eser*) Nihavend
neva
change type direct (pivot) direct (pivot)
pivot tone tonton tondom tonton
seyir used
4. TANBUR
(4.1) Murat Aydemir – Arazbar-Buselik Taksim [“no modulation”] (DVD 1/10)
tiz (buselik-4) buselik-5 (buselik-4)

açan rast-5 uşşak-4 rast-5 hicaz-4
kök buselik-5
destek (hicaz-4)
makam Rast on Uşşak on Rast on Hicaz on Buselik
çargâh neva çargâh neva*
change type species species direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(* The artist notes that this may also be understood as Nikriz on çargâh, whereby there would be a
nikriz-5 in the açan level
490
tiz (rast-4)
açan rast-5 nikriz-5 uşşak-4 nikriz-5
kök
destek ***
makam Rast on Nikriz on Arazbar** Nikriz on Buselik
çargâh çargâh çargâh
change type unique-i direct direct direct direct
pivot tone 2-domton
seyir used
(** Arazbar is itself a compound makam [see Appendix J], but the term is often used as a shorthand for
the simpler “Uşşak on neva,” as it appears here and earlier in the taksim.)
(*** The final cadence uses only the buselik-5, with first its subtonic [rast] then its leading tone [nim
zirgüle], implying a kürdi-4 changing to a hicaz-4 in the destek cins.)
(4.2) Murat Aydemir – Bayati-Araban Taksim [“no modulation”] (DVD 1/11)
tiz kürdi-4 uşşak-4 kürdi-4

açan hicaz-5 nikriz-5 (buselik-5)
kök (rast-4) uşşak-4
destek (rast-5)
makam Araban* Nikriz on Bayati
çargâh
change type direct direct species direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(* Presumably because there is no Arelian conjunction “hicaz-5 + kürdi-4,” the artist describes this as
“Hicaz of the Uzzal type” [which it is when there is an uşşak-4 in the tiz cins]; it would once simply
have been called “Araban” [see Appendix J].)
491
(4.3) Murat Aydemir – Geçiş Taksim from Gerdaniye to Gülizar (DVD 1/12)
tiz (rast-5)
açan rast-4 hicaz-4 (uşşak-4)
kök rast-5 uşşak-5 (uşşak-4)
destek
makam Gerdaniye* Hicaz on Hüseyni Gerdaniye/Gülizar Karcığar
hüseyni ****
change type unique- ambiguous*** pivot pivot/species
i/quote**
pivot tone
seyir used
(* This aspect of the compound makam Gerdaniye is manifest as “descending Rast.”)
(** This is not literally a quote, but the internal modulation was described by the artist as a gesture
played by Tanburi Cemil Bey. NB: here the dominant [and açan level] have shifted up a whole step. In
terms of conjoined cins-es, there is at least the appearance of a [unique/impossible] rast-5 + a nikriz-5;
it is probably more in line with the artist’s intention to say the two cins-es here are disjunct.)
(*** Since there is no such makam entity as “rast-5 + whole-step + hicaz-4” from which to pivot, we
cannot call the appearance of the uşşak-5 a pivot; note that there is a construction with uşşak-5 + hicaz-
4—Hisar makam—but the artist did not mention it here. Note that this melodic gesture ends by
stopping on çargâh, ostensibly the 3rd degree of Hüseyni, without explanation in terms of any makam’s
structure.)
(**** Here begins the aspect of Gerdaniye that descends from g/gerdaniye through Hüseyni makam
[where it might have ended, completing Gerdaniye]; technically the whole taksim to this point has
been in Gerdaniye. At this very point, however, and merely by re-initiating a descent through Hüseyni
but this time from a/muhayyer it has modulated to Gülizar makam, without a change of cins to mark it.
Note that this is “Mürekkeb Gülizar” [cf. “Basit Gülizar” on DVD 7/69 and in Appendix J].)
tiz
açan hicaz-5 (uşşak-4) hicaz-5 uşşak-4
kök uşşak-5 (uşşak-4)
destek
makam Hüseyni Karcığar Hüseyni
change type pivot species pivot direct
pivot tone
seyir used
492
(4.4) Murat Aydemir – Isfahan Taksim [“no modulation”] (DVD 2/13)
tiz
açan (buselik-5)
kök uşşak-4 uşşak-3* uşşak-4** uşşak-3* uşşak-4**
destek (rast-5)
makam Bayati Nişabur Bayati Nişabur Bayati
change type direct direct direct direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(* From B/buselik [the previous uşşak-4 having been from A/dügâh]. The artist mentioned only a
“çeşni of Nişabur”; while some Arelian theory recognizes a “nişabur tetrachord” and “nişabur
pentachord” [see Özkan 1984: 49 and 273] the same theory posits a rast-4 on dügâh in this situation in
Isfahan [ibid.: 301 Isfahan]. The “uşşak-3 on B/buselik” solution is something I, myself, am
introducing in response to artists’ usage and rhetoric in just this sort of situation [see Chapter VI].)
(** From A/dügâh.)
tiz çargâh-5
açan buselik-3
kök uşşak-4** uşşak-3* uşşak-4**
destek (rast-5) (rast-5)
makam Acem*** Bayati Nişabur Bayati
change type pivot pivot direct direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(*** As mentioned in Chapter V, fn. 40, Acem has a unique cins-conjunction structure: uşşak-4 [on
A/dügâh] + buselik-3 [on d/neva] + çargâh-3 [to reach an octave] or even a çargâh-5 [on f/acem].)
Note that the artist presented the exposition of the above compound makam as though
it had no (internal, other-than-constitutive) modulations; I would add, however, that I
have not found the showing of Acem makam inside Isfahan in theory text
descriptions of the makam (see Appendix J s.v. “Isfahan”).
493
(4.5) Murat Aydemir – Muhayyer-Sümbüle Taksim [“no modulation”] (DVD
2/14)
tiz (hicaz-5) hicaz-4

açan (hicaz-4) hicaz-5** (çargâh-5) hicaz-5
kök (hicaz-4) (hicaz-4) nikriz-5
destek
makam Zirgüleli (Zirgüleli) “Çargâh on (Zirgüleli) Nikriz on
Hicaz on Hicaz on acem” Hicaz on kürdi
muhayyer* çargâh çargâh
change type direct direct*** direct direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(* This could also be thought of as an iteration of the makam Şehnaz, but the artist expressed it as
above [cf. Appendix J s.v. Şehnaz and Özkan 1984: 333].)
(** NB: the previous hicaz-4 is on e/hüseyni while this hicaz-5 is on c/çargâh.)
(*** NB: this and the previous cins change are not merely “direct” [as indicated], but also occur as
leaps between disjunct cins-es; this is very unusual in KTM [though cf. A. Agopian’s Rast Taksim II,
analyzed in Chapter V], but apparently such leaps are constitutive of the proper exposition of
Muhayyer-Sümbüle.)
tiz
açan (e )
e hicaz-5 (e )
e
kök kürdi-4 (hicaz-4) kürdi
destek
makam Kürdi**** (Zirgüleli) Kürdi
Hicaz on
çargâh
pivot tone
seyir used
(**** NB: the conjunction of Zirgüleli Hicaz on çargâh [which used to be called “Çargâh makamı,”
and as such exists inside the makam Saba, see Wright 1990] leading to a cadence in Kürdi could be
designated as its own makam, Saba-Zemzeme, though the artist did not mention it. Note also the “pre-
cadential flat-5” gesture [“(e ,)” also appearing in the final cadence], a single tone in the açan level not
e
associated with an independent cins.)
Again, as the exposition of a compound makam, the above taksim was considered by
the artist to have no (internal, non-constitutive) modulations; although in the rows
designating makam-s in the above grids the name Muhayyer-Sümbüle does not
appear, it must be understood that the whole, altogether, form that makam.
494
(4.6) Murat Aydemir – Suzinak Taksim [“no modulation”] (DVD 2/15)
tiz (buselik-5)
açan hicaz-4 (nikriz-5**) (rast-4?) buselik-4
kök rast-5
destek
makam Araban* Basit Suzinak (Rast***)
change type (“species”) pivot direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(* In contrast to the “Araban” that the artist played in ex. 4.2 above, this version is essentially
Hümayun on neva [see Appendix J].)
(** The artist explained that here, while leaving the hicaz-4 in the açan level, he stopped on çargâh
and on segâh to give an impression of Nikriz-on-çargâh and Hüzzam respectively, though not as full
modulations (even of the “species” variety), and he noted that these were not really the correct
intervals for Hüzzam [see Chapter V and Appendix H]. I wonder if the unexplained rast-like tetrachord
that immediately follows was intended as a compensation for this; perhaps it should read “hüzzam-4.”)
(*** The artist gave no special explanation of what is happening here, but it would appear to be an
iteration of Rast inside Basit Suzinak.)
tiz buselik-5
açan rast-4 hicaz-4
kök (buselik-5 †) rast-5
destek (rast-4)
makam (Basit
Suzinak)
change type direct direct/unique- direct unique-i (pivot)
i
pivot tone
seyir used
(† This brief show of Nihavend in a Rast family makam is fairly common—it appears to be
foreshadowing the buselik cins that follows at the upper octave as part of the Hümayun-on-neva aspect
of the host makam. Until that point we would seem still to be in Rast [up until “Basit Suzinak” is
marked in parentheses]. The cins change type is direct, occurring in the kök cins, but I have also
marked it as “unique-i” because the combination buselik-5 + rast-4 is not found in our “constellations”
of makam-recalling cins conjunctions. This is true also of the inversion that occurs two columns over
in the tiz level.)
tiz uşşak-4 kürdi-4

açan hicaz-5 (rast-4) hicaz-4
kök hicaz-5
destek
makam Zirgüleli
Suzinak
change type species direct pivot direct direct
pivot tone
seyir used
495
Note that the artist characterized this taksim as being in the makam “Suzinak”
without the qualifiers “Basit” or “Zirgüleli”—it is therefore shown as having “no
modulation” (see Appendix J s.v. Suzinak).
(4.7) Özer Özel – Bayati Taksim [“no modulation”] (DVD 2/16)
tiz uşşak-4
açan buselik-5 hicaz-5 buselik-5 (rast-5) buselik-5
kök uşşak-4
destek
makam Bayati (*)
pivot tone
seyir used
(* This very typical “internal modulation” in Bayati may be thought of as a moment of Karcığar
makam, though the artist did not mention it as such. Such an interpretation would alter the “change
type” here from “direct” to “pivot.”)
(4.8) Özer Özel – Hicazkâr Taksim [“no modulation”] (DVD 2/17)
tiz (buselik-5) (buselik-4) (hicaz-4)

açan hicaz-4 buselik-5* nikriz-5*** hicaz-4****
kök hicaz-5 hicaz-4 hicaz-5
destek
makam Hicazkâr Hümayun on (Hicazkâr**) (Nev’eser on Hicazkâr
neva çargâh)
change type pivot direct species
pivot tone
seyir used yes [but no
shared pivot
tone]
(* From çargâh, i.e., cins-level delimiting tone changed by a whole step down. NB: he regards the
upper tonic, gerdaniye, as the dominant, not either çargâh or neva.)
(** The artist did not explicitly note a shift back to Hicazkâr, but it is clearly no longer Hümayun on
neva.)
(*** Still from çargâh; the artist did not note a change in cins or makam.)
(**** Note the return to using neva as the cins-level delimiting tone.)
496
tiz (buselik-5) buselik-5 (rast-5 †††)
açan hicaz-4 nikriz-5† buselik-5 hicaz-4
kök hicaz-4†† (hicaz-5)
destek
makam Hümayun on (Nikriz on
neva çargâh)
change type pivot species direct direct direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(† From çargâh; the artist did not remark upon his frequent use of çargâh here as indicating a change
in cins, dominant, or makam.)
(†† As above, the shift between the pentachord + tetrachord and tetrachord + pentachord
configurations goes unmentioned by the artist.)
(††† This appears to be merely a passing tone.)
tiz buselik-5
açan nikriz-5†††† buselik-5•
kök hicaz-4
destek (Nikriz on Hicazkâr
çargâh)
makam
change type direct pivot/species direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(†††† As above, there is an emphatic pause on the tone çargâh, but the artist did not mention it as a
change from Hümayun on neva.)
(• On çargâh. Note a passing use of nim hicaz as a “pre-cadential flat 5th” melodic gesture.)
This taksim is unusual in its fluid crossing between a “pentachord + tetrachord” and a
“tetrachord + pentachord” configuration, a dynamic that frustrates both the idea of a
clear (secondary) dominant as well as clear categories of cins-change type.
497
(4.9) Özer Özel – Suz-i Dilara Taksim [“no modulation”] (DVD 2/18)
tiz (buselik-5)
açan (çargâh-5**) uşşak-4*** (çargâh-5)
kök rast-4* nikriz-5
destek
makam Suz-i Dilara Uşşak on Nikriz****
hüseyni
change type direct/species direct direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(* NB: the artist uses the tone buselik as the “leading tone” to the dominant [çargâh]; it could be
argued that this constitutes a switching between a rast-4 and a çargâh-4 as the kök-level cins, though
the artist did not explain it thus.)
(** The artist explained this as “exploring Rast’s mother scale” up to its [“flat”] 7th degree [acem], and
not in terms of a çargâh-4 or -5.)
(*** NB: the delimiter of the açan cins here becomes hüseyni, the 6th degree and second dominant. If
the overall basic scalar material of Suz-i Dilara is understood as that of Rast [which the artist seems to
do, here] it could be argued that the uşşak is a “species” of (an unused) rast-5 on neva. It could also be
argued [against the artist’s analysis] that there is an uşşak-5 here rather than an uşşak-5 + the first tone
of a buselik-5 in the tiz level.)
(**** Note that the appearance of Nikriz [and below] was characterized by the artist as a “taste”
[çeşni], and was not seen as a modulation.)
iz
açan
kök rast-4 hicaz- rast-4
4/nikriz-5
destek (rast-5)
makam Suz-i Dilara Hicaz/Nikriz Suz-i Dilara
pivot tone
seyir used
498
(4.10) Özer Özel – Geçiş Taksim from Suz-i Dilara to Kürdili Hicazkâr (DVD
2/19)
tiz (buselik-5)
açan (çargâh-5**) uşşak-4*** (çargâh-5)
kök rast-4* nikriz-5
destek
makam Suz-i Dilara Uşşak on Nikriz****
hüseyni
change type direct/species direct direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(* NB: the artist uses the tone buselik as the “leading tone” to the dominant [çargâh]; it could be
argued that this constitutes a switching between a rast-4 and a çargâh-4 as the kök-level cins, though
the artist did not explain it thus.)
(** The artist explained this as “exploring Rast’s mother scale” up to its [“flat”] 7th degree [acem], and
not in terms of a çargâh-4 or -5.)
(*** NB: the delimiter of the açan cins here becomes hüseyni, the 6th degree and second dominant. If
the overall basic scalar material of Suz-i Dilara is understood as that of Rast [which the artist seems to
do, here] it could be argued that the uşşak is a “species” of (an unused) rast-5 on neva. It could also be
argued [against the artist’s analysis] that there is an uşşak-5 here rather than an uşşak-5 + the first tone
of a buselik-5 in the tiz level.)
(**** Note that the appearance of Nikriz [and below] was characterized by the artist as a “taste”
[çeşni], and was not seen as a modulation.)
tiz (rast-5)
açan (rast-4) nikriz-5
kök rast-4 nikriz-5 rast-4 [rast-5]
destek
makam Suz-i Dilara Nikriz Rast on Nikriz on
gerdaniye çargâh
change type direct direct direct pivot† direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(† NB: The implied change in the kök level cins from a tetrachord to a pentachord makes this not quite
a conventional pivot.)
499
tiz (buselik-5)
açan rast-4 uşşak-4 rast-5 on buselik-5 on
çargâh çargâh
kök rast-5 kürdi-5†††
destek
makam Rast Arazbar†† Kürdili
Hicazkâr
change type direct direct unique-i unique-i direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(†† The first use of Arazbar was characterized as a “taste” [çeşni] and not as a modulation. Descending
thence through a cadence in the rast-5, the artist verbally noted [that the makam we are in at this point
is] “Rast,” after which Arazbar is newly opened as a transition toward Kürdili Hicazkâr.)
(††† This kürdi-5 [on rast] was left unexplained by the artist; it would be normal per se in Kürdili
Hicazkâr [or at least nearly normal—see Appendix L s.v. “Kürdi”], but not in Arazbar. The
conjunction “kürdi-5 + uşşak-4” is not among the conjunctions that recall makam-s presented in
Chapter VI. Exactly what makam[-s] we are in between here and the later declaration of Kürdili
Hicazkâr is unclear.)
tiz kürdi-4 (buselik-4) (kürdi-4)

açan
kök kürdi-4
destek
makam
change type direct direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(4.11) Özer Özel – Uşşak Taksim [“no modulation”] (DVD 2/20)

tiz
açan buselik-5
kök uşşak-4
destek rast-5
makam Uşşak
change type
pivot tone
seyir used
500
5. UD
(5.1) Mehmet Emin Bitmez – Acem Aşiran Taksim (DVD 2/21)
tiz çargâh-5 kürdi-4 on

