Society For Ethnomusicology, University of Illinois Press Ethnomusicology

Westernizing Reform and Indigenous Precedent in Traditional Music: Insights from
Turkmenistan
Author(s): David Fossum
Source: Ethnomusicology, Vol. 59, No. 2 (Spring/Summer 2015), pp. 202-226
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of Society for Ethnomusicology
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Vol. 59, No. 2 Ethnomusicology Spring/Summer 2015
Westernizing Reform and Indigenous

Precedent in Traditional Music:
Insights from Turkmenistan1
David Fossum / Brown University
Abstract. Ethnomusicologists have often shown how traditional musics at

prestigious institutions have taken their current form only recently, under
Western influence. The post-Soviet state of Turkmenistan at first appears to
offer yet another case: contemporary musicians have used modern technol-
ogy and Western notation to studiously reproduce masters’ classic versions of
traditional pieces, all the while using terms that recall canonizing discourse
from European art music. But this article argues that the Turkmen practice
is well grounded in indigenous precedent that predates Soviet modernization
efforts. This finding therefore complicates the usual story about the rise of
canonization processes in Western-influenced musics.
Teswirnama. Dürli medeniýetleriň sazlaryny öwrenijiler (etnomuzykowedler)

abraýly mekdeplerdäki tradision sazlarynyň öz häzirki görnüşine ýaňy-ýakynda
Günbataryň täsiri astynda gelendigi hakda ýygy-ýygydan aýdyp geçýärler. Öň
Sowet Soýuzynyň düzümine giren Türkmenistan döwleti hakda aýdaňda ýag-
daýlar başgaçarak ýaly: häzirkizaman sazandalary öz halypalarynyň tradision
eserleriniň nusgawy wersiýalaryny döretmek üçin döwrebap tehnologiýany we
Günbataryň şertli belgilerini ulanmak bilen bir hatarda Ýewropanyň klassyky
sazyna degişli kanonizirleýiş diskursyny ýadyňa salýan terminleri hem ulanýar-
lar. Emma bu makala türkmen praktikasynyň (meselesiniň) Sowet Soýuzynyň
kämilleşdirmek tagallalaryndan hem öň bar bolan ýerli nusgalara düýpli es-
aslanandygy hakda gürrüň berýär. Şeýlelikde bu netijenama kanonizasiýa
prosesleriniň Günbataryň täsir eden sazlarynda kemala gelendigi hakdaky
adaty wakany çylşyrymlaşdyrýar.
© 2015 by the Society for Ethnomusicology
ETM 59_2 text.indd 202 4/3/15 11:34 AM

Fossum: Musical Reform and Precedent in Turkmenistan 203
S cholars working in a broad swath of territory from North Africa to Central

and Southeast Asia have told similar stories about traditional music made at
prestigious institutions. In case after case, they have shown how such music has
taken its current form only recently. One recurring theme has been that local
musical reforms often seem inspired by Western strategies for valorizing culture.
In such studies, a critical ethnomusicological gaze informed by literature on the
invention of tradition (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983) has helped discern how
local musics are often remodeled after the Western art music canon.
Both Persian and Western scholars agree that the Persian Radif was invented
less than a century ago in order to establish for Persian music a canon equivalent
to the Western canon—a central repertoire everyone knew (Nettl 2010:200–1).
Karnatic music, which emerged as a classical music through the colonial experi-
ence, “had to be modeled on the classical music of the West, with its notation,
composers, compositions, conservatories, and concerts” (Weidman 2006:5).
The codified Shash maqam taught in the Uzbek national conservatory seems
to provide a parallel example to the Radif: “One can see the importance of the
European canon within the construction of the Uzbek canon in multifarious
ways. The European canon can be seen at once as both a model for the Uzbek
canon and a counterbalance” (Merchant Henson 2006:89). Studies of music in
North Africa (Davis 2004, Thomas 2006) and Southeast Asia (Moro 2004) have
likewise explored the ways that canonization and musical reforms have been
undertaken in part on the basis of Western models.
Across such accounts, we see similarities in the ways that traditional musics
have been codified, notated, systematized, canonized, and institutionalized. The
appeal of European classical music culture presents an obvious explanation for
such developments in societies colonized by European powers or otherwise
impressed by European hegemony. Seeking to elevate their own music to the
level of prestigious Western art music, local musicians and nationalist cultural
reformers sought to give their music the trappings of the classical and modern.
To be sure, students of globalization processes have long known that foreign
influences are never absorbed wholesale or passively, but are actively selected
and modified by agents where they are adopted. None of the ethnomusicologists
cited above has denied this aspect of cultural diffusion. Nevertheless, they have
focused more on the pervasive changes spawned by the colonial encounter than
on the agency of the colonized and the ways pre-colonial indigenous agendas
may have endured through and shaped such transformations. The impression
left by the accumulation of these studies—though surely unintended by the
authors—is that colonial-era exposure to European culture fully explains all
such musical developments. A researcher in the field may too quickly chalk up
a case of codification or canonization to reforms inspired by the West and miss
the ways long-standing local practices and values shape such processes.
ETM 59_2 text.indd 203 4/3/15 11:34 AM

204 Ethnomusicology, Spring/Summer 2015
Some scholars have begun to draw attention to the role of these practices
and values. Both Katherine Butler Schofield (2010) and Rachel Harris (2008)
have uncovered the local prehistory of apparently Western-inspired reforms.
Schofield, in revisiting the history of Hindustani music’s classicization, acknowl-
edges that musical discourse was transformed in the period of the British colonial
encounter (Bakhle 2005; Farrell 1997). She argues, however, that many of these
colonial-era shifts in music culture “were foreshadowed in a much earlier process
of veneration, canonization, standardization, and systematization in a greatly
different cultural environment: more than two-hundred years previously in the
Mughal court” (489–90). In her view, such “classicization processes” were active
long before the term “classical” began to be applied to music in North India.
In a comparative discussion of musical canons, Harris makes a parallel argu-
ment. Attending to what she calls “canonisation processes”—the increase in size
and complexity of ensemble and form, efforts to fix and standardize repertoire,
and the consolidation of music into large-scale suites, among others—she ar-
gues that these processes can in some cases be traced back before the twentieth
century era of nationalism with which many are usually associated (2008:9–12,
138).
In this article, I offer a contribution to this newer emphasis on the historical
depth of some processes that have been discussed under the “classicization” and
“canonization” rubrics. I hope to enrich and complicate this line of investigation,
extending it beyond the court musics of Central Asia and India by introducing
a new case study: Turkmen instrumental music, a genre I came to know while
living in Turkmenistan from 2004 to 2006.
Turkmen Music as an Instructive Case of Canonization

Since I first began learning to play it, I have been fascinated by Turkmen instru-
mental music and the modernization processes it has undergone; for example,
its transition from oral to written transmission and the institutionalization of its
pedagogy. Inspired by scholars like Harris, I began thinking about this genre in
terms of musical canon while on a visit to Turkmenistan in 2009. One day in the
country’s capital of Ashgabat I encountered sets of postcards featuring portraits
of local musical heroes: bards like Sahy Jepbarow and Magtymguly Garly as well
as virtuoso instrumentalists like Mylly Täçmyradow and Pürli Saryÿew. Their
black and white images were framed by an ornate gold border, and on the back
of each card were a few biographical facts about the musician portrayed. These
postcards—along with other celebrations of such musical heroes—reminded me
of Katherine Bergeron’s introduction to the volume Disciplining Music (1992:1)
and Nettl’s Heartland Excursions (1995:16–9), both of which describe the en-
graving of the names of a pantheon of canonical Western art music composers
on the walls of concert halls.
ETM 59_2 text.indd 204 4/3/15 11:34 AM