muhayyer
açan (çargâh-4) rast-4 on çargâh-4
çargâh
kök uşşak-4 on çargâh-5 on
dügâh acemaşiran
destek çargâh-4
makam Acem Aşiran (*) Buselik on
neva
change type direct species direct pivot
pivot tone 2-
domdom
seyir used
(* Note that if the taksim were to have stopped here in Uşşak, the overall makam would have been
Acem.)
tiz uşşak-4
açan buselik-5 çargâh-5 hicaz-5
kök (uşşak-3)
destek (uşşak-3)
makam Uşşak on Acem Aşiran Saba **
muhayyer
change type pivot pivot direct
pivot tone domton ton2-dom domdom
seyir used yes yes yes
(** A “taste” of Bestenigâr immediately returning to Saba.)
tiz
açan nikriz-5 on (hicaz-5 on
kürdi çargâh)
kök nikriz-5 on (uşşak-3) kürdi-4 on nikriz-5 on
acemaşiran acemaşiran acemaşiran
destek
makam Nikriz on Şevk’efza
kürdi
pivot tone
seyir used
501
tiz
açan çargâh-4 (buselik-4 on
neva)
kök çargâh-5 on buselik-5 on nikriz-5 on
acemaşiran yegâh yegâh
destek (hicaz-4)
makam Acem Ferahfeza**** (†)
Aşiran***
change type direct species direct
pivot tone tonton
seyir used
(*** NB: There is some [deliberate] ambiguity here as to the makam, since it is possible for Şevk’efza
to end in Acem Aşiran.)
(**** Ferahfeza, being a compound of Acem Aşiran moving to Buselik on yegâh [or Sultani Yegâh]
can at this point be said to have started earlier, where Acem Aşiran began, though a listener cannot
have known it before this point.)
(† A brief moment explained as a “taste” [çeşni] of Nikriz on yegâh. returning immediately to buselik-
5/Ferahfeza)
tiz
açan hicaz-5 on
çargâh
kök buselik-5 on nikriz-5 on buselik-5 on uşşak-3
yegâh yegâh yegâh
destek (rast-4)
makam Şevk’efza††
pivot tone
seyir used
(†† The artist described this as a return to the Saba aspect of Şevk’efza, but note that it never returns to
the Nikriz-on-acemaşiran characteristic of that makam [the only clue being the kaba acemaşiran bass
“drop note” against Saba]. Since we have heard Saba before, first as part of Acem Aşiran and then as
part of Şevfk’efza it is probably a better fit simply to say that he is using Saba as a “pivot makam”
between several compounds that utilize it, for instance the upcoming Bestenigâr [NB: whose destek
level will act as its kök cins].)
tiz hicaz-4
açan segâh-3 on uşşak-4 on
eviç hüseyni
kök uşşak-5 on
dügâh
destek uşşak-3 on
ırak
makam Bestenigâr Segâh on eviç Hüseyni
change type
pivot tone pivot††† species
seyir used yes
(††† This is a curious sort of “pivot”: it is literally a repetition of the cadence we have just heard in the
“kök” cins an octave higher, but signifying a new makam.)
502
tiz
açan hicaz-5 on çargâh-4
çargâh
kök uşşak-3 on çargâh-5 on
dügâh acemaşiran
destek (çargâh-4)
makam Saba (††††) Acem Aşiran
pivot tone
seyir used
(†††† The artist here noted a “suspended cadence in Acem-Kürdi” but it would seem as though the
taksim is at this point merely emphasizing each descending tone of the Acem Aşiran scale [including
below the tonic to yegâh] starting from that rest on kürdi; since Acem-Kürdi normally would not have
shown Saba, I wonder if he meant that the transition was interpretable as Saba-Kürdi [aka Saba-
Zemzeme].)
(5.2) Mehmet Emin Bitmez – Geçiş Taksim from Evcara to Ferahnak (DVD
2/22)
tiz müstear-3 on * segâh-3 from **
eviç eviç
açan hicaz-4 on ***
nim hicaz
kök hicaz-5 on segâh-3 on
ırak ırak
destek
makam Evcara Ferahnak
change type direct pivot
pivot tone tonu-ton
seyir used
(* Conjunct above the müstear-3 are the first 3 tones of a buselik cins of unspecified size. Note that the
artist spoke in terms of makam-s and not cins-es here.)
(** Conjunct above the segâh-3 is an uşşak-4; again, the artist described this in terms of whole makam
rather than as specific cins combinations.)
(*** Here there is a confusion of cins levels; see comment below.)
Note that in the moment marked by “***” in the above grid there is a point where the
modulation from Evcara to Ferahnak recontextualizes certain tones in such a way as
to split the “açan” level into two cins-es:
• Evcara as:
o tiz level: müstear-3 [fs gs a] + buselik(-3) [a b c’]
 changing to segâh-3 [fs g a] + uşşak-4 [a bq c d]
503
o açan level: hicaz-4 [cs d es fs]
o kök level: hicaz-5 [Fs G As Bq cs] to
• Ferahnak as:
o tiz level: segâh-3 [fs g a]
o açan level: rast-3 [A B cs] + hicaz-4 [cs d es fs]
o kök level: segâh-3 [Fs G A]
(5.3) Mehmet Emin Bitmez – Geçiş Taksim from Eviç to Evcara (DVD 2/23)
tiz segâh-3 on segâh-3 +
eviç buselik-4†
açan rast-3 on (**) + rast-4 (***) uşşak-4 rast-3 on
neva* on dügâh on dügâh dügâh +
hicaz-4 on
nim hicaz****
kök segâh-3 on
ırak
destek
makam Eviç Ferahnak
change type direct species/pivot
pivot tone
seyir used
(* note that because the “special leading tone” of the tonic [and upper tonic] f/acem is so characteristic
to the makam that the rast-3 with its implicit e/hüseyni is never heard here. Arelian theory explains this
tone as the 3rd degree of a hicaz-4 on c /nim hicaz)
s
(** As in the artist’s previous taksim, there is a point where there are two conjunct cins-es in the “açan
level,” here: the aforementioned rast-3 on neva above a rast-4 on dügâh.)
(*** Only the previous rast-4 changed—the rast-3 on neva was neither referred to nor replaced.)
(**** Again, two cins-es fit in this “açan level,” and both have changed from the previous ones: the
previous uşşak-4 has been changed via the “species” principle to a rast-3, conjoint to which is now a
hicaz-4 on c /nim hicaz, which we may say was arrived at as pivoting from the rast-uşşak “species.”)
s
(† Also as in the previous taksim, the “tiz level” too needs to accommodate two cins-es: the segâh-3 is
on f /eviç and is below the buselik-4 on the a/muhayyer.)
s
504
tiz rast-4 buselik-4
açan rast-5 on neva buselik-4 on
dügâh†††
kök uşşak-3 on
ırak
destek
makam (††) Saba on
ırak
change type pivot pivot direct pivot direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(†† For a while this would appear to be Rast on yegâh, but ends in a cadence on F /ırak, i.e., in
s
Ferahnak.)
(††† As though an “Acemli Rast” on yegâh.)
tiz
açan hicaz-5 on nikriz-5 on
dügâh rast
kök (rast-5)
destek (rast-4)• nikriz-5 on
yegâh
makam (Saba on Şevk’efza on (••)
geveşt††††) yegâh
pivot tone
seyir used
(†††† The artist has here very stealthily and without mention shifted upward by one comma, which
allows him to use open strings, and to make the next modulation—which he has already begun here—
without returning directly to F /ırak.)
s
(• This is a mere gesture, common in Şevk’efza.)
(•• Here repeats everything in this grid, structurally.)
tiz
açan hicaz-5 on buselik-5 on
dügâh dügâh
kök uşşak-3 on uşşak-4 on segâh-3 on
geveşt geveşt ırak
destek
makam Saba on Uşşak (on Segâh on
geveşt••• geveşt) ırak••••
pivot tone
seyir used
(••• The artist is here still tacitly playing with the fiction that the tonic is F /irak, one comma below
s
F /geveşt, as he will in the next modulation, to “Uşşak (on geveşt).”)
d
(•••• Here the artist has moved the tonic back down one comma, to F /ırak; if the fiction of the
s
previous geveşt moves were taken by the audience as on ırak, we could call this a “species” change.)
505
tiz
açan hüzzam-3 + hicaz-4 on
hicaz-4° nim hicaz
kök hicaz-5 on
ırak
destek
makam Evcara
change type direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(° The artist here makes an octave run, ostensibly in Segâh-on-ırak; if this is so, and Segâh’s 4th degree
is a perfect fourth above the tonic [i.e., segâh a P4 above ırak], then we may count the cins above the
segâh-3 on ırak as a hüzzam cins—either a hüzzam-3 conjoined to a hicaz-4 on nim hicaz as cited in
the grid, or a hüzzam-4 with a rast-3 on neva that incidentally used the “special leading tone” of its 3rd
degree instead of its normative 2nd e/hüseyni. I must note however that I would guess the artist would
have voiced it as a “segâh pentachord on ırak [F G A B c ] plus a hicaz tetrachord on nim hicaz [c d
s q s s
e f ]” had I asked.)
ss
(5.4) Mehmet Emin Bitmez – Nişabur Taksim (DVD 2/24)

tiz (çargâh-4)
açan buselik-5 on çargâh-5 on
neva*** acem
kök “nişabur-5”* segâh-3 uşşak-3 on
buselik
destek
makam Nişabur Segâh** Nişabur Çargâh on
acem
change type direct direct species
pivot tone
seyir used
(* The artist described the base [kök] cins of this makam as a “nişabur pentachord” [on B/buselik: B c s
d e f ] which is conjoined to the makam Çargâh on f/acem [f g a b c’ + c’ d’ e’ f’] in the açan level—
e
resulting in an unusual conjunction of two pentachords. But notice that the description of the makam in
Appendix J [ q.v.] presents the makam’s scale material instead as an uşşak-3 [B c d] conjoined to a
s
buselik-5 [d e f g a], above which is a kürdi-4 [a b c’ d’]. It is my opinion that the idea of a “nişabur
e
pentachord” only exists due to the Arelian refusal to recognize trichords.)
(** Frankly, this does not sound very much like Segâh to me—the tone buselik does not seem to be
lowered a comma to the needed segâh, nor are there typical segâh çeşni-s played; the artist seems to be
using the idea of Segâh as a way of justifying introducing the tone c/çargâh.)
(*** This gesture—clearly outlining a buselik-5 on d/neva, using the three notes below seemingly in
support of that run—seems to belie the “nişabur-5” concept of the makam.)
506
tiz
açan (buselik-5 on
neva)
kök segâh-3 uşşak-3 on
buselik
destek
makam Segâh**** Nişabur†
change type direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(**** See note “**” above.)
(† Here the artist introduces the tone A /kürdi as a “special leading tone”—note that it usually acts thus
s
for B /segâh rather than for B/buselik; although the artist did not say as much, it would appear as
q
though he had gone from Segâh to Müstear rather than directly to Nişabur. The gesture happens once
more before restoring the normative sub-tonic “leading tone” [tam yeden] for the final cadence.)
(5.5) Mehmet Emin Bitmez – Nişaburek Taksim [“no modulation”] (DVD 3/25)
tiz (rast-5)
açan buselik-4 rast-4 uşşak-4 on rast-4
hüseyni
kök rast-5 on
dügâh
destek
makam Nişaburek
change type pivot* species species
pivot tone
seyir used
(* The melody having ascended, then returned, the pivot cins from “Acemli Rast on dügâh” to “Rast
on dügâh” is the kök level rast-5.)
(5.6) Mehmet Emin Bitmez – Pençgâh Taksim (DVD 3/26)

tiz
açan buselik-4
kök rast-5 ** rast-5 ** (müstear-
3***)
destek (rast-4)
makam Rast/Pençgâh*
change type (direct) (direct) (direct) (pivot)
pivot tone
seyir used
(* The artist asserted that Pençgâh begins as Rast.)
(** The artist expressed the change in 4th degree here, from c/çargâh to c /nim hicaz—as exactly that,
s
i.e., not in terms of a change of cins.)
(*** Here [as in the previous taksim] the artist uses A /kürdi as B /segâh’s “special leading tone”—
s q
this gesture, when the 4th degree is c /nim hicaz would normally be associated with the makam
s
Müstear, though the artist did not mention it here.)
507
tiz
açan rast-4 buselik
kök rast-5 pençgâh- rast-5
5****
destek
makam
change type (direct) direct direct direct†
pivot tone
seyir used
(**** Here, for the first time, the artist mentioned a “pençgâh pentachord.”)
(† Rast’s normative ascent with rast-4 and descent with buselik-4.)
tiz (rast-3) (kürdi-5††)

açan çargâh-4 buselik-4 rast-4 (buselik-4)
kök rast-5 “pençgâh”†††† rast-5
destek
makam Mahur Rast†††
change type direct direct direct direct direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(†† Unexplained.)
(††† Presumably as part of Pençgâh.)
(†††† The artist did not again mention a “pençgâh pentachord,” only alternations between Rast and
Pençgâh—several of which occur here before the final cadence in Rast.)
(5.7) Mehmet Emin Bitmez – Rast Taksim on dügâh* (DVD 3/27)

tiz
açan (rast-4) hicaz-4 rast-4
kök rast-5 segâh-3 rast-5
destek
makam Rast (**) Segâh Rast
change type direct direct species species
pivot tone
seyir used
(*Note that this taksim was made specifically to contrast Rast and Nişaburek—see taksim 5.5 above.)
(** This could have been reckoned as Suzinak, but the artist did not do so—note that although it is not
unusual that a hicaz-4 appear in Rast, it is unusual for the first cins to show above a rast-5 in Rast to be
the hicaz-4.)
tiz
açan buselik-4*** rast-4 buselik-4
(***)
kök
destek
makam
pivot tone
seyir used
(*** Rast’s normative ascent with rast-4 and descent with buselik-4.)
508
(5.8) Necati Çelik – Bestenigâr Taksim (DVD 3/28)
tiz hicaz-5** **
açan uşşak-3
kök ırak-3 ırak-4
destek
makam Saba Bestenigâr * (Saba)
change type (species)
pivot tone
seyir used
(* It can be interpreted that Bestenigâr here employs the makam Irak as part of its compound, though
the artist did not note it, here. It is not clear whether the artist considered this taksim to have
“modulations” or if all the appearing makam-s are part of the compound makam Bestenigâr.)
(** The appearance of the tones a/muhayyer and b /sümbüle [above the hicaz-5 on c/çargâh] are rare
e
in Saba and would seem to frustrate the understanding of this makam as a compound beginning in
Zirgüleli Hicaz on c/çargâh and a conjunct uşşak-3 below it [which the artist had conveyed to me on
other occasions—NB Bestenigâr is generally considered the extension of this compound by dropping
further through a segâh-3 on F /ırak]. However there is a now archaic makam called Sümbüle
s
[“Hyacinth”] that consists of “Çargâh” on f/acem [f g a b c’ + c’ d’ e’ f’] falling through Saba—
e
although the artist did not mention Sümbüle per se, it appears to me that this is what he is playing in
this passage, and in the next one marked “**.” It may be the case that this is part of the artist’s concept
of Saba per se, or of Bestenigâr per se [but not Saba]—he did not mention it.)
tiz segâh-3 on hicaz-5 on

eviç +uşşak-4 çargâh
on muhayyer
açan (hicaz-4 on buselik-4 on (buselik-4 +) uşşak-3
nim hicaz)*** neva above müstear-3 (on
uşşak-4 on segâh)****
dügâh
kök (uşşak-3)
destek (rast-3††)
makam Eviç (Müstear) (Saba†) Bestenigâr
pivot tone
seyir used
(*** It is not clear whether there is intended here a hicaz-4 on nim hicaz or rather that the “special
leading tone” normative to f /eviç in this makam makes a rast-3 on d/neva with a c /nim hicaz leading
s s
tone appear so. There would seem to be a significant stop on nim hicaz but note that the Arelian
conception of Eviç does not contain that tone at all [see Appendix J].)
(**** The artist described this as a taste of Müstear [as part of Eviç], but note that it could be
considered a hüzzam-4 on dügâh. [Note also the compression of cins levels due to the use of conjunct
trichords, returning to normal immediately after this].)
(† As part of Bestenigâr.)
(†† Slightly obscured [as it had been an octave higher, see “***”] by F /ırak’s “special leading tone”
s
F/acemaşiran.)
509
(5.9) Necati Çelik – Muhayyer Taksim* (DVD 3/29)
tiz (uşşak-5) uşşak-3 +
hicaz-5
açan uşşak-4 buselik-4 uşşak-4
kök uşşak-5
destek rast-4
makam Muhayyer (Hüseyni*) Saba on
muhayyer**
change type pivot direct direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(* NB: the artist played this taksim in the “kız neyi ahengi,” that is, a fourth below the makam’s
normative place, however he still referred to normative perde names, i.e., the upper octave perde is
referred to as “muhayyer” even though literally it is hüseyni.)
(** That is, the aspect of Muhayyer that is Hüseyni [i.e., no modulation is indicated].)
(*** I.e., an octave higher than its normal “place”; composed of an uşşak-3 on muhayyer and a hicaz-5
on tiz çargâh.)
tiz (hicaz-5 on kürdi-4 on

muhayyer) muhayyer +
buselik(-5) on
tiz neva
açan hicaz-5 (hicaz-4 on buselik-5 (hicaz-5)
hüseyni)
kök uşşak-3 kürdi-4 (uşşak-4)
destek
makam **** Dügâh on Kürdi Karcığar
muhayyer†
pivot tone
seyir used
(**** Saba “in its place,” echoing the gesture above.)
(† Again, an octave higher than its normal “place.”)
tiz
açan buselik-4 uşşak-4 buselik-4
kök (uşşak-5)
destek
makam Muhayyer
pivot tone
seyir used
510
(5.10) Necati Çelik – Rast Taksim (DVD 3/30)
tiz
açan buselik-4 rast buselik
kök rast-5 uşşak-3 on
buselik
destek rast-4
makam Rast Isfahan
change type pivot direct direct
pivot tone
seyir used
tiz (rast-5) segâh-3 müstear-3

açan çargâh-4* hicaz-4 on
eviç
kök uşşak-4 on nikriz-5 on hicaz-5 on
dügâh rast segâh
destek
makam Nikriz Mahur Evcara on
(tiz) segâh
change type direct direct species** direct
pivot tone 2-domu-ton
seyir used yes
(* May indeed be a rast-4; the artist mentioned Mahur makam without specifying the cins he prefers
there. [Historically there are versions of Mahur with either cins, or even both.])
(** i.e., from the rast-5 to the segâh-3 inside it.)
tiz (buselik-5) (rast-5) (buselik-5)

açan hüzzam-4
kök (rast-5) segâh-3 on
segâh
destek
makam Hüzzam
change type direct direct direct pivot species
pivot tone
seyir used
511
tiz segâh-3 on tiz (buselik-5 on (rast-5)
segâh + gerdaniye)
buselik (-4)
on tiz neva
açan (hicaz-4 on çargâh-4* (rast-4?)
eviç ***)
kök rast-5 uşşak-5 on
dügâh
destek
makam (Segâh) (?) Mahur Hüseyni
change type pivot direct direct species
pivot tone domu-ton
seyir used yes
(*** The artist did not mention Segâh specifically, only that this began the meyan section of Hüzzam.
The hicaz-4 cins also was not named by the artist; it is possible to interpret [tiz] segâh’s “special
leading tone” as not disrupting a rast-3 below it instead of de facto creating a hicaz cins there.)
tiz
açan uşşak-4 kürdi-4 uşşak-4 kürdi-4 uşşak-4
kök
destek
makam
change type species direct direct direct direct
pivot tone
seyir used
tiz uşşak-5 (buselik-5)

açan hicaz-4 uşşak-4 on
neva
kök buselik-5 on
dügâh
destek (hicaz-4)
makam Muhayyer Karcığar**** Arazbar-
Buselik
change type species pivot direct
pivot tone u-tonton
seyir used yes
(**** The artists noted “within Muhayyer.”)
512
tiz (çargâh-5 on
acem)
açan buselik-4 çargâh-4 on (buselik-3 on
çargâh neva)
kök çargâh-5 on uşşak-4 on kürdi-4
acemaşiran dügâh
destek
makam Ferahfeza† Uşşak†† Kürdi †††
change type pivot direct species direct
pivot tone tondom
seyir used yes
(† The artist noted this modulation as Acem Aşiran, as an aspect of Ferahfeza.)
(†† The artist noted here “the Uşşak/Beyati aspect of Ferahfeza,” but I would note that the gesture,
centering on f/acem with a fall and rise through an uşşak-4, could be interpreted as Acem makam,
another possible internal modulation of Ferahfeza.)
(††† That is, the Kürdi aspect of Ferahfeza.)
tiz çargâh-5 on (hicaz-4)

acem ••
açan çargâh-4 on (hicaz-5 on
çargâh çargâh)
kök çargâh-5 on (uşşak-3 on
acemaşiran dügâh)
destek buselik-5 on buselik-3 on
yegâh †††† yegâh •
makam (Ferahfeza) Saba
change type pivot/species direct pivot•••
pivot tone
seyir used
(†††† Note that this is now the new [if temporary] “kök” level.)
(• Note that this column [including the previous kürdi cins] shows the species-switching aspect of
Ferahfeza makam; since the artist did not specify the cins-es in use I am dividing them thus, though it
could also have been: buselik-5 + kürdi-4 + buselik-3.)
(•• The artist reported “Saba” here; this çargâh cins would not fit with that analysis per se, but does fit
as part of the Acem Aşiran we saw earlier as part of Ferahfeza. We should probably understand this as
a continuation of Ferahfeza.)
(••• “Pivot” by way of dipping back down to the hicaz-5, then using its 4th degree [f/acem] as the
pivot.)
513
tiz kürdi-4 (kürdi-4°°)
açan buselik-5 on
neva
kök hicaz-4
destek kürdi-4
makam Kürdi •••• Hümayun°
pivot tone
seyir used
(•••• Presumably as part of Ferahfeza.)
(° It is unclear whether the artist understood this as part of Ferahfeza. The pivot occurred through the
buselik-5 in the açan level.)
(°° The artist did not comment on maintaining this cins at this level, though normally there would be
hicaz-4 there in Hümayun.)
tiz
açan rast-4
kök nikriz-5 on rast-5
rast
destek rast-4
makam Nikriz Rast
change type species pivot
pivot tone subtonton
seyir used yes
514
(5.11) Necati Çelik – Şevk’efza Taksim [“no modulation”] (DVD 3/31)
tiz hicaz-4
açan (hicaz-5 on
çargâh)
kök (hicaz-4) (nikriz-5 on (nikriz-5 on uşşak-3 on (nikriz-5 on
kürdi) acemaşiran***) dügâh**** kürdi)
destek
makam * ** (Saba) **
change type species direct pivot direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(* The artist notes that the makam “begins as Kürdili Hicazkâr” but this is not strictly the case, as we
would expect in that makam to hear a hicaz-4 on d/neva rather than the hicaz-5 on c/çargâh that
follows the hicaz cins in the tiz level. At that point we may say that this is a descending-ascending
version of Zirgüleli Hicaz on c/çargâh [which, we may note, used to be called “Çargâh makam,” and]
which is associated with the makam Saba, though the artist is clear that this is not to be considered
Saba.)
(** The artist did not mention a change of cins per se here—only that the subtonic [B /kürdi] was
e
being used in place of the leading tone [B /segâh, implied by the “hicaz-4” in the previous “kök”
q
level]—but de facto this opens a nikriz-5 on B /kürdi [which would be considered correct inside
e
Şevk’efza], and we may note parenthetically that had the artist stopped here it would be appropriate to
label the taksim “Saba-Zemzeme.”)
(*** Note that here there is a shifting of levels; the nikriz-5 on F/acemaşiran would have been in the
destek level of Zirgüleli Hicaz on çargâh, but it is now revealed that that makam was in the açan level
of Şevk’efza.)
(**** Here, the levels have switched back for a moment as Saba proper, which the artist had avoided
before, becomes the new focus. The pivot is achieved through a return to the previous [and common]
hicaz-5 on çargâh in the açan level.)
tiz
açan
kök (nikriz-5 on
acemaşiran***)
destek
makam
change type
pivot tone
seyir used
515
6. VIOLIN (KEMAN)
(6.1) Ünal Ensari – Hicaz Taksim [“no modulation”] (DVD 3/32)
tiz
açan (buselik-5) (rast-5) (buselik-5)* kürdi-4
kök hicaz-4 hicaz-5
destek (rast-5)
makam Hicaz (**)
pivot tone
seyir used
(* The alternation between a rast-5 [when ascending] and a buselik-5 [when descending] occurs 3 or 4
more times here [but I have only counted it once in the final count].)
(** The artist did not mention a change of makam/cins here, but makes e/hüseyni the dominant; this
would imply a shift to Uzzal makam, however note that the kürdi-4 does not properly occur in Uzzal,
but rather in Araban [see Appendix J].)
tiz (uşşak-4) hicaz-4 (+ 1

tone)
açan uşşak-4*** segâh-3 rast-5 buselik-5†
(above rast-3)
kök
destek rast-5
makam Eviç**** Hicaz
change type direct species direct direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(*** The alternation between a kürdi-4 and an uşşak-4 here is analogous to that between the buselik-4
and rast-4 seen previously—note that they are the same tones—species of each other—simply starting
a tone higher. )
(**** The artist characterized this as a “taste” [çeşni] rather than as a modulation [geçki]; notice the
species-type climb through rast-uşşak-segâh cins-es.)
(† Again, for the final ascent and descent there is a rise through the main scale, using a rast-4, and a
descent using a buselik-4 in the açan cin-s.)
516
7. YAYLI (BOWED) TANBUR
(7.1) Vasfi Akyol – Hicaz Taksim (DVD 3/33)
tiz
açan (rast-5) (uşşak-4) buselik-5 uşşak-4
kök hicaz-4 hicaz-5* hicaz-4 hicaz-5 uşşak-5
destek
makam Hicaz (Uzzal) (Hicaz) (Uzzal) Hüseyni
change type species direct direct species
pivot tone
seyir used
(* The artist did not mention a change of makam/cins here; the shift in emphasis from d/neva to
e/hüseyni implies another from Hicaz to Uzzal.)
tiz
açan buselik-4 on
hüseyni
kök rast-5 on buselik-5 on rast-5 on uşşak-4
dügâh dügâh dügah
destek (rast-5)
makam Rast on (**) Uşşak
dügâh
pivot tone
seyir used
(** Apparently part of Rast on dügâh.)
tiz
açan
kök hicaz-4
destek
makam Hicaz
change type direct
pivot tone
seyir used
517
(7.2) Vasfi Akyol – Nihavend Taksim (DVD 3/34)
tiz hicaz-5 on
acem
açan kürdi-4 uşşak-4 uşşak-3 (kürdi-4)
kök kürdi-5 buselik-5
destek (rast-4) (hicaz-4**)
makam * Nihavend (Hüseyni on (Saba on (Nihavend)
neva) neva)
pivot tone
seyir used
(* The artist did not indicate any makam other than Nihavend here; note however that not only is a
kürdi-5 an unusual opening for Nihavend, but that there is no makam whose kök cins is [explicitly] a
kürdi-5.)
(** The “hicaz-4” here is merely an implication of the leading tone, as the previous “rast-4” at this
level is merely an implication of the subtonic—since there is no default cins beneath a kürdi-5, “rast-4”
is a guess at a cins, though apparently only a subtonic [regardless of cins] was intended.)
(7.3) Vasfi Akyol – Geçiş Taksim from Rast to Hüseyni on rast (DVD 3/35)
tiz (hicaz-5 on
acem)
açan uşşak-4 uşşak-3 uşşak-4
kök rast-5 uşşak-4 uşşak-5
destek (rast-4)
makam Rast Uşşak on Hüseyni on Saba on Hüseyni on
rast* rast neva** rast
change type direct species species species/pivot
pivot tone
seyir used
(* In my opinion the second degree at times becomes low enough to call this Kürdi, but the artist did
not mention such a shift.)
(** Note that there is no recently understood makam consisting of the combination of an uşşak-5 + an
uşşak-3, much less with the addition of a hicaz-5 atop this; the modulation here has temporarily made
the dominant into a tonic, and has therefore de facto shifted the kök level up to the açan level for this
brief moment.)
518
(7.4) Ahmet Nuri Benli – Rast Taksim (DVD 4/36)
tiz
açan buselik-4
kök rast-5* uşşak-3 on nikriz-5 rast-5
buselik
destek (rast-4)
makam Rast “Isfahan”** Nikriz Suz-i Rast
Dilara***
change type pivot direct direct species
pivot tone
seyir used
(* At first the 3rd degree is so low, this could be taken for a buselik-5; at the end of the taksim the artist
remarks that he was “trying for Hicaz and Rast came out”—I think perhaps he meant “trying for
Nihavend.” In any case the third degree is made to rise after about 15 seconds, after which we are
clearly in Rast.)
(** The artist notes reaching the dominant [d/neva] by way of a “taste of Isfahan”; in this case that was
represented only by its “nişabur” aspect, effectively the uşşak-3 shown above. The pivot occurs by way
of passing through the buselik-4.)
(*** In effect, this is a return to Rast; it appears to be the movement from Nikriz to Rast that the artist
is calling Suz-i Dilara.)
tiz (buselik-5) hicaz-5

açan hicaz-4 (chromatic)
kök hicaz-5
destek
makam “Hicaz on Hicazkâr
neva”
pivot tone
seyir used
tiz buselik-5
açan kürdi-4
kök buselik-5 nikriz-5
destek (hicaz-4)
makam Nihavend Nev’eser****
pivot tone
seyir used
(**** The artist proclaimed Nev’eser, even though that makam’s açan cins—a hicaz-4 on d/neva—did
not appear.)
519
tiz (buselik-5) hicaz-5 (+
[hicaz-4]
above)
açan kürdi-4 uşşak-3 hicaz-5
kök
destek
makam Nihavend Saba on neva Dügâh on Şedd
neva Araban
change type direct direct direct pivot
seyir used yes
tiz
açan hicaz-4
kök buselik-5 (chromatic) rast-5 (buselik-5)
destek (hicaz-4) (rast-4)
makam Nihavend Rast Nihavend
change type pivot/species† direct direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(† It can be interpreted as a “species” because of the switch from a pentachord to a tetrachord.)
tiz çargâh-5
açan çargâh-4 (chromatic) çargâh-4 on
acem
kök çargâh-5 on
acemaşiran
destek
makam Mahur Acem Aşiran
pivot tone
seyir used
tiz (buselik-5)
açan hicaz-4 buselik-4
kök (chromatic) rast-5
destek
makam Rast (Hicaz on Rast
neva††)
change type direct (pivot) (direct)
pivot tone
seyir used
(†† This might be considered Suzinak [as it is here considered regarding the “pivot”] though the artist
did not name it as such. The following buselik-5 cins in the tiz level confirms his intention as Hicaz on
neva.)
520
tiz
açan (chromatic†††) buselik rast-4
kök rast-5 rast-5
destek (rast-4)
makam
change type
pivot tone
seyir used
(††† The artist reported “just playing the instrument.”)
(7.5) Ahmet Nuri Benli – Uşşak Taksim (DVD 4/37)

tiz (buselik-3)
açan buselik-5 hicaz-5 (on hicaz-5 (on
neva) çargâh)
destek rast-5
makam Uşşak Karcığar Saba
pivot tone
seyir used
tiz (hicaz-4) (hicaz-5)

açan uşşak-3 on hicaz-5 (on
hüseyni çargâh)
kök (uşşak-3 on
dügâh)
destek uşşak-3 on
ırak
makam Saba on Saba Bestenigâr Saba*
hüseyni
change type pivot direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(* I.e., simply returns to focus on c/çargâh; the artist himself did not mention Bestenigâr by name.)
tiz (buselik-5) (chromatic)

açan rast-5 hicaz-4**
kök (hicaz-5) hicaz-4
destek (hicaz-4)
makam Dügâh Hicaz Şehnaz
change type direct species/pivot direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(** Note switch from pentachord to tetrachord at this level; implicit in the way the artist named the
makam change.)
521
tiz
açan buselik-5
kök kürdi-4 uşşak-4
destek
makam Muhayyer- Uşşak (chromatic†) (Return to
Kürdi*** Uşşak
proper)
change type pivot/unique-i pivot****
pivot tone
seyir used
(*** At first the artist described this as “like Kürdili Hicazkâr, but not really”; by the time he has
cadenced on A/dügâh—including a “pre-cadential flat 5” gesture—it is clear that he has essentially
played descending Kürdi, of which Kürdili Hicazkâr is a transposition, and which he then names
“Muhayyer Kürdi” [see Appendix J]. The change type is marked as ambiguous since it would appear
to be a pivot, but through chromatic material rather than a makam per se.)
(**** By way of a return to the shared buselik-5 in the açan level.)
(† “Just showing off the instrument.” Still Uşşak. NB: this is a full minute and 10 seconds of
“improvisation.”)
(7.6) Sinan Erdemsel – Acem Aşiran Taksim (DVD 4/38)

tiz (çargâh-5)
açan çargâh-4
kök (pençgâh-5*) çargâh-5
destek
makam Acem Aşiran Ferahfeza Acem Aşiran Çargâh Ferahfeza
change type species species species/direct species/direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(* Like all of the internal modulations so far, this one is of the “species” variety, effectively changing
emphasis on tonal centers rather than altering scalar material, but here the perde c/çargâh is given its
own leading tone [seemingly B/buselik, though it may be B /segâh]; in the context of the overall
q
makam this might imply a kind of pençgâh-5 beneath it, but since the artist noted a modulation to
Çargâh we may assume he intended the leading tone to be part of a çargâh-4 on rast, obviating the idea
of the noted pençgâh-5, and making the cins change “species/pivot.”)
522
tiz hicaz-4
açan hicaz-5 on nikriz-5 on
çargâh above çargâh
uşşak-3 on
dügâh
kök (hicaz-
5****)
destek (hicaz-4)
makam Acem Aşiran Çargâh Saba Nikriz on Dügâh
çargâh ***
change type species species species** direct direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(** Again the issue of c/çargâh’s leading tone returns (now clearly B /segâh), but now it shifts into an
q
uşşak-3 as a “species” of the [merely implied] pençgâh-5. Note the need to portray two cins-es in the
açan level.)
(*** Technically, since the hicaz-4 in the tiz level was never changed, this could be considered
Nev’eser rather than Nikriz, though the artist—who did not return to the tiz level in this phrase—did
not mention it. The implication of a “kürdi-3” in the kök level here is really a brief return to the scalar
material of Acem Aşiran; Nikriz would normally have [at least the implication of] a hicaz-4 beneath
the tonic.)
(**** Note that Dügâh—a compound makam consisting of Saba whose kök cins becomes a hicaz-5—
is using Acem Aşiran’s B /kürdi to stand for the hicaz-5’s B /dik kürdi.)
e w
tiz
açan çargâh-4
kök çargâh-5 nikriz-5 on çargâh-5
F/acemaşiran
destek
makam Acem Aşiran Şevk’efza Acem Aşiran Ferahfeza Acem
Aşiran
change type direct direct direct species species
pivot tone
seyir used
523
(7.7) Sinan Erdemsel – Kürdili Hicazkâr Taksim (DVD 4/39)
tiz hicaz-5 (kürdi-5)
açan hicaz-4 kürdi-4 uşşak-4
kök hicaz-5 kürdi-5** (rast-5)
destek (hicaz-4)
makam Hicazkâr “Kürdili Uşşak on
Hicazkâr”* neva
change type direct pivot*** direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(* The artist referred to this by itself as “Kürdili Hicazkâr”; another way to express it might be “the
Kürdi-on-rast aspect of Kürdili Hicazkâr.”)
(** See Appendix J s.v. “Kürdili Hicazkâr”; this is a special usage of a “kürdi-5.”)
(*** This cins-change type may only be considered a pivot if we accept the configuration “hicaz-5 +
kürdi-4”—Arelian theory does not, but see Appendix J s.v. “Araban.” Otherwise we must call the
change “direct.”)
tiz
açan çargâh-5 on (kürdi-4)
nim hisar
kök kürdi-5
destek
makam Çargâh on “Kürdili
nim hisar Hicazkâr”*
change type pivot**** species
pivot tone
seyir used
(**** This is a pivot in the sense that the çargâh-5 can be considered a species of the kürdi-4 normally
in the açan level.)
(7.8) Sinan Erdemsel – Nihavend Taksim (DVD 4/40)

tiz (buselik-5) hicaz-5 on
acem
açan kürdi-4 uşşak-3 (hicaz-5)
kök buselik-5
destek
makam Nihavend Saba on neva Dügâh on
neva
pivot tone
seyir used
524
tiz (buselik-5) nikriz-5 (buselik-5)
açan hicaz-4 (kürdi-4 on
acem)
kök hicaz-4 (buselik-5 on
kürdi)
destek hicaz-5
makam Şedd Araban Nihavend Nikriz Nihavend Buselik on
kürdi
change type pivot pivot/species* direct direct direct**
seyir used yes
(* the hicaz cins makes it a pivot shared with the previous makam; the fact that this is a tetrachord
rather than a pentachord makes it a species-type change.)
(** The artist called this “Buselik on kürdi” but note that only two tones of the supposed buselik-5 [its
first and fifth degrees] cins are shown. It could equally have been interpreted as a çargâh-5 on kürdi,
making the next cins change a species-type change.)
tiz
açan kürdi-4
kök buselik-5 on (chromatic (buselik-5)
rast run)
destek hicaz-4
makam Kürdi on Nihavend
neva
change type pivot pivot
pivot tone
seyir used
525
TAKSİM-S WITH THE AUTHOR’S ANALYSES
8. CLARINET (in G) (KLARNET)
(8.1) Şükrü Kabacı – Muhayyer-Kürdi Taksim [no modulation] (DVD 5/41)
tiz kürdi-4
açan buselik-5 (**)
kök kürdi-4
destek (*)
makam Muhayyer-
Kürdi
change type
pivot tone
seyir used
(* The artist once uses a 9-comma below subtonic [G/rast, implying a rast-5] and once a 4-comma
below leading tone [G /nim zirgüle, implying a less normal hicaz-5].)
s
(** The artist twice plays a “pre-cadential flat five” gesture typical of the makam [q.v. in Appendix J
s.v. “Muhayyer-Kürdi”].)
9. KANUN
(9.1) Turgut Özefer – Hüseyni Taksim (DVD 5/42)
tiz (uşşak-5)
açan uşşak-4 kürdi-4 uşşak-4 hicaz-4 (or -
5) on neva
kök uşşak-5
destek (uşşak-4)
makam Hüseyni Karcığar
change type direct direct pivot*
pivot tone
seyir used
(* By way of a fall from the uşşak cins above, despite tetrachord/pentachord confusion.)
526
tiz
açan uşşak-4 kürdi-4 uşşak-4****
kök buselik-5 uşşak-5
destek rast-5** hicaz-4***
makam Hüseyni Buselik Hüseyni
pivot tone
seyir used
(** Unusual to have a pentachord below another pentachord, but that was the range of his playing
below the tonic.)
(*** This gesture briefly has a subtonic below this cins—the whole of which could be interpreted as a
nikriz-5, though it did not stop on that tone.)
(**** This gesture—rising with an uşşak cins and falling with a buselik one is repeated several times
here.)
tiz buselik-5 rast-5 buselik-5

açan (buselik-5 on hicaz-4††
neva)
kök kürdi-4
destek buselik-5
makam Sultani Hicaz on
Yegâh† neva
pivot tone
seyir used
(† I.e., Buselik on D/yegâh; this is a quick octave run, leaping immediately back to d/neva.)
(†† There is evidently a change from tetrachord to pentachord here, as the 4th degree of the what would
normally be a hicaz-5 becomes a tone receiving great emphasis.)
tiz
açan rast-5 buselik-5 (kürdi-4)
kök uşşak-4 uşşak-5†††
destek rast-5 on
yegâh
makam Yegâh Hüseyni
change type direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(††† The taksim ends here, then there is applause, after which, to actually introduce the following
piece, he plays a quick rise and fall through an uşşak-5 + uşşak-4.)
527
(9.2) Turgut Özefer – Kürdili Hicazkâr Taksim [no modulation] (DVD 5/43)
tiz kürdi-4 buselik-4 uşşak-4
açan buselik-5
kök kürdi-4
destek
makam Kürdili
Hicazkâr*
pivot tone
seyir used
(* Qua descending Kürdi on rast.)
tiz kürdi-4
açan
kök
destek
makam
change type direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(9.4) Erdem Özkıvanç – Nihavend Taksim (DVD 5/44)