As I will describe below, some early- to mid-twentieth-century members

of the pantheon of Turkmen musical heroes left behind recordings that would
become objects of veneration. These recordings preserved such musicians’ idio-
syncratic interpretations of the traditional compositions that had been handed
down through master-disciple lineages for decades. In this article, I focus on
these individually developed variants of traditional instrumental pieces, musical
entities treated with canon-like authority, reproduced studiously in notation,
and emulated with reverence in performance in a manner that recalls processes
discussed in studies of canonization and classicization elsewhere. Participants
in such processes often borrow from the language of the European classical
tradition lionized in the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic.
I argue that while the story of the Turkmen case is inseparable from the
story of Soviet modernization efforts, the focus on individual variants of tra-
ditional pieces appears to have indigenous roots that pre-date any possible So-
viet intervention. I pay special attention to Soviet reforms because nationally
identified musics in a number of countries underwent radical changes during
the implementations of socialist cultural policies (Buchanan 1995; Levin 1996;
Merchant Henson 2006; Naroditskaya 2003; Rancier 2009; Rice 1994). These
changes included several of the aforementioned canonization and classicization
processes such as the creation of large ensemble formats, fixity in notation, and
standardization of repertoire (Levin 1996:45–51; Merchant Henson 2006:89–95;
Rancier 2009:119–125; Rice 1994:169–203; see also Rouland 2005:535–6). In
the case of Central Asian courtly repertoires like the Shash maqam, Harris as-
serts that processes of canonization “are usually thought of as products of Soviet
cultural and nationalities policies” (2008:9), policies that valorized Western art
music and sought to model national repertoires on its canon. In Turkmenistan,
early Soviet-era musical reforms, which ran parallel to linguistic standardization
efforts, literacy campaigns, land reforms, the development of mass education,
and the promotion of national culture (Edgar 2004:3–4), also represent the
most obvious explanation in a historical search for the causes of canonization
processes in Turkmen music. But I present evidence that what looks like a kind
of musical canon forged in the image of Western models during Turkmenistan’s
moment of modernizing reform in fact has deeper roots.
The case additionally complicates the discussion of how to account for such
modern-looking musical phenomena that pre-date colonial reforms. Harris sug-
gests that “processes of canonisation [sic.] are not solely the product of twentieth-
century nationalism, nor necessarily a reaction to the West. Instead, we might
read the impulse to canonisation, including that which took place in Europe in
the 18th century, more broadly as part of the political process of centralisation
and consolidation” (2008:12). She offers two examples of early canonization:
the Shash maqam and Ottoman court music (9–12, citing During 1993 and
Feldman 1996). Schofield compares her case to Ming court music and to Noh
ETM 59_2 text.indd 205 4/3/15 11:34 AM

theater’s transformation from lower-class entertainment to refined art form

consumed by elites under military rule in fifteenth-century Japan (2010:490,
citing Ley 2000, Choo 2004, and Lam 1997). In these cases, the canonization
or classicization processes are traced to courtly or elite cultural settings. In the
case of Turkmenistan, however, it is more difficult to trace such developments
to a pre-colonial consolidation of power, raising the question of what other ways
we might account for the rise of classicization and canonization processes.
In Turkmen instrumental music culture we find processes that resemble
in key ways those that other scholars have described under the canon rubric.
In addition to its veneration of a pantheon of performers who seem to mirror
great European masters or the Karnatic trinity of composers, it features the
introduction of large-ensemble formats and attempts at musical fixity not un-
like that described by Ted Levin in the case of the canonical Shash maqam in
Uzbekistan (1996:45–8). But there are telling differences between the Turkmen
case and other prominent ones scholars have labeled “canons.” For example, in
Turkmenistan there is no monumental body of music akin to the Uyghur 12
Muqam or the Tunisian Ma’luf. Nor is there a single standard, official version
of such a repertoire, equivalent to Yunus Rajabi’s Shash maqam transcriptions
(ibid.) or that of the Uyghur 12 Muqam committee Harris writes about (2008:42).
Nor are the great Turkmen musicians perceived to be composers of works in
quite the same sense as members of the Western art music canon.
Harris’ comparative account stresses the way that canonical repertoires
from the Maghreb to Central Asia seem to be structured by indigenous notions
about organizing musical material into large-scale suites as much as they are by
models borrowed from Western art music (2008:138). Similarly, I suggest that
such differences between Turkmen and other nearby cases reflect the fact that
long-standing, pre-Soviet music-cultural phenomena akin to canonization pro-
cesses shaped subsequent Western-inspired twentieth-century modernizations
in Turkmenistan. The Turkmen example thus illustrates the need for scholars of
musical modernization to attend to the ways indigenous precedents may have
informed colonial-era cultural reforms.
Turkmen Instrumental Music Today2