tiz (buselik-5) nikriz-5
açan kürdi-4 hicaz-4
kök buselik-5 (nikriz-5) buselik-5*
destek (hicaz-4)
makam Nihavend Nikriz Nihavend
pivot tone
seyir used
(* Here the artist plays a “pre-cadential flat five” gesture normally associated with Zirgüleli Hicaz [see
Appendix J s.v. “Zirgüleli Hicaz”].)
tiz (buselik-5)
açan kürdi-4
kök (buselik-5)
destek
makam
change type
pivot tone
seyir used
528
(9.5) “Erkin” – Rast Taksim (DVD 5/45)
tiz
kök rast-5 müstear-3 rast-5
destek
makam Rast Müstear Rast
pivot tone
seyir used
tiz (buselik-5)
açan rast-4 buselik-4 hicaz-4 rast-4
kök
destek
makam Suzinak Hicaz on ?/Rast*
neva
change type direct direct direct pivot pivot/unique-
i
pivot tone
seyir used
(* It is as though there is a pivot from the previous buselik-5, but a rast-4 + buselik-5 combination is
not an acceptable combination [see Chapter VI]; by continuing to fall through the rast-5 in the kök
level, the taksim has returned to Rast.)
(9.6) “Erkin” – Segâh Taksim [no modulation] (DVD 5/46)

tiz rast-5 (buselik-4
above the
rast-5)
kök segâh-3
destek
makam (Mahur?) Segâh*
change type
pivot tone
seyir used
(* This taksim is classified as Segâh on the basis of the piece that it introduced being claimed as such
by the singer, but it would appear to me to be more like a transposition of Ferahnak, e.g., with a perfect
4th from the tonic and a descending seyir [see Appendix J s.v. Segâh and Ferahnak ].)
tiz
açan rast-4
kök
destek
makam
change type direct
pivot tone
seyir used
529
10. KEMENÇE
(10.1) Furkan Bilgi – Hicazkâr Taksim (DVD 5/47)
tiz (hicaz-5)
açan (hicaz-4) buselik-4 hicaz-4
kök hicaz-5 (*)
destek uşşak-3
makam Hicazkâr Saba on Hicazkâr
aşiran
change type species direct direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(* There is both a chromatic moment and a “pre-cadential flat five” gesture before the final cadence.)
(10.2) Emre Erdal – Segâh Taksim (DVD 5/48)

tiz
açan (buselik-5) uşşak-4 hüzzam-4*
kök segâh-3 müstear-3 segâh-3
destek rast-3
makam Segâh Müstear Segâh
pivot tone
seyir used
(* NB the use of f s/eviç’s “special leading tone” [f/acem] obscures the cins.)
tiz segâh-3 on tiz
segâh above
rast-3 on
gerdaniye**
açan uşşak-4
kök segâh-3
destek
makam
change type
pivot tone
seyir used
(** If the idea of an octave-bound scale structure for the central tonal material is not important, this
may be interpreted as a rast-5 on gerdaniye.)
530
(10.3) Selim Güler – Segâh Taksim [no modulation] (DVD 8/A2)
tiz
açan (uşşak-4) hüzzam-4* uşşak-4 hüzzam-4
kök segâh-3
destek
makam Segâh
pivot tone
seyir used
(* At first obscured by the “special leading tone” of f /eviç.)
s
(10.4) Aslıhan Özel – Hümayun Taksim [no modulation] (DVD 5/49)

tiz
açan buselik-5 rast-5 buselik
kök hicaz-4
destek (rast-5)
makam Hümayun
pivot tone
seyir used
11. NEY
(11.1) Eymen Gürtan – Acem Aşiran (Baş) Taksim [no modulation] (DVD 5/50)
tiz (çargâh-5) pençgâh-5* (+çargâh-4 on (+buselik-4

tiz çargâh) on tiz
çargâh)
açan çargâh-4
kök
destek
makam Acem Aşiran
change type direct (**) direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(* The “sharp 4th degree” here [b /tiz segâh] could be thought of as a leading tone to the 5th/dominant,
q
but its use as such generally accompanies an internal modulation to Saba, which does not occur here.)
(** “+…” means “above the tiz level.” Here is a possible interpretation of “faking” a cins combination:
Pençgâh makam might have a rast-4 here that indeed becomes a buselik-4 later as it descends, as
shown; the difference between the çargâh-4 used and the rast-4 that would make this an internal
modulation to Pençgâh [from the previous cell’s introduction of that pentachord] is a single comma—
“close enough,” as it were.)
531
tiz çargâh-5
açan
kök
destek
makam
change type direct
pivot tone
seyir used
It is worth noting that this taksim—the introduction to a Mevlevi ayin for a “whirling
dervish” ceremony (sema)—does not follow the makam’s normal seyir; the artist
performs it ascending rather than descending.
(11.2) Eymen Gürtan – Geçiş Taksim from Pençgâh to Sultani Yegâh (DVD
5/51)
tiz
açan (rast-4) (hicaz-4)
kök rast-5 pençgâh-5** rast-5 pençgâh-5
destek (rast-4)
makam Pençgâh (Suzinak) (Pençgâh)
(Rast*)
change type direct direct pivot pivot
pivot tone
seyir used
(* I.e., Pençgâh makam, beginning as Rast does.)
(** Here—and throughout this taksim—is a case where it is not perfectly clear that the 3rd degree of
the pençgâh-5 is not the same as that of the previous rast-5; in theory they are B/buselik in Pençgâh
and B /segâh in Rast [see Appendix J s.v. Pençgâh].)
q
tiz
açan rast-4 buselik-4 hicaz-4
kök rast-5 hicaz-5†
destek hicaz-4 on uşşak-3
aşiran****
makam Hicaz on Saba on
aşiran aşiran
change type
pivot tone pivot*** pivot direct direct
seyir used
(*** Because it dipped back into the pençgâh-5, which shares both cins-es in Pençgâh.)
(**** NB: with the subtonic below that, implying a rast-5 [impossibly low to reach on this
instrument].)
(† Including a “pre-cadential flat five” gesture.)
532
tiz
açan segâh-3 on
nim hicaz
kök buselik-5 (rast-5)
destek hicaz-4 on hüzzam-4
aşiran (above uşşak-
4 on ırak)
makam (Dügâh or Hicaz on Eviç?†††
Hümayun on aşiran
aşiran ††)
change type direct pivot direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(†† To move from Saba to Hicaz at the kök level is clearly a “Dügâh gesture,” but it is not clear
whether the previous iteration of a hicaz-4 on E/aşiran was intended as Dügâh as well, especially since
one would then expect a leading tone rather than a subtonic beneath. Furthermore, the artist proceeds
to play the Hümayun type of Hicaz rather than the Zirgüle type required of Dügâh.)
(††† This is similarly unclear; the “special leading tones” used below G /nim zirgüle and c /nim hicaz,
s s
along with the subtonic of the hüzzam cins (which the first of these obscures), indicate Eviç or some
other Segâh-type makam [perhaps Heftgâh in “kız neyi ahengi”], but the unusual seyir and avoidance
of a clear tonic frustrates analysis.)
tiz
açan müstear-3 segâh-3
kök hicaz-4 on (buselik-4 on
nim zirgüle dügâh)
destek (hicaz-5 on pençgâh-5 on rast-5 on
kaba nim yegâh yegâh
hicaz)
makam Evcara on †††† Pençgâh on Rast on
kaba nim yegâh yegâh
hicaz
change type direct pivot direct direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(†††† NB: unusually, does not cadence on—or even reach—its tonic; limitation of instrument’s
range?)
tiz
açan (buselik-5 on hicaz-5 on
neva) neva
kök (buselik-4 on hicaz-4 on kürdi-4
dügâh) dügâh
destek
makam Sultani
Yegâh
pivot tone
seyir used
533
tiz
açan
kök
destek buselik-5 on
yegâh •
makam
change type
pivot tone
seyir used
(• With implied hicaz-4 beneath.)
(11.3) Nurullah Kanık – Dügâh Taksim (DVD 5/52)

tiz (buselik-4) (hicaz-4) (+ whole
tone above)
açan hicaz-5 on
çargâh
kök uşşak-3 on
dügâh
destek (rast-5)
makam Saba* (**) (***)
change type unique-i direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(* Note that Dügâh is a compound of Saba followed by Zirgüleli Hicaz on dügâh.)
(** The artist’s intention as to makam identity is unclear, here; the cins combination hicaz-5 + buselik-
4 is not one of those that appear in any makam’s definition [see Chapter VI]. It could be interpreted as
a disjunct kürdi-4 on a/muhayyer, which would be unusual—especially so early in a taksim—but
occasionally Saba will have something unusual from that perde in the meyan section.)
(*** The artist’s intention as to makam identity is unclear, here; we would expect a hicaz-5 above the
hicaz-4, which could not include this whole tone.)
tiz çargâh-4 on
acem
açan
kök hicaz-5 on
dügâh
destek
makam (Sümbüle?****) Dügâh
change type direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(**** The artist’s intention as to makam identity is unclear, here, but it would be in conformity with
the archaic makam Sümbüle [see Appendix J s.v. “Muhayyer-Sümbüle”].)
534
(11.4) Ahmet Toz – Rast Taksim I (DVD 6/53)
tiz
açan
kök (rast-5) (buselik-5) rast-5 nikriz-5 rast-5
destek (rast-4)
makam Rast Nikriz Rast**
change type direct direct pivot* direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(* The use of the tone d/neva as a common dominant here qualifies this as a pivot even though what
the açan cins would be is not established.)
(** Here there is a brief single use of the perde c /nim hicaz to tonicize d/neva; it does not seem to be
s
intended to indicate a change of cins.)
tiz (rast-5)
açan rast-4 buselik-4 rast-4 segâh-3 on
tiz segâh
kök
destek
makam Segâh****
change type pivot pivot*** species
pivot tone
seyir used
(*** This is a pivot because it occurs by way of passing through the rast-5 in the kök level.)
(**** On b /tiz segâh; already at the top of the artist’s/instrument’s range, this “modulation” in effect
q
becomes a quick iteration of Eviç on b /tiz segâh.)
q
tiz
kök
destek
makam
change type species pivot †
pivot tone
seyir used
(† A pivot by way of passing through the rast-5 in the tiz level.)
535
(11.5) Ahmet Toz – Segâh Taksim (DVD 6/54)
tiz (buselik-5 on segâh-3 on
gerdaniye) tiz segâh
above rast-3
on
gerdaniye***
açan hüzzam-4 on (hicaz-4*) hüzzam-4
neva
kök segâh-3
destek rast-3**
makam Segâh
pivot tone
seyir used
(* More likely the same hüzzam-4 with a lowered 2nd degree; )
(** A quick run with a seemingly very low B /segâh.)
q
(*** The use of b /tiz segâh’s special leading tone at times obscures the rast cins.)
q
tiz buselik-5 on segâh-3 on hicaz-4 on
gerdaniye nim hicaz nim hicaz
açan hicaz-4 on
nim hicaz
kök hicaz-5 on
ırak
destek
makam Evcara
pivot tone
seyir used
tiz (buselik-5)
açan (hüzzam-4 on uşşak-4 on hüzzam-4 hicaz-4 on
neva) neva nim hicaz
kök segâh-3
destek rast-3****
makam Segâh
change type direct direct pivot direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(**** Or “rast-5.”)
tiz
açan hüzzam-4 uşşak-4 hüzzam-4
kök
destek
makam
pivot tone
seyir used
536
(11.6) Ahmet Toz – Rast Taksim II [no modulation] (DVD 6/55)
tiz
açan rast-4 (buselik-4)
kök rast-5
destek (rast-4)
makam Rast
change type direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(11.7) Ahmet Toz Geçiş Taksim from Uşşak to Hicaz (DVD 6/56)
tiz
açan buselik-5 hüzzam-4
kök uşşak-4 segâh-3 uşşak-4
destek (rast-5)
makam Uşşak Segâh Uşşak
change type direct* species
pivot tone
seyir used
(* In terms of the relationships between makam-s it could be considered [or perhaps, historically may
have been considered] a species-type change, but it was here effected through a direct cins change.)
tiz
açan rast-5 buselik-5 rast-5
kök hicaz-4
destek rast-5
makam Hicaz**
change type direct pivot pivot
pivot tone domdom
seyir used yes
(** We may think of this either as Hicaz that begins in its “destek” cins [cf. DVD 1/3], or as a brief
modulation to Suzinak on yegâh between the Uşşak and the Hicaz, which would then begin in the next
row.)
tiz uşşak-4
açan buselik-5 (rast-5) (buselik-5)
kök (uşşak-4)
destek
makam (***) Uşşak
change type unique-p pivot/unique- direct
p
pivot tone
seyir used
(*** Questionable—ostensibly we are still in Hicaz, though this uşşak-4 would not normally appear in
the tiz level of Hicaz.)
537
tiz
kök hicaz-4
destek
makam Hicaz
change type direct
pivot tone
seyir used
12. TANBUR
(12.1) Furkan Esiroğlu – Kürdili Hicazkâr Taksim (DVD 6/57)
tiz
açan buselik-5 hicaz-5 buselik-5
kök kürdi-4
destek
makam Kürdili Araban- Kürdili
Hicazkâr Kürdi Hicazkâr
pivot tone
seyir used
This taksim is unusual in several respects: in that its seyir is played as ascending,
though it should be descending; in its internal modulation to Araban-Kürdi; and in
that it is devoid of any Hicazkâr. This last aspect would appear to be a legitimate sort
of Kürdili Hicazkâr (see Appendix J) though absent Hicazkâr’s scalar material and
seyir, there is the question of why this should not simply be called a Kürdi taksim on
G/rast. The answer would seem to be simply because the taksim occurs in the middle
of a piece in Kürdili Hicazkâr.
538
(12.2) Firuz Akın Han – Kürdili Hicazkâr Taksim (DVD 6/58)
tiz (buselik-5)
açan (hicaz-4) (chromatic) kürdi-4
kök (hicaz-5) buselik-5
destek
makam * Nihavend
pivot tone
seyir used
(* Here, the artist begins with what would seem to be Hümayun on d/neva, but that would not normally
have a leading tone/hicaz-5 below the hicaz-4; it instead may be interpreted as a descending Nev’eser.)
tiz kürdi-4
açan buselik-5***
kök kürdi-4
destek (rast-5)
makam (Kürdi on
rast)
change type direct**
pivot tone
seyir used
(** The “direct” change happens by way of a leap upward by an octave.)
(*** There being little emphasis on either the fourth or fifth degree, I have parsed these as though it
were constructed like Kürdi, i.e., with the tetrachord in the kök level.)
(12.3) Firuz Akın Han – Geçiş Taksim from Nev’eser to Şedd Araban (DVD
6/59)
tiz (nikriz-5)
açan hicaz-4 rast-4 buselik-4
kök nikriz-5 (chromatic) rast-5
destek
makam Nev’eser Nikriz Rast
pivot tone
seyir used
tiz (rast-5)
açan (rast-4) (buselik-5)
kök nikriz-5 rast-5 (*)
destek
makam Nikriz Rast
pivot tone
seyir used
(* Here c /nim hicaz is used to tonicize d/neva; it seems to play on the idea of a nikriz-5 in the kök
s
level without actually deploying it.)
539
tiz (buselik-5)
açan hicaz-4 kürdi-4 hicaz-4
kök hicaz-5
destek (hicaz-4)
makam Suzinak Zirgüleli
Suzinak
change type pivot pivot direct direct
seyir used
tiz
açan
kök nikriz-5
destek hicaz-4
makam Şedd
Araban**
change type pivot
pivot tone domu-ton
seyir used yes
(** Note that the “destek” level has become the new kök level at this point. Technically, Şedd Araban
requires that its cins-types be switched from the way we see them here, i.e., that the hicaz pentachord
be the bottom-most, conjoined above by a hicaz tetrachord.)
(12.4) Firuz Akın Han – Geçiş Taksim from Nikriz to Rast (DVD 6/60)
tiz
açan (buselik-4) (hicaz-4) buselik-4
kök nikriz-5 rast
destek
makam Nikriz (Nev’eser) (Nikriz) Rast
change type pivot direct pivot
pivot tone
seyir used
tiz (nikriz-5)
açan (hicaz-4) buselik-4
kök nikriz-5 rast-5 nikriz-5 rast-5 nikriz-5
destek
makam Nikriz Rast Nikriz Suzinak Nikriz
change type pivot direct direct direct direct
pivot tone
seyir used
540
tiz (nikriz-5) (rast-5)
açan rast-4
kök rast-5 nikriz-5
destek
makam Rast Nikriz Rast
pivot tone
seyir used
tiz segâh-3*
açan buselik-4 (rast-4) (buselik-4) rast-4
kök
destek
makam Segâh
change type direct direct direct species
pivot tone
seyir used
(* Here there is a “taste” of Segâh, with its “special leading tone”—below it remains the rast-3 with
which the segâh-3 makes the previously shown rast-5.)
tiz rast-5
açan buselik-4
kök nikriz-5
destek
makam Rast Nikriz Rast
pivot tone
seyir used
(12.5) Özer Özel – Bestenigâr Taksim [no modulation] (DVD 6/61)

tiz hicaz-5 (**) (***)
açan uşşak-3
kök segâh-3
destek
makam Saba* Bestenigâr
change type
pivot tone
seyir used
(* I.e., the Saba aspect of Bestenigâr.)
(** It sounds here as though there was part of a rast-4, though that is not in the standard definition of
Saba; [part of] the expected hicaz-4 appears at ***.)
541
(12.6) Özer Özel – Hüseyni Taksim [no modulation] (DVD 6/62)
tiz (uşşak-5)
açan (uşşak-4*) uşşak-4
kök uşşak-5
destek (rast-4)
makam
change type
pivot tone
seyir used
(* This is the cins expected—since what is played is only the outer tones of the tetrachord, it is an
assumption that an uşşak-4 is intended.)
(12.7) Özer Özel – Segâh Taksim (DVD 6/63)

tiz
açan (hüzzam-4) (uşşak-4) (hüzzam-4) (uşşak-4)
kök segâh-3*
destek rast-3
makam Segâh
pivot tone
seyir used
(* With characteristic “special leading tone” A /kürdi.)
s
tiz segâh-3
açan hicaz-4 on hüzzam-4 uşşak-4 (buselik-5)
eviç**
kök müstear-3
destek
makam Müstear***
change type direct/pivot pivot direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(** Note how this shifts the “açan level” in our representation, the previous uşşak-4 being on d/neva. It
may be thought of as a “pivot” if we consider the tone a /sümbüle to be a “special leading tone” of
s
b /tiz segâh.)
q
(*** See text below.)
This was an unusual situation: here the singer of the upcoming piece began speaking
an introduction to the audience during the Segâh taksim, in which he mentioned that
the composition’s makam is Müstear. The taksim ends discretely, the singer speaks a
bit more, and subsequently there is a new taksim in Müstear (which nonetheless
542
ends—as Müstear may—in Segâh); that taksim is analyzed separately below, though
on the DVD it is continued.
(12.8) Özer Özel – Müstear Taksim [no modulation] (DVD 6/64)

tiz
açan (buselik-5)
kök müstear-3 segâh-3* müstear-3 segâh-3
destek
makam Müstear (Segâh) (Müstear) (Segâh)
pivot tone
seyir used
(* With characteristic “special leading tone.”)
As mentioned in the comment on taksim above (q.v.), the first part of the DVD
recording is a taksim in Segâh; the analysis here pertains only to the Müstear taksim
that follows it.
(12.9) Murat Salim Tokaç – Pesendide Taksim [no modulation] (DVD 7/65)
tiz
açan rast-4 (buselik-4)
kök (nikriz-5*) rast-5 (nikriz-5*) chromatic
destek
makam Pesendide
change type direct pivot (direct)
pivot tone
seyir used
(* At this point only the tone c /nim hicaz, tonicizing the dominant d/neva. The perde f /eviç also has
s s
its “special leading tone,” f/acem.)
tiz
açan chromatic buselik-4
kök rast-5 chromatic rast-5
destek
makam
change type direct (direct) direct
pivot tone
seyir used
543
tiz (rast-5) (nikriz-5**) müstear-3 on rast-5 (on
tiz segâh gerdaniye
below
buselik-4 on
tiz neva)***
açan rast-4
kök
destek (rast-4)
makam
change type pivot direct direct direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(** Only the first three tones of this cins, which we might instead consider part of a buselik-5.)
(*** That is, the descending “rast scale” entire, in the upper octave.)
tiz
açan
kök (nikriz-5****) rast-5 (nikriz-5****) rast-5
destek
makam
pivot tone
seyir used
(**** Again, merely the c /nim hicaz tonicizing the dominant.)
s
This taksim is named as Pesendide because that was the makam of the piece that the
artist was introducing, but it could be considered a Rast taksim, with recurring
elements that merely hint at the inclusion of Nikriz that would minimally make this
Pesendide (see Appendix J); all the elements of a nikriz-5 are shown in the taksim,
but the pentachord is never presented whole (see also Chapter VI regarding a more
“melodic” than “cins-defining” approach to taksim).
544
13. UD
(13.1) Mehmet Emin Bitmez – Rast Taksim (Zemin only) (DVD 7/66)
tiz (rast-5)
kök rast-5
destek rast-4
makam Rast
pivot tone
seyir used
This is only the beginning “ground” (zemin) section of a taksim in Rast. From a
culturally interesting point of view, he had just finished the zemin and would have
gone on to the middle section (meyan) but just then the call to prayer started up; it is
considered bad form to play music (even on a radio or television, but certainly live
music) during the call to prayer, as it might cause someone to miss hearing it—many
concerts are started later than their advertized times so as to avoid interfering with the
last call to prayer, and to give worshippers more time to get to the concert afterward.
Here it is clear that the artist felt it fortuitous that he had finished his phrase just in
time, and we ended the recording there.
(13.2) Mehmet Emin Bitmez – Hicazkâr Taksim (DVD 7/67)

tiz (hicaz-5) (buselik-5)
açan (hicaz-4) hicaz-4 kürdi-4*
kök (hicaz-5) hicaz-5
destek
makam Hicazkâr Nihavend
change type
pivot tone pivot pivot
seyir used
(* Reached by way of using one chromatic tone.)
545
tiz (hicaz-5)
açan (hicaz-4)
kök
destek (hicaz-4)
makam Hicazkâr
change type direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(13.3) Mehmet Emin Bitmez – Geçiş Taksim from Uşşak to Hüseyni (DVD 7/68)
tiz
açan buselik-5 rast-5 buselik-5
destek (rast-5)
makam Uşşak Hüseyni
pivot tone
seyir used
tiz
açan uşşak-4 buselik-5 rast-5 buselik-5
kök uşşak-4
destek
makam Uşşak
change type (pivot) direct pivot direct
pivot tone
seyir used
tiz (rast-5) uşşak-5

açan rast-4 kürdi-4** uşşak-4
kök (uşşak-5)
destek
makam (Rast/Gerdaniye/ Hüseyni
/Selmek*)
change type direct direct pivot direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(* Gerdaniye is a compound makam going from a descending Rast to Hüseyni; Selmek is its inverse,
going from Hüseyni to rast. This could be considered any of these, that is. A “taste” of Rast,
Gerdaniye, or Selmek.)
(** Note that from the point of view of the makam’s definition, Hüseyni should not have a kürdi-4 in
the açan level, but that operationally it does have it when f /eviç becomes f/acem in descending
s
passages, such as at the final cadence.)
546
tiz
açan kürdi-4
kök uşşak-5
destek
makam
change type direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(13.4) Necati Çelik – Gülizar Taksim (DVD 7/69)

tiz
açan (çargâh-5 on uşşak-4 kürdi-4**
acem)
kök çargâh-4 on uşşak-5
çargâh
destek
makam Acem* Gülizar
change type species
pivot tone
seyir used
(* It could be interpreted that these melodic gestures are taking place within an “uşşak-5 + kürdi-4”
framework, but the opening phrase sounds to me like a quick run through Acem makam without
stressing its dominant—this in not usually described as an opening for Gülizar makam in theory texts;
we must note that it is a relatively rare makam. Note that this is “Basit Gülizar,” in contrast with
“Mürekkeb Gülizar” as seen on DVD 1/12 [see also Appendix J].)
(** The characteristic gesture using f /eviç when rising and f/acem when falling—here represented as a
s
direct shift from an uşşak-4 to a kürdi-4 in the açan level—occurred several times before the final
cadence.)
(13.5) Bilen Işıktaş – Uşşak Taksim (DVD 7/70)

tiz
açan buselik-5 rast-5 buselik-5 rast-5
kök uşşak-4
destek (rast-5)
makam Uşşak
pivot tone
seyir used
tiz (uşşak-4) uşşak-4

açan buselik-5 hicaz-4 on
hüseyni
kök uşşak-5
destek
makam Hisar
pivot tone
seyir used
547
tiz (uşşak-4*)
açan (rast-5) buselik-5
kök uşşak-4
destek
makam Uşşak
pivot tone
seyir used
(* Gives whole makam’s descent from two octaves above the tonic.)
(13.6) Bilen Işıktaş – Geçiş Taksim from Şedd Araban to Ferahfeza (DVD 7/71)
tiz (hicaz-5) (buselik-5) hicaz-5 (buselik-5 on rast-5 on
gerdaniye gerdaniye
above a hicaz- above a
4 on neva) hicaz-4 on
neva
açan hicaz-4
kök
destek (hicaz-4)
makam Şedd Araban Hicaz on
neva*
pivot tone
seyir used
(* Could be considered the Araban of which the greater makam is a şedd (“transposition”); see
Appendix J regarding variant interpretations of Araban makam.)
tiz buselik-5 on (kürdi-4 on (buselik-5 on ? on neva** buselik-5 on

gerdaniye muhayyer gerdaniye gerdaniye
above a hicaz- above a hicaz- above a hicaz- above a
4 on neva 5 on neva*) 4 on neva) kürdi-4 on
neva
açan buselik-5 on
rast
kök
destek
makam Nihavend
change type direct direct direct unique-i direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(** An unclassifiable melodic gesture using d – e – f – g – a .)
e
548
tiz hicaz-5 on buselik-5 on
neva neva
açan hicaz-4 kürdi-4
kök hicaz-4
destek
makam Hümayun on Kürdi
yegâh
change type pivot/unique- direct pivot
i***
pivot tone
seyir used
(*** A quasi-pivot, as though the cins beneath were a pentachord.)
tiz çargâh-5 on
acem (+ one
whole step)
açan çargâh-4 on buselik-3 on buselik-5 on
çargâh neva above a rast††
kürdi-4 on
dügâh
kök çargâh-5 on buselik-5
acemaşiran on yegâh
destek
makam Acem Aşiran Acem- Nihavend Ferahfeza
(Ferahfeza****) Kürdi†
change type species species species
pivot tone
seyir used
(**** The modulation to the compound makam Ferahfeza begins here.)
(† Distinguishable only by a definitive suspended cadence in Kürdi.)
(†† With G/rast’s leading tone, F /ırak.)
s
(13.7) Osman Kırklıkçı – Şevk’efza Taksim (DVD 7/72)
tiz hicaz-4 on (buselik-5
gerdaniye above
previous)
açan hicaz-5 on segâh-3 on
çargâh* dik hisar
kök (hicaz-4)
destek (nikriz-5 on
acemaşiran)
makam Zirgüleli Segâh on
Hicaz on dik hisar
çargâh
change type
pivot tone species** species
seyir used
(* The taksim is actually played a minor third down, in “müstahzen ahengi” [see Appendix F] but the
perde names remain as though “in its place.”)
(** A gesture is played first between f/acem and g /nim şehnaz, then again an octave lower.)
s
549
tiz (rast-3 above nikriz-5 on (hicaz-4 on
a) hüzzam-4 acem gerdaniye)
on gerdaniye
açan hicaz-5 on (nikriz-5 on
çargâh kürdi)
kök nikriz-5 on
acemaşiran
destek
makam Nikriz on Zirgüleli Nikriz on Nikriz on
acem Hicaz on kürdi acemaşiran
çargâh
change type direct species species direct
pivot tone
seyir used
tiz (çargâh-5 on uşşak-4 (çargâh-5 on

acem) tiz çargâh
above uşşak-
3)
açan çargâh-4 on buselik-5 on
çargâh neva
kök (hicaz-4 on
dügâh)
destek
makam Acem Aşiran Hümayun Uşşak on
muhayyer
change type pivot species direct direct***
pivot tone
seyir used
(*** The melodic gesture is specific to Acem Aşiran, but usually played a fourth up; here it is as a foil
to the presentation of Saba [also characteristic of Acem Aşiran].)
550
tiz hicaz-5 on tiz (hicaz-5 on (çargâh-5 on hicaz-5 on (buselik-5 on
çargâh above muhayyer) acem) çargâh acem)
uşşak-3
açan (hicaz-4 on uşşak-3 on nikriz-5 on
hüseyni) dügâh kürdi
kök
destek
makam Saba**** Dügâh† Acem Aşiran Saba†† Nikriz on
kürdi
pivot tone
seyir used
(**** An octave higher than normally. The artist plays even above this, into a hicaz-4 on tiz
gerdaniye.)
(† Also an octave higher than normal.)
(†† Now “in its place.”)
tiz (çargâh-5)
açan (kürdi-4 on çargâh-4
dügâh)
kök çargâh-5 on nikriz-5 on
acemaşiran acemaşiran
destek
makam Kürdi Acem Aşiran Nikriz on
acemaşiran
pivot tone
seyir used
(13.8) Yurdal Tokcan – Muhayyer-Kürdi Taksim [no modulation] (DVD 7/73)

tiz kürdi-5
açan (kürdi-4) uşşak-4 kürdi-4
kök kürdi-5 (**)
destek (*)
makam Muhayyer-
Kürdi
pivot tone
seyir used
(* With subtonic below—it is not clear what cins there would be there, since Kürdi-type makam-s
rarely go below their subtonic.)
(** Includes “pre-cadential flat-5” gesture, without returning to the normative 5th degree before the
final cadence.)
The taksim above may be an example of a particular confusion regarding makam
definitions, and of how these are changed historically. As may be deduced from the
551
list of makam-s chosen by performers for making taksim-s, Kürdi makam, though
appearing often as a named internal modulation—albeit one that de facto rarely
appears as more than one kürdi cins—is itself currently rarely performed as an
autonomous makam. It is thus understandable that its characteristic are not fresh in
many performer’s minds. Even though as far as I have seen there is no description of
a makam—traditional, Arelian or otherwise—whose structure consists of the
conjunction of a kürdi-5 and a kürdi-4, it would seem as though Muhayyer-Kürdi
once may have meant “the Makam Muhayyer (i.e., descending Hüseyni) that then
ends in Kürdi (or at least a kürdi tetrachord)” (see Kutluğ 2000 Vol. I, s.v. Muhayyer-
Kürdi) but as this performer shows, now means “Muhayyer’s seyir and tone hierarchy
played with Kürdi’s tones, with a moment of uşşak on the fifth degree and a ‘pre-
cadential flat 5’ gesture.92” This necessarily displaces Kürdi’s traditional dominant,
the 4th degree, and its kürdi-4 + buselik-5 structure, though the actual tones remain
the same.
92
The same seems to be true for a certain version of Kürdili Hicazkâr, q.v. in Appendix J, where also
see Muhayyer-Kürdi.
552
14. VIOLIN (KEMAN)
(14.1) Sinan Erdemsel – Rast Taksim (DVD 7/74)
tiz
açan buselik-4
kök rast-5 müstear-3 rast-5 müstear-3
destek rast-4
makam Rast
change type direct pivot pivot (*)
pivot tone
seyir used
(* Through the açan cins.)
tiz
kök rast-5 müstear rast-5
destek
makam
change type pivot direct pivot pivot* direct
pivot tone
seyir used
tiz
kök
destek
makam
pivot tone
seyir used
(14.2) Hasan Şendil – Mahur Taksim (DVD 7/75)

tiz (rast-5*) segâh-3 on
tiz segâh
above rast-3
kök rast-5**
destek
makam Mahur Segâh***
change type direct pivot species
pivot tone
seyir used
(* The idea that these are rast cins-es rather than çargâh cins-es are according only to my ear; see
Appendix J and Kutluğ 2000 Vol. I, pp. 438-41.)
(** Here clearly with a 3rd degree impossible to justify as belonging to a çargâh cins.)
(*** An octave higher than normal.)
553
tiz (chromatic) (buseilk-5 on
tiz neva above
rast-5)
açan buselik-4 çargâh-5 on rast-4
çargâh
kök
destek
makam Mahur
change type direct direct pivot species direct
pivot tone
seyir used
tiz
açan buselik-4
kök uşşak-3 on
buselik
destek nikriz-5 on rast-5 on rast
rast
makam Nişabur**** Nikriz† Rast/Mahur
change type direct pivot direct direct
seyir used yes yes
(**** In the midst of Mahur/Rast, this could be interpreted as a modulation to Pençgâh.)
(† Following Mahur/Rast and Nişabur/Pençgâh, this could now be interpreted as Pesendide.)
(14.3) Baki Kemancı – Acem-Kürdi Taksim [no modulation] (DVD 7/76)

tiz (çargâh-4 on
tiz çargâh
above)
çargâh-5 on
acem
açan çargâh-4 on (çargâh-4 on
çargâh çargâh)
kök pençgâh-5 on kürdi-3 on
kürdi dügâh
destek
makam Acem Aşiran (*) “Kürdi”**
change type species species
pivot tone
seyir used
(* A “fake-able” version of Pençgâh [which would not normally have the implied çargâh-4 on f/acem],
but really the same scale as previously, with an emphasis on B /kürdi.)
e
(** In fact rather than “sounding like Kürdi” this comes off as Acem Aşiran that has come to rest on its
3rd degree; perhaps its intended effect.)
554
15. YAYLI (BOWED) TANBUR
(15.1) Ahmet Nuri Benli – Acem Aşiran Taksim (DVD 8/77)
tiz (çargâh-5) hicaz-4

açan çargâh-4 on hicaz-5 on
çargâh çargâh
kök kürdi-3 uşşak-3
destek (sub-tonic)
makam Acem Aşiran * ** Saba
change type species pivot pivot
pivot tone
seyir used
(* A suspended cadence; had it ended here we could call this Acem-Kürdi. Kürdi-type makam-s rarely
descend below the sub-tonic; it is therefore difficult to apply an implied cins in the destek level—
presumably it would be either a buselik or rast pentachord.)
(** Though evidently part of the Saba aspect of Acem Aşiran, following Acem-Kürdi it could be
interpreted as a move to Saba-Zemzeme.)
tiz
açan kürdi-4 (buselik-4)
kök nikriz-5 on çargâh-5
acemaşiran
destek (çargâh-4)
makam Kürdi*** Şevk’efza Acem
Aşiran****
pivot tone
seyir used
(*** Presumably as an aspect of Acem Aşiran.)
(**** Clearly we are in Acem Aşiran—that this is the concluding taksim of a Mevlevi ayin in that
makam should be indication enough—but it must be noted that the nikriz-5 that signals the makam
Şevk’efza is usually excluded from Acem Aşiran precisely to keep it distinct from Şevk’efza [which
may end in either a nikriz-5 or çargâh-5 on acemaşiran]. In other words, this taksim could be
interpreted as Şevk’efza.)
(15.2) Firuz Akın Han – Hicaz Taksim (DVD 8/78)

tiz (rast-4*)
açan rast-5 (buselik-5) rast-5
kök hicaz-4
destek (rast-5)
makam Hicaz
pivot tone
seyir used
(* A highly unusual cins in this level of Hicaz; the intention as to makam identity here is unclear but
would seem to be Rast on neva.)
555
tiz hicaz-4
açan buselik-5 rast-5 buselik-5 rast-5
kök
destek
makam
change type unique-i** direct direct direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(** This could be considered a pivot by way of the upper cins, but through what makam-s exactly is
not clear; a buselik cins below a rast one is a combination not found in any makam definition [see
Chapter VI].)
tiz rast-4 buselik-4

açan (rast-4) buselik-5 (rast-4)
kök
destek
makam
pivot tone
seyir used
tiz
açan buselik
kök
destek
makam
change type pivot
pivot tone
seyir used
(15.3) Firuz Akın Han – Hüseyni Taksim (DVD 8/79)