Turkmens, the titular nationality of the modern nation state of Turkmenistan,
consider an instrument called the dutar an icon of their national culture. The
Turkmen dutar is among the shortest and highest pitched of the two-stringed
long-necked lutes found in Central Asia. Its primary use is to accompany singers
called bagşys, but dutar players also perform instrumental music. The song and
instrumental repertoires overlap in a dynamic way, as singers borrow portions
of instrumentals to compose songs, and instrumentalists often expand on bagşy
melodies to develop formally complex compositions.3
ETM 59_2 text.indd 206 4/3/15 11:34 AM

In the Ahal region of Turkmenistan, located around the capital city Ashga-
bat, dutar players have developed a regional style and built up a substantial body
of technically virtuosic pieces, each an independently performed instrumental
work usually lasting two to ten minutes. Virtuosos have traditionally learned
their craft through master-disciple apprenticeships, although since the 1930s,
these relationships have often been set in official institutions and recordings
have begun to replace or complement the live halypa (master) as models for
performance.
The bagşy has long provided the musical backdrop for a number of key
social events in a Turkmen’s life. Reciting dessan (epics) and singing songs at
weddings, birthdays, circumcision celebrations, and other life-cycle occasions
(with the notable exception of funerals and other death-related occurrences).
At such performances, the accompanying dutarist often has a chance to play
a few instrumental pieces as the bagşy takes a break. Perhaps even more com-
monly, a bagşy or dutar player may perform in an informal house concert for
friends and neighbors. In 2008, the Turkmen cultural ministry opened a state
television channel devoted entirely to performances by Turkmen musicians.
Called “Türkmen owazy” (Turkmen sound), the channel featured twice daily
two-hour blocks of traditional instrumental performance, mostly solo dutar,
but also occasional gyjak (spike fiddle) performances, and mixed ensembles
of both instruments. Televised dutarists perform apart from traditional social
contexts, sitting before a backdrop of handmade Turkmen carpets adorned with
standard tribal patterns. Some don long red robes and massive sheepskin hats
called telpek, an iconic outfit that most young modern Turkmens would not
otherwise wear, but that symbolizes Turkmen heritage.
Interspersed among the newly filmed clips displayed on Türkmen Owazy
are audio recordings and videos gleaned from the Cultural Ministry’s archives
and dating back to state productions of the Soviet era. The archival clips feature
members of a pantheon of mid-twentieth century masters, a pantheon also
celebrated in books, postcards, oral lore, and even carpets featuring a woven
version of a master’s portrait. At the core of this pantheon a few figures loom
large, especially Mylly Täçmyradow (1885–1960), Pürli Saryÿew (1905–1970),
and Çary Täçmämmedow (1925–1976). Because Turkmen family names can
be a mouthful, I will refer to these three as “Mylly aga,” “Pürli aga,” and “Çary
aga” in this article, according to a local convention by which respected older
male musicians are referred to with the honorific “aga.”
In much discourse surrounding the music, I have typically heard Mylly aga
praised for his unparalleled technical skill, as an embodiment of tradition, and
as a representative of an old style of performance. Pürli aga is often described
as an improvisor, known for spontaneously inserting new sections or inspired
riffs into traditional compositions. Çary aga studied under both of these masters,
but forged his own style of playing that seems to be the most widely emulated
ETM 59_2 text.indd 207 4/3/15 11:34 AM