tiz (uşşak-5)
açan uşşak-4 kürdi-4 (on uşşak-4 segâh-3 kürdi-4 (on
hüseyni) hüseyni)
kök uşşak-5
destek (uşşak-4)
makam Hüseyni Segâh on eviç Hüseyni
change type direct pivot* species direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(* By way of passing through the kök level cins, though then leaping to the açan level cins.)
556
tiz
açan uşşak-4 kürdi-4
kök
destek
makam
change type pivot* direct
pivot tone
seyir used
16. MÜŞTEREK (MULTIPLE-INSTRUMENT)
(16.1) Göksel Baktagir (kanun) – Hüseyni Taksim [no modulation] & Baki
Kemancı (violin/keman) – Muhayyer-Kürdi Taksim [no modulation] (DVD 8/80)
tiz
açan (kürdi-4) chromatic*** kürdi-4
kök uşşak-5 (uşşak-5) kürdi-5
destek (uşşak-4) (uşşak-4)
makam Hüseyni ****
change type * ** direct pivot/unique- (1:15-2:49†)
p
pivot tone
seyir used
(* G. Baktagir playing. Note that the uşşak-4 in the açan cins level, which is in the structural definition
of the makam Hüseyni, does not appear in his part of the taksim, nor does it reach the upper octave.)
(** B. Kemancı playing.)
(*** This moment of chromaticism is a blending of the first three tones of a kürdi-4 and an uşşak-4,
i.e.: d - e - f - f - g.)
s
(**** From a structural point of view there is no makam whose “official” definition includes a kürdi-5
+ a kürdi-4; it may be that the artist has conceived of this as simply lowering the 2nd degree of the kök
level cins for color, though he plays it several times as a cadence with this tone, which is lower than
allowable in an uşşak-5. It would seem that he is playing a kind of Basit Gülizar but with the tones of
the Kürdi makam.)
(† Here the band plays the piece these artists have introduced; at ca. 2:49 B. Kemancı has a second,
metered taksim.)
tiz uşşak-5
açan (uşşak-4)
kök
destek
makam Hüseyni††
change type
pivot tone
seyir used
(†† The artist’s 2nd taksim would appear to be simply Hüseyni, confined to its kök cins, in the upper
octave. After this taksim there is a return to the piece in Muhayyer-Kürdi.)
557
(16.2) Kemal Karaöz (ney) [no modulation] & Erdem Özkıvanç (kanun) [no
modulation] – Hüseyni Taksim (DVD 8/81)
tiz
açan uşşak-4 kürdi-4 uşşak-4 kürdi-4
kök uşşak-5
destek (uşşak-4)
makam Hüseyni
change type direct pivot pivot
pivot tone
seyir used
tiz
açan uşşak-4 kürdi-4
kök uşşak-5
destek (uşşak-4)
makam Hüseyni
change type * pivot
pivot tone
seyir used
(* Here begins the second taksim, by E. Özkıvanç.)
(16.3) “Erkin” (kanun), Özer Özel (tanbur) [no modulation], Aslıhan Özel
(kemençe) [no modulation] & Nurullah Kanık – Suzinak Taksim (DVD 8/82)
tiz (buselik-5**) (buselik-5**)
açan hicaz-4 hicaz-4
kök rast-5 rast-5
destek (rast-4)
makam Basit Suzinak Basit Suzinak
change type * ***
pivot tone
seyir used
(* Here begins the taksim of “Erkin.”)
(** Note that this açan-tiz conjunction is not found in theory book definitions of Suzinak; generally
there would be either a [repeat of the lower] rast-5, or a hicaz-5 indicating Mürekkeb Suzinak. Here the
thinking seems to be that the makam Hümayun is played on d/neva, which then falls through a rast-5 to
cadence. Note that all four players use this conjunction at some point.)
(*** Here begins the taksim of Ö. Özel.)
tiz (buselik-5**)
açan (rast-4) hicaz-4 hicaz-4
kök (rast-5) rast-5
destek (rast-4)
makam Basit Suzinak
change type pivot pivot ****
pivot tone
seyir used
(**** Here begins the taksim of A. Özel.)
558
tiz (buselik-5)
açan hicaz-4 †††
kök hicaz-5 (††) rast-5
destek (rast-4)
makam Zirgüleli Basit
Suzinak Suzinak
change type † pivot/unique-
i
pivot tone
seyir used
(† Here begins the taksim of N. Kanık.)
(†† Here the artist twice plays the “leading tone” 4 commas below the dominant, which is the
augmented 4th degree of the host makam.)
(††† Here the tone f/acem appears for a moment; the implication could either be a buselik-5 on
c/çargâh [which is the focus of the gesture—this implies Hümayun on G/rast] or a kürdi-4 on d/neva
[implying a kind of Araban on G/rast], neither of which appears in the makam’s “textbook definition”
[see Appendix J].)
tiz
açan buselik-4
kök
destek
makam (Rast††††)
change type pivot
pivot tone
seyir used
(†††† Presumably as a component of Basit Suzinak.)
(16.4) “Erkin” (kanun) [no modulation] & Özer Özel (tanbur) – Nihavend
Taksim (DVD 8/83)
tiz (buselik-5)
açan kürdi-4 uşşak-4 (hicaz-4)
kök buselik-5 (nikriz-5) buselik-5
destek (hicaz-4)
makam Nihavend Nev’eser Nihavend
change type * ** direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(* Here begins the taksim by “Erkin.”)
(** Here begins the taksim by Ö. Özel.)
tiz
açan kürdi-4
kök chromatic buselik-5
destek hicaz-4
makam
change type pivot
pivot tone
seyir used
559
(16.5) Hasan Şendil (violin/keman) & İhsan Cansever (voice/ses) – Geçiş Taksim
and Gazel from Beyati to Hüseyni (DVD 8/84)
tiz
açan (buselik-5) (buselik-5) uşşak-4 kürdi-4
kök uşşak-4 uşşak-4 uşşak-5
destek (rast-5)
makam Beyati Hüseyni
change type * ** * pivot
pivot tone
seyir used
(* Taksim by H. Şendil.)
(** Gazel by İ. Cansever.)
tiz
açan uşşak-4 uşşak-4 uşşak-4
kök uşşak-5 uşşak-5 uşşak-5
destek
makam Hüseyni Hüseyni
change type ** * **
pivot tone
seyir used
(16.6) Mehmet Emin Bitmez (ud) & Furkan Bilgi (kemençe) – Hicaz Taksim
(DVD 8/85)
tiz
açan (buselik-5) rast-5 buselik-5
kök hicaz-4
destek rast-5
makam Hicaz** (Hümayun)
change type * direct direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(* Here begins the taksim of M.E. Bitmez.)
(** Although in a structural sense the first gesture is Hümayun, the quick and long lasting appearance
of the rast-5 in the açan cins confirms the intention as Hicaz. As the artist confirmed to me that the
taksim was intended to be in Hicaz, modulations to other members of the Hicaz family are here
presented in parentheses.)
tiz (hicaz-5 on hicaz-5

gerdaniye)
açan rast-5 kürdi-4 uşşak-4 uşşak-3 (uşşak-4)
kök hicaz-5
destek
makam (Araban***) (Uzzal) Saba on (Uzzal)
hüseyni
change type direct pivot direct species direct
pivot tone
seyir used
(*** See Appendix J s.v. Araban. Note the changing of the dominant from d/neva to e/hüseyni.)
560
tiz
açan uşşak-5 uşşak-4 (kürdi-4) (buselik-5) rast-5
kök hicaz-5 hicaz-4 hicaz-4
destek (rast-4)
makam Hüseyni on (Uzzal) (Araban) (Hümayun) (Hicaz)
hüseyni
change type species species **** species †
pivot tone
seyir used
(**** Here begins the taksim of F. Bilgi.)
(† M.E. Bitmez returns to playing—NB: in Hicaz proper.)
tiz hicaz-4 (buselik-5

above hicaz-
4)
açan buselik-5 rast-5 rast-5
kök
destek
makam (Hümayun) (Hicaz) (Hicaz)
change type pivot pivot ††
pivot tone
seyir used
(†† F. Bilgi returns to playing.)
tiz (buselik-4)
açan segâh-3 on müstear-3 on segâh-3 on
eviç eviç eviç
kök hicaz-4 on
nim hicaz
destek hicaz-5 on
ırak
makam Evcara
pivot tone
seyir used
tiz
açan rast-4 rast-4
kök nikriz-5 nikriz-5 hicaz-4
destek
makam Nikriz Nikriz Hicaz
change type species ††† species
pivot tone
seyir used
(††† M.E. Bitmez returns to playing.)
561
tiz
açan kürdi-4 buselik-5 on
neva
kök hicaz-5 hicaz-4
yegâh yegâh
makam (Araban) (Hicaz) Sultani Sultani
Yegâh Yegâh
change type direct †††† (species) pivot quote•
pivot tone
seyir used
(†††† F. Bilgi returns to playing.)
(• M.E. Bitmez returns to playing.)
tiz
açan (buselik-5 on
neva)
kök hicaz-4
yegâh acemaşiran
makam Sultani
Yegâh
change type •• ••• direct••••
pivot tone
seyir used
(•• F. Bilgi returns to playing.)
(••• M.E. Bitmez returns to playing, mimicking gesture just played by F. Bilgi, stopping on c /nim
s
hicaz. This is repeated, both stopping now on B /dik kürdi.)
w
(•••• Here F. Bilgi is playing. It is unclear where the modulation was intended to go; the taksim was
interrupted by an event offstage.)
(16.7) Nurullah Kanık (ney) & Özer Özel (tanbur) – Hümayun Taksim (DVD
8/86)
tiz
açan buselik-5 (kürdi-4) ***
kök hicaz-4 hicaz-5 rast-5
destek (rast-4)
makam Hümayun Araban?** ?
change type * species unique-i
pivot tone
seyir used
(* Here begins the taksim of N. Kanık.)
(** In official Arelian theory there is no construction hicaz-5 + kürdi-4, but see Appendix J s.v.
“Araban.” Similarly there is no conjunction rast-5 + kürdi, as follows this [see Chapter VI].)
(*** Here there is a non-makam gesture of two leaps of a perfect 4th followed by a leap of a “major
3rd” altogether from A/dügâh to b/tiz buselik. The implication would be that there is a rast, nikriz, or
buselik pentachord in the tiz level, though no more than the first 2 tones are shown.)
562
tiz (hicaz-4) hicaz-5 hicaz-5
açan buselik-5 on (hicaz-4****) hicaz-4
neva
kök
destek
makam Hümayun (Şehnaz) Şehnaz
change type direct direct †
pivot tone
seyir used
(**** This may merely be a tonicization of d/neva, but it remains throughout the rest of the taksim,
implying a Zirgüleli Hicaz or Şehnaz. Note the change of dominant, and therefore of the limits of the
cins level/width.)
(† Here begins the taksim of Ö. Özel.)
tiz
açan buselik-5††
kök hicaz-4
destek
makam Hümayun
change type pivot
pivot tone
seyir used
(†† Again a change in the dominant means a necessary change in the limit and width of the cins level.)
The above taksim is unique among our müşterek examples in that rather than each
player simply playing their full taksim (with its definition of the makam anew each
time), here the first player left his in a modulation to another makam, with a different
dominant than the original, and the second player picked it up from that makam
(Şehnaz) and returned it to the original (Hümayun).
(16.8) Volkan Yılmaz (ney; Nev’eser Taksim) [no modulation] & Selim Güler
(kemençe; Nihavend Taksim) [no modulation] (DVD 8/87)
tiz
açan hicaz-4 (kürdi-4)
kök nikriz-5 buselik-5
destek hicaz-4
makam Nev’eser Nihavend
change type * **
pivot tone
seyir used
(* Here begins the taksim of V. Yılmaz.)
(** Here begins the taksim of S. Güler.)
563
APPENDIX L: DVDs OF THE TAKSİM-S
Appendix L itself consists of the eight DVDs accompanying this text. Below is the
list of the taksim-s and their artists as they appear on the DVDs. They are ordered
alphabetically, first by instrument, then by artist’s last name, then by taksim name.93
The taksim-s are not re-numbered for each DVD; DVD 1 contains “tracks” 1 through
12, DVD 2 contains “tracks” 12-24, etc. The first four DVDs contain recordings of
the taksim-s for which the artist him/herself gave an analysis; such analyses appear in
subtitles on the movie clips, in the artist’s own terms (though I translated the analyses
from Turkish to English). DVDs 5 through 8 contain recordings of taksim-s without
such analyses; I analyzed these myself as they appear in Appendix K.94 Subtitled text
in white on videos on the first four disks are my translations of the artists’
commentary; text in yellow shows my own supplemental comments.
The videos are available by looking up this dissertation at
http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/disexpress.shtml. The files
should run on any model of computer, with any operating system, provided it have
installed some sort of video viewing software (such as iTunes, QuickTime Player,
Video Player, etc.). The largest disk is 2.83 GB. The movie clips range from 30.9 MB
to 356.3 MB.
93
Note, however, that the artists’ last names appear first within the title of each movie clip, followed
by instrument name and the name of the makam of the taksim.
94
Note that the alphabetizing of these taksim-s begins anew even though their numbering is continued.
564
DVD 1 (Appendix L-1)
1. Agnès Agopian – Kanun – 2 Rast Taksim-s
2. Agnès Agopian – Kanun – Beyati-Araban
3. Agnès Agopian – Kanun – Hicaz to Nihavend Geçiş
4. Şehvar Beşiroğlu – Kanun – Kürdili Hicazkâr to Bestenigâr Geçiş
5. Şehvar Beşiroğlu – Kanun – Rast
6. Şehvar Beşiroğlu – Kanun – Zavil
7. Eymen Gürtan – Ney – Bayati
8. Eymen Gürtan – Ney – Nihavend
9. Eymen Gürtan – Ney – Suz-i Dilara to Nihavend Geçiş
10. Murat Aydemir – Tanbur – Arazbar-Buselik
11. Murat Aydemir – Tanbur – Beyati-Araban
12. Murat Aydemir – Tanbur – Gerdaniye to Gülizar Geçiş
565
13. Murat Aydemir – Tanbur – Isfahan
14. Murat Aydemir – Tanbur – Muhayyer-Sümbüle
15. Murat Aydemir – Tanbur – Suzinak
16. Özer Özel – Tanbur – Bayati
17. Özer Özel – Tanbur – Hicazkâr
18. Özer Özel – Tanbur – Suz-i Dilara
19. Özer Özel – Tanbur – Suz-i Dilara to Kürdili Hicazkâr Geçiş
20. Özer Özel – Tanbur – Uşşak
21. Mehmet Emin Bitmez – Ud – Acem Aşiran
22. Mehmet Emin Bitmez – Ud – Evcara to Ferahnak Geçiş
23. Mehmet Emin Bitmez – Ud – Eviç to Evcara Geçiş
24. Mehmet Emin Bitmez – Ud – Nişabur
566
25. Mehmet Emin Bitmez – Ud – Nişaburek
26. Mehmet Emin Bitmez – Ud – Pençgâh
27. Mehmet Emin Bitmez – Ud – Rast on dügâh
28. Necati Çelik – Ud – Bestenigâr
29. Necati Çelik – Ud – Muhayyer
30. Necati Çelik – Ud – Rast
31. Necati Çelik – Ud – Şevk’efza
32. Ünal Ensari – Violin – Hicaz
33. Vasfi Akyol – Yaylı Tanbur – Hicaz
34. Vasfi Akyol – Yaylı Tanbur – Nihavend
35. Vasfi Akyol – Yaylı Tanbur – Rast to Hüseyni on rast Geçiş
567
36. Ahmet Nuri Benli – Yaylı Tanbur – Rast
37. Ahmet Nuri Benli – Yaylı Tanbur – Uşşak
38. Sinan Erdemsel – Yaylı Tanbur – Acem Aşiran
39. Sinan Erdemsel – Yaylı Tanbur – Kürdili Hicazkâr
40. Sinan Erdemsel – Yaylı Tanbur – Nihavend
A1 (audio only) İhsan Özgen – Kemençe – “Beyond Makam”
41. Şükrü Kabacı – Clarinet – Muhayyer-Kürdi
42. Turgut Özefer – Kanun – Hüseyni
43. Turgut Özefer – Kanun – Kürdili Hicazkâr
44. Erdem Özkıvanç – Kanun – Nihavend
45. Erkin – Kanun – Rast95
46. Erkin – Kanun – Segâh
47. Furkan Bilgi – Kemençe – Hicazkâr
48. Emre Erdal – Kemençe – Segâh
49. Aslıhan Özel – Kemençe – Hümayun
50. Eymen Gürtan – Ney – Acem Aşiran
51. Eymen Gürtan – Ney – Pençgâh to Sultani Yegâh Geçiş
52. Nurullah Kanık – Ney – Dügâh
95
NB: I was unable to track down Erkin’s surname.
568
53. Ahmet Toz – Ney – Rast I
54. Ahmet Toz – Ney – Segâh
55. Ahmet Toz – Ney – Rast II
56. Ahmet Toz – Ney – Uşşak to Hicaz Geçiş
57. Furkan Esiroğlu – Tanbur – Kürdili Hicazkâr
58. Firuz Akın Han – Tanbur – Kürdili Hicazkâr
59. Firuz Akın Han – Tanbur – Nev’eser to Şedd Araban Geçiş
60. Firuz Akın Han – Tanbur – Nikriz to Rast Geçiş
61. Özer Özel – Tanbur – Bestenigâr
62. Özer Özel – Tanbur – Hüseyni
63. Özer Özel – Tanbur – Segâh
64. Özer Özel – Tanbur – Müstear
65. Murat Salim Tokaç – Tanbur – Pesendide
66. Mehmet Emin Bitmez – Ud – Rast Zemini
67. Mehmet Emin Bitmez – Ud – Hicazkâr
68. Mehmet Emin Bitmez – Ud – Uşşak to Hüseyni Geçiş
69. Necati Çelik – Ud – Gülizar
70. Bilen Işıktaş – Ud – Uşşak
71. Bilen Işıktaş – Ud – Şedd Araban to Ferahfeza Geçiş
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72. Osman Kırklıkçı – Ud – Şevk’efza
73. Yurdal Tokcan – Ud – Muhayyer-Kürdi
74. Sinan Erdemsel – Violin – Rast
75. Hasan Şendil – Violin – Mahur
76. Baki Kemancı – Violin – Acem-Kürdi
77. Ahmet Nuri Benli – Yaylı Tanbur – Acem Aşiran
78. Firuz Akın Han – Yaylı Tanbur – Hicaz
79. Firuz Akın Han – Yaylı Tanbur – Hüseyni
80. Baktagir-Kemancı – Hüseyni and Muhayyer-Kürdi
81. Karaöz-Özkıvanç – Hüseyni
82. Erkin-Özel-Özel-Kanık – Suzinak
83. Erkin-Özel – Nihavend
84. Şendil-Cansever – Beyati to Hüseyni Geçiş
85. Bitmez-Bilgi – Hicaz
86. Kanık-Özel – Hümayun
87. Yılmaz-Güler – Nev’eser and Nihavend
A2 (audio only) Selim Güler – Kemençe – Segâh
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GLOSSARY
Abjad. (Ebced in modern Turkish) a pronunciation of the first four letters of the
original Arabic “alphabet”; abjadic notation is one in which Arabic letters are used to
represent musical tones (see Yarman 2007b passim). Following linguist Peter T.
Daniel’s definition, the main difference between an alphabet and an abjad is that the
former has separate signs for all of its vowels and the latter relies on separate diacritic
marks to show vowel sounds (if a writing sample shows them at all).
Ahenk. Literally “harmony, tuning, consonance.” In the sense used in this text (and
explained at length in Appendix F, q.v.), it refers to a scheme for naming twelve
common transpositions; the ahenk called “bolahenk” is the standard for KTM
notation, and sounds a perfect fourth lower than written.
Alaturka. From the Italian a la turca, “in the Turkish manner.” A term current in the
late Ottoman Empire and early Turkish Republic denoting anything considered old
fashioned and in need of modernization by way of Westernization; its antithesis is
alafranga, “in the European manner.” It is a term that was applied to KTM by those
who wished to eradicate the music in favor of European classical music, Anatolian
and Thracian folk tunes, and the mixture of the two, which were considered more
“nationalistic” by the reformers who would become hegemonic in the early Republic
(see Chapter III).
Alḥān. Plural of the Arabic laḥn, “song.” This was one of the medieval names of the
“secondary modal entities” described in Chapter II.
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Angham. Plural of the Arabic naghma, “melody.” This was one of the medieval
names of the “secondary modal entities” described in Chapter II.
Ara (Taksim). Literally “between” or “space” taksim. A taksim that is performed
between two pieces of pre-composed repertoire, all three being in the same makam.
Aṣābi`. Literally “fingers” in Arabic. In this text it has been used to stand for the
phrase “finger modes,” which was the term used in early medieval Baghdad for the
melodic modes in use at the time, that is, the “ancestors” of the makam-s. These
modes were described in terms of the placement of a performer’s fingers on the
(fretted) neck of a lute.
Awāzāt. Arabic version of the Persian “songs,” the plural of awāz/avāz. This was one
of the medieval names of the “secondary modal entities” described in Chapter II. It is
today applied to such secondary modal entities in classical Persian music (see Farhat
1990).
Ayin. A suite form of pieces in the same or closely related makam-s performed
during the Mevlevi (and other Sufi) sema ceremony (see “Sema” below; see also
DVD 5/50 and 8/77).
Basit. “Simple, basic” in Turkish. In this text the word has been used to modify two
different types of makam. Firstly, Arel denoted 13 makam-s as “basit” for their being
constructed (in his view) of cins-es that were delimited by either a perfect fourth or a
perfect fifth—those makam-s are: Çargâh, Buselik, Kürdi, Rast, Uşşak, Hicaz,
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Hümayun, Uzzal, Zirgüle, Hüseyni, (Basit) Suzinak, Karcığar, and Neva. Secondly,
“basit makam-s” are “simple” in contrast to “compound makam-s” (mürekkeb or
bileşik makam-s); compound makam-s are made from the combination of simple
makam-s.
Baş (Taksim). Literally “head” (taksim). This is the name of the taksim, always
performed on a ney flute, that introduces the first piece of an Ayin (q.v. above; also
see Giriş [Taksim] below).
Beraber (Taksim). An experimental form of taksim in which two or more players
perform simultaneously, creating a de facto counterpoint of sorts. B. Aksoy claims
that Mesut Cemil Bey invented the beraber taksim in the mid-twentieth century
(2004). It is currently very rarely heard.
Beşli. Literally “having five,” this is the Turkish term used for both the interval of a
fifth, and for the pentachord. As a pentachord it is in the category of “Cins” (q.v.,
below), along with tetrachords (dörtlü-s) and trichords (üçlü-s).
Beylik. “Stereotype.” This is one of several terms used to describe melodic gestures
associated with particular makam-s (see Chapter IV).
Bileşik. “Combined”; used in reference to compound makam-s (see “Mürekkeb,”
below).
Bolahenk. “Full tuning,” the name of one of twelve transposition schemes (see
“Ahenk” above and Appendix F).
573
Cazibe. “Attraction, gravity.” This refers to the tendency in performance to alter the
intonation of certain tones in accord with the direction of the melody, such that in
ascending phrases the highest normative version of the Perde (q.v. below) is given,
while a flatter one is played when the melody is descending. The term may be used to
refer either to the alteration of a single perde’s intonation, or to the exchange of one
perde for an adjacent one under similar circumstances (see Chapters IV and VII).
Cins. Arabic jins, from Greek genos (Latin genus; plurals are ajnas/geni/genera
respectively). Units of three tones (specifically called “trichords”), four tones
(specifically called “tetrachords”) or five tones (specifically called “pentachords”)
that may be combined to make up the note-inventory aspect of a makam. At different
times and places throughout the history of Eastern Mediterranean modal music the
term has been applied to all three types, or only to tetrachords, or to both tetrachords
and pentachords. Modal constructions using cins-es have likewise changed between
being conceived as only conjunct (where the upper tone of the lower cins is the same
as the lower tone of the upper cins) or as only disjunct (where the upper tone of the
lower cins and the lower tone of the upper cins are separated by a whole tone) or as
permitting either. Today classical Turkish music theory permits only conjunct cins-es;
Arelian theory proposes only tetrachords and pentachords while performers admit
certain trichords as well. See Chapter VI regarding the possible “cins conjunctions”
and “cins constellations” in current classical Turkish music.
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Comma. The idea of a (musical) “comma” as a size of interval comes originally from
Pythagorean music theory—it is the (tiny) amount by which twelve perfect fifths
exceed seven octaves. But rather than Pythagoras’ comma of 531441:524288 or 23.46
cents (i.e., 23.46% of a tempered half-step), in KTM the Holdrian comma (Holder
koması) of 22.64 cents is used (1200 cents ÷ 53 commas); this is understood as an
approximation of the 81:80 “syntonic comma” of 21.5 cents (see Yarman 2007b: 58,
Özkan 1984, cf. Yavuzoğlu no date). William Holder, after whom the Holdrian
comma was named, was a seventeenth-century English music theorist who wrote on
53-tone equal temperament and devised this special “comma” to denote one step in
53-tET.
Cümbüş. Literally “fun, excitement.” A Turkish 12-stringed (6-course) fretless lute-
type instrument with a (banjo-like) skin head. Once associated with the urban non-
Muslim minorities (Greek, Armenian, Jewish), and until recently with Turkish
Romany (“Gypsy”) players and music, the cümbüş has since around 2000 spread in
popularity amongst Turkish performers, though it is not considered an appropriate
instrument by the classical Turkish music establishment (but see “Yaylı Tanbur”
below).
Çeşni. Literally “a taste, a sample,” as in that which is offered when someone
proffers a piece of what they are eating or drinking. As seen in Chapter IV, it may
refer to a range of more or less exact melodic gestures that evoke a specific makam.
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Most conservatively it is “the smallest melodic concept conveying the explanatory
[identifying] power of a makam.”
Çingene. A disparaging Turkish term for Romany (Román/“Gypsy”). It is sometimes
applied by classical musicians as an epithet upon other musicians whom they perceive
as playing in an unsophisticated or overly commercial manner.
Dasātīn. Persian, literally “necks.” The Persian-language term for the medieval pre-
“makam” modal entities described above under “Aṣābi`.”
Doğaçlama. Musical improvisation, outside of the application of makam theory.
Donanım. A “makam signature” analogous to a “key signature” in Western music
notation, that is, it consists in a set of accidental signs placed on a musical staff to
indicate the appropriate form of letter-name note for the specific makam.
Dörtlü. Literally “having four,” this is the Turkish term used for both the interval of a
fourth, and for the tetrachord. As a tetrachord it is in the category of “Cins” (q.v.,
above), along with trichords (üçlü-s) and pentachords (beşli-s).
Durak. Literally “stop”; the tonic of a makam (see “Karar” below).
Equal Temperament. A way of determining a set of musical intervals by dividing an
octave into equally “sized” intervals. For instance, Western music is generally in a
twelve-tone equal temperament, where there are 12 “semi-tones” (or “half steps”) and
each is the same “distance” (i.e., in the same relationship of vibration) to those
adjacent in the series of all possible tones. Although the most influential theorists on
576
today’s classical Turkish music theory did not present its inventory of tones in terms
of an equal temperament, the popular use of the Comma (which see above) as a unit
of measurement, both in theory books and in normal rhetoric among musicians,
implies the acceptance of a 53-tone equal temperament. That is, there the octave is de
facto divided into 53 equal units, each one being a “(Holdrian) comma” wide.
Gazel. (From the Arabic ghazal.) Originally referring to a poetic structure consisting
of rhyming couplets and a refrain, each line sharing the same meter, in the context of
classical Turkish music “gazel” came to refer to the sung version of a taksim (whether
using lyrics derived from such a poem or a repeated word such as “aman” [“mercy”]).
That is to say that the sung melody was the spontaneously generated praxis of the
makam chosen for the performance. See also Kaside below (from which the poetic
form of gazel was apparently originally derived).
Geçiş. “Passage, transition.” In a musical context it refers to a modulation, usually of
a relatively more enduring sort than described by the term geçki (q.v. below); a geçiş
taksimi is a taksim that begins in one makam but ends in another. The most common
context for such a taksim is to make a graceful transition between two pieces of pre-
composed repertoire that are in two different makam-s.
Geçki. “Passing.” In a musical context it describes a moment of modulation, usually
of a more transitory sort than that described by the term geçiş (q.v. above).
Giriş (Taksim). “Entry (Taksim).” A taksim intended to introduce a piece of music,
or especially a suite of pieces, by formally demonstrating the makam of the piece or
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suite. Unlike the similar but more specialized baş taksimi (q.v., above), it may be
performed on any instrument.
Güçlü. Literally “[the one] having strength,” güçlü in the context of classical Turkish
music refers to the dominant tone. As such it may be considered the second most
important tone in a makam’s structure, the first being the tonic (see “Karar,” below).
If the trichord is accepted as a size of cins, the güçlü is most often the point of
conjunction of the two cins-es in the central octave (i.e., of the root/kök and
opening/açan level cins-es), although there are several makam-s whose dominant is
the “upper tonic,” and one informant in this study shared the very rare opinion that
the tonic itself could also serve as the dominant (see Chapter IV). Unlike in Western
music, the dominant is not always a perfect fifth upward from the tonic. A makam
may also have secondary and even tertiary dominants, but again, unlike in Western
music, these are not necessarily in a fixed relationship to each other, and do not
necessarily “lead” from one directly to the next.
Hafız. A person who has memorized (and can recite from memory) the Qur‘an.
Hamparsum Notation. A system of music notation invented by Ottoman-Armenian
composer Hamparsum Limoncıyan (1768-1839), apparently derived from an earlier
ecclesiastic music notation of the Armenian Apostolic Church (for which Hamparsum
notation is currently the standard). It uses 45 symbols derived from the Armenian
alphabet to represent 14 pitches per octave over a range of 3 octaves and a minor
second, as well as pitch duration, rests, repeats, periods, and stops. Because certain
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tones and inflections of tones used in classical Turkish music are not precisely
represented in this system, a knowledge of the makam-s themselves is required to
properly execute repertoire notated in it. Though like other Ottoman-era notation
systems it was never used in performance, Limoncıyan apparently transcribed much
of the eighteenth-century Ottoman repertoire in a collection of six books (of which
two survive), which he presented to Sultan Selim III (see Karamahmutoğlu 2009).
There are today both theorists and performers who can read and write in the system,
some of whom advocate it as a replacement for the Western staff notation currently in
use (see Chapter III and Bayhan 2008).
Hane. From the Persian for “inn” (cf. Arabic khana). In the context of classical
Turkish music it refers to sections of a pre-composed form such as the saz semaisi
(“instrumental listening piece”) and peşrev (introduction), both of which consist in
the presentation of a “first hane” followed by a refrain (teslim, literally “delivery”),
followed by a “second hane,” then a return to the same refrain (the saz semaisi having
4 hane-s and the peşrev 3 to 6). Feldman notes that until the seventeenth century it
was only in the third hane of a peşrev that any modulation appeared in the notated
repertoire (excepting certain pedagogical song forms, see Chapter II).
Holdrian Comma. (see “Comma,” above.)
Ìlm al-Mūsīqī. Arabic “the science of music”; the theorized version of medieval
“Islamic” art music. It varied over time and in accord with various authors as to its
reflection of music-as-practiced, and often included such concerns as cosmology
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(“music of the spheres,” astrological connections to melodic modes), emotional and
therapeutic affects ascribed to melodic modes, etc.
İlahi. A type of Sufi hymn.
Just Intonation. Just intonation refers to any musical tuning in which the frequencies
(rates of vibration) between any and all pitches (or “tones”) are related by ratios of
whole numbers. A “limit” can be placed upon the tone choices in a just intonation
tuning by setting a prime number as the highest number by which either factor may
be divided, for instance the interval ratio 3:2 (a “perfect fifth”) means that A) the
higher tone vibrates 3 times during the same period during which the lower tone
vibrates twice, and B) it is a “3-limit” interval by virtue of the factors being divisible
only by either 3 or 2 (but not, for instance, by 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, etc.). The interval ratio
13:12 is in “13-limit just intonation,” etc. Given the use of 53-tone equal
temperament as a standard in classical Turkish music (see “Equal Temperament,”
above), we may say that a 5-limit just intonation is the lowest limit for a just
intonation approximating this standard, though early theorists sometimes referred to a
(3-limit just intonation) “Pythagorean” tuning as at least theoretically appropriate (see
Chapter III).
Kanun. The Turkish version of this trapezoidal zither (plucked with tortoise-shell
plectra affixed by rings to the index fingers) has 26 triple courses of strings covering
3 octaves (from A2 to E6). The fine tuning of each course is effected by short levers
(mandal-s) beneath the strings along the left side of the instrument. Yarman notes
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(2007a) that by virtue of kanun makers’ practice of dividing each tempered semi-tone
into 6 equal parts, today’s kanun-s are de facto tuned in 72-tone Equal Temperament
(the only KTM instrument so tuned; see also Appendix E for a photograph).
Karar. Literally “decision, resolution,” in the context of classical Turkish music the
unqualified term refers either to the tonic itself, or to the final cadence (always upon
the tonic). Modified as “yarım karar” (“half cadence”) it refers to a cadence upon the
dominant, and as “asma karar” (“suspended cadence”) it refers to a brief cadence on
a tone other than tonic or dominant. According to Aydemir 2010, a “half cadence”
may not deviate from the tones of the nominal makam, while the “suspended
cadence” may do so.
Kaside. (From the Arabic qasida, literally “intention.”) Kaside originally referred to
an Arab poetic structure consisting of all rhyming lines (often 50 or more) adhering to
an elaborate metric scheme. In the context of classical Turkish music, however,
“kaside” came to refer to a sung version of a taksim (whether using lyrics derived
from such a poem or a repeated word such as “aman” [“mercy”]), although the term
“gazel” with the same meaning (q.v. above) was more common. That is to say that the
sung melody was the spontaneously generated praxis of the makam chosen for the
performance.
Kemençe. A short bowed fiddle played upright upon the knee (see a photograph in
Appendix E). This instrument may be qualified as the “classical kemençe” (klasik
keençesi; sometimes also as armudi kemençe, “pear-shaped kemençe”) to distinguish
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it from the “kemençe” that is a folk fiddle of the Black Sea region. Fingering of the
strings is effected with the fingernails rather than the fingertips. The traditional
version has three single courses, while the music theorist H.S. Arel is attributed the
invention of the four course kemençe, in four sizes (imitating the string quartet).
Koma. (see “Comma,” above.)
Longa. Originally an instrumental dance form in Romanian folk music, the longa was
adopted into late Ottoman classical music as a lively and virtuosic tune form. (See
also “Mandıra” and “Zeybek.”)
Makam. From Arabic maqām, “place.” A melodic mode consisting essentially of two
parts: A) a set of tones (which can be described in terms of conjoined cins-es), and B)
a set of instructions regarding the melodic movement of those tones, including a
direction of movement, a hierarchy of prominent tones, a tessitura, characteristic
alterations in intonation, characteristic internal modulations, etc.
Mandıra. Originally an instrumental dance form in Balkan folk musics, the mandıra
was adopted into late Ottoman classical music as a lively and virtuosic tune form.
(See also Longa and Zeybek.)
Maqām. (See Makam, above.)
Medrese. From the Arabic madrasa (“place of learning,” viz Hebrew [beit] midrash).
As used in this text it refers to religious schools in the Ottoman Empire, in some of
which classical music formed a course of study. All medrese-s were shut down by the
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early Republican government as part of a plan to modernize/Westernize the Republic,
incidentally cutting off this medium of music transmission as well (see also “Tekke,”
below).
Mehter. A type of ambulatory military musical group having Central Asian roots,
forerunner of the Western “marching band” and source of the instrumentarium of
Western orchestral percussion section. The mehter performed as part of the Ottoman
military organization called Yeniçeri (“Janissaries,” “new troop”), which were shut
down (and massacred) in 1828.
Meşk. from the Arabic mashq, refers to a model example of calligraphy that a master
would write in charcoal, etc., over which a student would then write in ink with a reed
pen (Dwight Reynolds, p.c. by e-mail 6/5/2011); metonymically it came to mean
“practice, repetition” in the Ottoman language and, later, in modern Turkish. It is the
name for the traditional oral/aural transmission of makam music; such an education is
usually centered upon a student’s memorization and constantly refined performance
of exemplary repertoire under a master’s close supervision. Often lasting a dozen
years before the student “graduates,” the relationship between master and student—
and therefore the “meşk” between them—is in a sense lifelong. For detailed
information on meşk, see Behar 2006 (1998), O’Connell 2000: 120 fn. 5, Gill 2006.
Mevlevi. An order of Sufism (see “Sufi,” below) founded by thirteenth-century
mystic poet and Islamic jurist Celaluddin Rumi. The Mevlevi order became closely
associated with the Ottoman court by the late fourteenth century, which patronage
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gave the order privileges regarding the transmission of court music. The close
association of the order with courtly music on the one hand helped foster the
sophistication of religious musical forms such as the ilahi (hymn) and ayin (the music
played during the Mevlevi sema “whirling dervish” ceremony), but on the other hand
was a source of the disruption in the oral transmission of classical music when the
early Republican government destroyed the offices of imperial power and shut down
Mevlevi (and other Sufi) tekke-s and medrese-s (q.v. below and above respectively).
Meyan. “Center, middle,” referring to a section in a taksim performance—after the
makam-identifying Zemin (q.v. below)—in which melodic movement is not as
restricted to gestures intended specifically to identify the nominal makam; the meyan
often includes internal modulations.
Müezzin. One who calls the Muslim community to prayer.
Mürekkeb. From the Arabic for “combined, compound” (from the root rakkaba, “to
combine,” cf. Terkib, below). In classical Turkish music the word is used to designate
compound makam-s, that is, makam-s formed by combining several pre-existing
makam-s. (See also the equivalent Turkish-language term Bileşik, above.)
Müşterek. Literally “paired, shared.” This term is used to designate a type of taksim
in which two or more players (though rarely more than 3 or 4) alternate playing a
taksim one after the other, that is in series, not simultaneously (cf. the de facto
polyphonic “Beraber Taksim,” above) except to keep a drone for the main player.
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Müzik/Musıkî/Musiki. (“Müziği/Musıkîsî/Musikisi” in their compound adjectival
forms.) All of these terms derive from the ancient Greek µουσική (mousike; “art of the
Muses”). The latter two are Ottoman language variations and are currently used when
meaning to confer upon the music in question (and probably also upon the speaker’s
own sense of culture) a venerable, pre-modern lineage. The variant “müzik/müziği” is
in imitation of the same term via the French language and is used to connote a
modernist stance toward music and Turkish culture generally; all terms mean the
same thing (music)—it is only the usages that convey distinctions.
Ney. Literally “reed.” The end-blown (from an angle) reed flute, in Turkey having a
fipple (başpare). It has been particularly associated with Celaluddin Rumi and the
Mevlevi order of Sufism he founded. It is venerated along with the Tanbur (q.v.,
below) as one of the two “truly classical” instruments of classical Turkish music. The
transposition schemes called “ahenk-s” (q.v. above and in Appendix F) are named
after the 12 sizes (and therefore tunings) of ney.
Neyzen. A player of the ney (q.v., above).
Oyun Havaları. (Thus mentioned in the plural, “dance airs”; singular is oyun
havası.) A folk dance form in duple or quadruple meter, it was slowly accepted (or at
least mimicked) in the classical Turkish music around the early part of the period of
this study (1910-2010) or a little before.
Parda. An archaic term for “primary mode” (see Shuddud, below.)
585
Pentachord. A unit of five tones, each a kind of interval of a second from the next,
set within the span of a perfect fifth. Pentachords, like tetrachords and trichords, fall
under the category of Cins (q.v. above). See also Beşli, above.
Perde. “Fret, finger position; curtain.” As used in current classical Turkish music
rhetoric, “perde” refers firstly to the physical position required of a performer to
produce a named tone, and metonymically to the name of the tone, even though the
actual pitch of certain perde-s may be inflected differently in different performance
situations. For instance the (variable) perde named segâh (Bq) may be described in
terms of its relation to the (stable) perde dügâh (A) as sometimes as low as 13:12 (±
139¢ higher) and sometimes as high as 10:9 (± 182¢ higher), and yet still be referred
to as “segâh (Bq).” The perde-s that are de facto most likely to be variable in pitch are
(in ascending order): ırak, segâh, dik hisar, eviç, and tiz segâh, most other perde-s
being stable in pitch.
Peşrev. From the Persian pishrow “introduction, prelude.” A classical instrumental
form, formerly used exclusively as a prelude in a suite in the same makam, but
currently able to stand alone as a piece. Structurally it consists of 3 to 6 Hane-s (q.v.,
above) surrounding a refrain (teslim) thus: 1st hane, teslim, 2nd hane, teslim, 3rd hane,
teslim—etc., ending with the teslim. According to Feldman’s 1993 reading of
Cantemir (1700) the 3rd hane of a peşrev was until the early eighteenth century the
only place in the notated repertoire where modulation might be found.
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Piyasa. “The marketplace.” Classical Turkish musicians refer to music perceived as
commercially oriented—as well as to its performers—as belonging to the “piyasa”; it
is analogous to the phrase “sold out” in current English.
Praxis. The application of the principles of a theory in an ephemeral medium. In its
original Aristotelian conception it stands in contrast to theory (contemplating abstract
principles) and poiesis (the creation of something enduring).
Rembétika. A genre of Greek popular music of the early twentieth century.
Saray. Palace. Before adopting the Western term “klasik,” classical Ottoman/Turkish
music was often referred to as saray musıkisi, palace or courtly music.
Sazende Fasıl. (Literally “instrumentalist suite.”) An instrumental suite consisting of
a taksim, a peşrev, and a saz semaisi all in the same makam. Formerly called fasıl-i
sazende, in some periods the order of the peşrev and saz semaisi was reversed.
Saz Semaisi. A classical instrumental form, formerly used to end a fasıl suite, but
currently able to stand alone as an independent piece. Always played in the usul
“aksak semai” (in 10/8 time divided 3+2+2+3) structurally it consists of 4 Hane-s
(q.v., above) surrounding a refrain (teslim) thus: 1st hane, teslim, 2nd hane, teslim, 3rd
hane, teslim, 4th hane, teslim. Traditionally the fourth hane is in a different and faster
meter/usul—usually “yürük semai” (in 6/8 or 6/4 time), though occasionally it is in a
7- or 9-beat meter instead.
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Sema. From the Arabic sema` (literally “listening”), sema is the name for the
Mevlevi “whirling dervish” ceremony, the musical suite for which is called ayin.
Seyir. Arabic via Persian for “walking, passage, pathway.” In terms of classical
Turkish music this may refer to the aspect of a makam’s definition concerning
melodic movement, in varying levels of specificity; minimally it may refer to whether
a makam’s melodic movement is generally ascending, descending or spending the
greatest amount of time in the middle before falling to the tonic (as all of these types
do). The term may however also include other aspects of a makam’s definition, such
as tessitura, characteristic special intonation issues, characteristic internal
modulations, etc.—generally all aspects of a makam’s definition not explicitly
covered in its scalar and cins conjunction definitions.
Shuàb (Şu`be, Şube). In some medieval Arabic-language music theory texts this
term is used in reference to secondary modal entities (see also Alḥān, Angham, and
Awāzāt, above; Terkib, below).
Shuddud. In some medieval Arabic-language music theory texts this term is used in
reference to primary modal entities, that is, after the time when they had been called
Asābi` (q.v., above) but before they were called “maqāmāt” in the early thirteenth
century. Note that it is the plural of the term Shed/Şedd (q.v., below); the Persian-
language term parda (which is the original version of the Ottoman/Turkish word
Perde [q.v., above]) was at times used synonymously; the word ṭarāìḳ was also used
for "modes" in al-Iṣfahānī's Kitāb al-Aghānī.
588
Smyrnéika. A genre of popular music associated with the city of Smyrna (İzmir).
Originally a multiculturally created music (performed by and for Ottoman Greeks,
Armenians, Jews, and Turks), it came to be merged with Rembétika and thus
nationalized as a Greek music genre between 1923 and about 1940.
Systematist School. The name given to a movement in “Arab/Persian/Islamic” music
theory founded by Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Urmawī (“Ṣafīuddīn”) ca. 1250 CE. It was the first
such theory that attempted to describe systematically such aspects of the music as the
intervals in the general and basic scales, the construction of modes in terms of
tetrachords and pentachords, the hierarchies of modal entities, the prominence of
certain notes within modes, etc.; it largely formed the basis of all maqām-oriented
theory until perhaps the nineteenth century (see Farmer 2001 [1929], Wright 1978,
and Chapter II above).
Sufi. The adjective associated with the noun “Sufism” (cf. Tasavvuf, below). Sufism
is understood by its adherents to be the esoteric, inner, and/or mystical aspect of Islam
(as opposed to the aspect concerned with orthodoxy, jurisprudence, social
governance, etc.). There are many Sufi “orders” (tarikat), even in Turkey. Not all
orders approve of the use of music, especially in conjunction with religious ritual, but
historically the most influential in Turkey have been those orders that are also most
sympathetic to the “spiritual” use of music: Cerrahi, Bektaşi, Sinani et al, and
especially the Mevlevi, in whose hands classical music largely rested (whether inside
our outside the royal court) until all Sufi orders were (at least nominally) banned by
589
the early Republic, their properties closed or destroyed. Today many Turks consider
themselves Sufis, and some groups meet in historic buildings that had once officially
been dergâh-s (tombs of saints and other honored religious persons), Tekke-s (q.v.
below), and Medrese-s (q.v., above), however the institutional organization and
power of the orders per se is greatly diminished since Ottoman times.
Şarkı. (Derived from the Arabic word for “east.”) The şarkı is a light song form,
apparently invented in the eighteenth or nineteenth century whose popularity
increased during periods of Westernization-qua-modernization, seemingly due to its
similarity to the European “art song.” Whether or not the phenomenon was causative,
it seems as though as the şarkı came to replace more traditional and formal song
forms (such as the kâr and beste) in the fasıl suite, this suite form itself became
increasingly less formal and the term fasıl may now even refer to little more than a
collection of şarkı-s, mostly but not exclusively in the same makam, perhaps with
some instrumental works at the beginning and end (though not necessarily the
traditionally expected Peşrev and Saz Semaisi, q.v., above).
Şed (also Şedd). “Transposition.” This term seems to have referred to primary modal
entities such as those now called “makam-s” in certain medieval Arabic-language
music theory texts (see Shuddud, above, which is the plural of shedd/şedd), but in the
context of current classical Turkish music it refers only to transpositions. However,
there is a difference in usage between Arelian theory and current performers: Arel
posited three categories of makam: 1) simple (basit); 2) compound (mürekkeb or
590
bileşik); and, 3) transposed (şedd). Here there is not only the problem of the term
“basit makam” being used to designate a separate type of makam (see Basit, above),
but also that such “transpositions” must themselves be either “simple” or
“compound” as well. Current performers have a simple rule of thumb regarding şedd
makam-s: if the makam has its own name, it is a separate makam; if it is referred to
by a makam name with the modification “on [tone X]”—where “tone X” is not that
makam’s normative “place” (see Yerinde, below) then it is a transposition, whether
the makam is simple or compound. So for instance where Arel saw the makam Aşk-
efza (on E/aşiran) as a transposition of Kürdi (on A/dügâh) because they share a
scalar structure but begin on different tones, current performers assume that that there
is a difference between Aşk-efza (a distinct makam) and Kürdi-on-E (a transposition
of Kürdi).
Şeyh. From the Arabic sheikh, “(honored) elder.” The masters of a Sufi order are
given this honorific title—as noted in Chapter III, Rauf Yekta (who was himself a
Mevlevi dervish—a practicant of the Mevlevi sema or “whirling dervish” ceremony)
learned music from the Şeyh-s of prominent Istanbul Tekke-s (q.v., below).
Taksim. From the Arabic taqsīm, literally “division, distribution” (see Taqāsīm,
below). A spontaneously performed praxis of makam theory played on an instrument
(as opposed to sung—see Gazel and Kaside above).
591
Tanbur. A long necked fretted plucked lute, played with a long slender plectrum.
Along with the Ney (q.v., above) it is considered one of the two “truly classical”
instruments of classical Turkish music. See photograph in Appendix E.
Taqāsīm. The purely Arabic term for Taksim (q.v., above). Unlike the Turkish
version of the term, in Arabic proper it is the plural (taqāsīm) that stands for the
singular (taqsīm).
Tasavvuf. “Sufism” (see Sufi, above.)
Taş Plak. Literally “stone plaque.” Audio records, today especially referring to 78
rpm records of the early twentieth century.
Tekke. A Sufi “lodge,” a meeting place for members of a Sufi order, and the normal
location for the practice of sema (the “whirling dervish” ceremony) among those
orders that practiced it. Mevlevi tekke-s (as well as those of some other orders) were
also the locus of most music education outside of the royal court itself. All tekke-s
and Medrese-s (q.v., above) were shut down by the Republican government in 1924
and 1925, incidentally cutting off this medium of music transmission.
Terkib. From the Arabic tarākīb “combination” (see also “Mürekkeb,” above). In
pre-modern times what are today called “makam-s” were categorized in a hierarchy
of primary and secondary (and at times tertiary) modal entities in accord with their
scalar similarity to the “basic scale” (see Appendix G). Terkib-s apparently existed to
provide variety from the tones of that scale; they were secondary (or perhaps at times
592
tertiary) modal entities apparently having fewer tones than a makam proper and
simpler or no “seyir” per se. Feldman’s 1993 reading of Cantemir (1700) indicates
that they were used frequently in modulations in the taksim genre, but seldom in pre-
composed repertoire at that time. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the
distinction “terkib” (along with that of the hierarchy of modal elements) was lost in
the profuse development of new makam-s, including many compound makam-s that
apparently incorporated the old terkib-s.
Tetrachord. A unit of four tones, each a kind of interval of a second from the next,
set within the span of a perfect fourth. Tetrachords, like pentachords and trichords,
fall under the category of Cins (q.v. above). See also Dörtlü, above.
Trichord. A unit of three tones, each a kind of interval of a second from the next, set
within the span of the interval of a third. Trichords, like pentachords and tetrachords,
fall under the category of Cins (q.v. above). See also Üçlü, above.
Türkü. A category of folk song, occasionally incorporated into classical
performances and performance stylings.
Ud. A 6-course unfretted bowl-backed plucked lute. Its Arabic name (al-ùd)—
applied to the ancestor of today’s instrument in the seventh century CE—is the source
of the name “lute” (and, it may be noted, it is therefore an anachronism to speak of
“lutes” existing before that time). Generally they currently have eleven strings, all but
the lowest being paired in double courses. It is plucked with a long slender plectrum
(mızrap). See a photograph in Appendix E.
593
Usul. Rhythmic cycle, meter.
Üçlü. Literally “having four,” this is the Turkish term used for both the interval of a
third, and for the trichord. As a trichord it is in the category of Cins (q.v., above),
along with tetrachords (dörtlü-s) and pentachords (beşli-s).
Yaylı Tanbur. The bowed version of the tanbur (a fretted, long-necked lute; see
photographs in Appendix E). The first recorded instance of bowing a (normal) tanbur
is attributed to Tanburi Cemil Bey (1873-1916), but the yaylı tanbur—differentiated
by having a skin head rather than a wooden one—seems to have been invented by
Zeynel Abidin Cümbüş in the 1930s. Although the instrument has been used to play
classical music since its invention (see Ederer 2007), it has been closely associated
with a “lighter” form of the music as performed in public entertainment houses, and
as such is not universally accepted as an appropriate instrument for classical Turkish
music.
Yeden. “Leading,” i.e., the “leading tone,” a tone 4 or 5 commas below a makam’s
tonic tone; a “tam yeden” is the subtonic, i.e., a one whole tone (9 commas) below a
makam’s tonic tone.
Yerinde. “In its place” (also yerinden, “from its place”), refers to a makam begun
from its normative tonic perde—for instance Rast makam is “in its place” beginning
on the perde rast (see Appendix J—all makam definitions therein are given “in their
places”). A makam played from any other tone is by definition a transposition.
594
Zakir. A person who performs the religious movement ritual called zikr.
Zemin. “Ground.” This refers to the beginning and ending sections of a taksim, in
which the formal aspects of the nominal makam are shown (i.e., those characteristics
explained under Makam, above). In between these sections is the “meyan” (center,
middle), a section in which melodic movement is not as restricted to gestures
intended specifically to identify the makam (and which often includes internal
modulations).
Zeybek. An Aegean folk dance and the tune type (in a time signature of 9/4 or 4/4 +
5/4) that accompanies it. Like certain other folk forms such as the Longa (q.v. above),
it has been accepted as an influence upon classical Turkish music, including in the
taksim genre, if in a veiled manner (see Chapter IV).
595
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DISCOGRAPHY
Note that numbers within [brackets] indicate track numbers; those preceded by a
single asterisk (*) indicate that the recordings thereon may be interpreted as
demonstrating a “scalar” or “characteristic melody” oriented understanding of the
makam’s definition (rather than a cins-oriented one); those preceded by two asterisks
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makam(-s) performed. Those with three asterisks (***) indicate a mixing of the two.
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17; Disk 2: 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13]
——— 1995. Tanburi Cemil Bey, Vol.s 2 & 3. Harold G. Hagopian, ed.) N.Y.:
Traditional Crossroads. [* Disk 1: 5, 6, 9, 10, 14, 15, 16, 17; Disk 2: 1, 2, 5, 7,
11, 15, 16]
——— 1994. Tanburi Cemil Bey (Harold G. Hagopian, ed.) N.Y.: Traditional
Crossroads. [*1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8]
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Lale-Nerkis Hanımlar. 1998. Lale-Nerkis Hanımlar (ed. Bülent Aksoy). Istanbul:

Kalan Müzik Yapım.
Mesut (Mesut Cemil Bey). 2004b. Mesut Cemil (1902-1963) (ed. Bülent Aksoy).
Istanbul: Kalan Müzik Yapım. [*Disk 1: 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 15; Disk 2: 1, 3, 5]
612
——— 2000. Mesut Cemil (1902-1963) Volume I Early Recordings (ed. Ercüment G.
Aksoy). Golden Horn Records. [*1, 8] [***9, 10]
Özgen, İhsan. 1999. Remembrances of Ottoman Composers & Improvisations.

Golden Horn Records.
——— 1995. Tanburi Cemil Bey. Istanbul: Kalan Müzik Yapım.
——— 1995. Anatolia: A. Meragi-M. Itri. Istanbul: Kalan Müzik Yapım.
——— 1986. 17 Taksims [provenance unknown; cf. Stubbs 1994]
Sayın, Niyazi and Necdet Yaşar. 2006. Niyazi Sayın and Necdet Yaşar. Istanbul:
Kalan Müzik Yapım. [*Disk 1: 1, 2]
——— 2001. Sadâ – Niyazi Sayın: Sufi Music of Turkish, Vol. 8. Istanbul: Mega
Müzik.
——— 1986. 17 Taksims [Niyazi Sayın only; provenance unknown; cf. Stubbs 1994]
Tatlıyay, Haydar. 2001. Kemanî Haydar Tatlıyay (ed. Ethem Ruhi Üngör). Istanbul:
Various. 1997. Gazeller: 78 Devrili Taş Plak Kayıtları (ed. Cemal Ünlü). Istanbul:
Various. 2004c. Türk Müziği Ustaları: Ud (ed. Osman Nuri Özpekel). Istanbul: Kalan
Müzik Yapım. [*Disk 2: 6, 7, 11] [** Disk 1: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 14, 16, 17, 18,
19; Disk 2: 1,1 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 12,2 13, 14, 15, 16] [***Disk 1: {compare 6
and 7 with} 8, 9, 10, 11 {by the same artist}, 13 and 15 {which compare with
14 by the same artist}; Disk 2: 17 {which compare with 16 by the same
artist}, 19, 20]
1
Note that this ud taksim by Mısırlı İbrahim Efendi is labeled “Ferahnak” but sounds as though it
might better have been labeled Eviç.
2
Note that this ud taksim by Şerif İçli is labeled “Hüzzam” but sounds as though it might better have
been labeled Rahat-ül Ervah.
613

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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

The Theory and Praxis of Makam in Classical Turkish Music 1910-2010

A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the

requirements for the degree Doctor in Philosophy

Eric Bernard Ederer

Professor Scott Marcus, Chair

Professor Dolores Hsu

Professor Dwight Reynolds

Professor Münir Nurettin Beken

Eric Bernard Ederer

Ph.D. Ethnomusicology, University of California, Santa Barbara, September 2011

2007: Associate Teacher, Department of Music, University of California, Santa

“Cümbüş as Instrument of the Other in Modern Turkey” in Porte Akademik: 4 Aylık

“İstanbul’un Cümbüş Sadâsı – Istanbul’s Voice of Revelry,” chapter in Bizans’tan

Definitions of the musical instruments “Cümbüş,” “Yaylı Tanbur,” and “Lâvta” in

“The Cümbüş as Instrument of the Other in Modern Turkey” Master’s Thesis,

“(Re-)Constructions of Ottoman-ness in Today’s Classical Turkish Music World”

“Music of the Eastern Mediterranean,” Fall 2010, Linfield College, McMinnville, OR

“Imaginings of Ancient Greece in Twentieth Century Music,” Society for

“Dueling Multiculturalisms and Musical ‘Con-Fusion’ in Modern Turkey: the

“Dueling Multiculturalisms and Musical ‘Con-Fusion’ in Modern Turkey: the

“Cümbüş as Instrument of the Other in Modern Turkey,” International Conference on

Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Fellowship, Fall 2008

American Research Institute in Turkey Dissertation Fellowship, Winter 2008

UCSB Music Affiliates Menk Fellowship 2008-2009

Excellence in Performance: Ethnomusicology, UCSB Music Dept., 2007 and 2003

Sarkis Tchejeyan Memorial Fellowship, June 2007 and June 2002

The Theory and Praxis of Makam in Classical Turkish Music 1910-2010

Eric Bernard Ederer

By comparing current solo “improvisations” (taksim-s), recordings of such

classical Turkish music theory as formulated in textbooks of the twentieth century,

mode) system. This information, gathered during forty-two weeks of Fulbright-Hays

elucidate an independent, previously unwritten “performers’ theory” for Turkish

makam music. The “principles of melodic movement (and modulation)” so derived

“principles of cins conjunction”—charts out every makam-evoking conjunction from

all the possible combinations of trichords, tetrachords and pentachords (“cins-es”)

“principle”—“principles of motivity”—concern the means by which melodies are

makam-s with diatonic tonal structures. As a whole these “principles of melodic

movement” formalize a performer-oriented perspective upon Turkish makam music

been created, and many sincere thanks are due.

next time we will, inşallah!

ayin-s at the Nasuhi Mehmet Efendi Dergâhı in Üsküdar—an incomparable

Istanbul Technical University, fearlessly led by friend and fellow ethnomusicologist

is done, and here (though I am bound to disappoint someone by omission) I am happy

Arabic dictionary in time of need.

the Keyman Family Program in Modern Turkish Studies at Northwestern University

wrote. Of course the anonymous cherubim connecting me to the Fulbright-Hays

Barbara for their support.

I am also quite happy effusively to thank here the members of my dissertation

return over long years.

Chapter I: Methods, Methodology, Sources, and Parameters........................................1

Chapter II: A Brief History of Makam and Taksim in Turkey....................................25

Chapter III: Issues in Turkish Music Theory Since 1910............................................58

Chapter IV: Current Performers’ Views on Makam Theory, Taksim,

Chapter V: Makam Praxis Since 1910.......................................................................162

Chapter VI: Cins Conjunctions within the Principles of

Chapter VII: The Principles Applied.........................................................................261

Appendix A: List of Informants and Their Contributions.........................................323

Appendix B: Makam-s Represented in the Original Recordings...............................328

Appendix C: Makam-s Listed in Özkan, Yılmaz, Karadeniz, and

Appendix D: Theory Text Samples...........................................................................338

Appendix E: Photographs of the Instruments Represented in the Study...................354

Appendix F: Intervals, Note Names, and “Ahenk-s” in the Standard