style today. Many Turkmen musicians might envision other disciples of Mylly
aga and Pürli aga, especially Jepbar Hansahedow and Ÿagmur Nurgeldiÿew, as
equally deserving a spot at the core of the pantheon, but these seem to have left
fewer recordings to emulate.
The anonymous, orally transmitted compositions that make up the bulk of
the instrumental dutar repertoire are called halk saz (halk means “people,” or
“folk,” and saz refers to a piece of instrumental music). Halk saz are formally
complex, through-composed pieces. In playing one, a master dutar player negoti-
ates potentially conflicting expectations to preserve the form (nusga or hasap) of
the piece in question, as learned from a master, while embellishing and refining
it as part of an ongoing collective composition process that develops the piece
over time. Preserving the nusga or hasap usually involves playing in proper order
the entire requisite sequence of phrases and ideas that make up the piece.
The music does not contain separate spaces for generating new improvisa-
tions akin to Hindustani alap, Middle Eastern taksim/taqsim, or Persian avaz.
But there are myriad ways the performer can develop a piece: varying finger-
strokes or ornaments to elaborate a melody, repeating short riffs that are part
of the composition, playing with sundry rhythmic formulae while vamping
on a held chord, interpolating a new phrase or section, and honing the subtle
idiosyncrasies of timbre and timing that are part of a musician’s personal style.4
Two masters reworking a piece over time may then arrive at quite distinct ver-
sions of the piece. The piece may also accumulate new sections as successive
musicians expand on it and others adopt these new ideas.
Reproducing the Classics

In Summer 2009 I took some dutar lessons from Ÿazmyrat Rejepow, a young
conservatory-based music scholar. Rejepow’s pedagogical style demanded a
disciplined adherence to highly detailed transcriptions he had made from re-
cordings of masters from the mid-twentieth century. The transcriptions were
not skeletal, but rather included every ornament and detail of dynamics that
Rejepow could represent in notation, and they indicated precise fingering and
strumming instructions anywhere a potential ambiguity could arise. If the musi-
cian on the source recording had varied two similar passages by changing even
a single ornament, I would be called out if I played the two passages the same
way each time, without the variation.
This exact reproduction of recorded models is a common pedagogical ex-
ercise for musicians in many genres around the world, but here extended into
the performance realm. For example, Rejepow had learned the piece “Balsaÿat”
from a recording by his favorite dutar player, Pürli aga. I recorded Rejepow play-
ing the piece and subsequently transcribed his performance. Then, listening to
ETM 59_2 text.indd 208 4/3/15 11:34 AM

the Pürli aga recording and looking at the transcription, I could see that not a
single finger-stroke was missing, not a single note added or changed. Rejepow
frequently took his note-for-note renditions of Pürli aga’s recordings to the tele-
vision studio (Musical Example 1).
Another influential musician I interviewed and recorded, Annaseÿit An-
namyradow, strove to reproduce the recordings of his great-grandfather, Mylly
aga, in a similar manner. When I asked him who his halypa (master) was, he
pointed to the corner of the room, where a tape recorder with variable playback
speed stood (Personal interview. August 7, 2009). While I encountered both
professional and amateur dutar players who took pleasure in performing more
freely, these often emulated the general style of a particular master as well. But
Rejepow and Annamyradow were by no means alone in their strict approach.
Rejepow learned his transcription method from the late Begmyrat “Ata”
Gutlymyradow, a virtuoso dutarist equally well versed in Western art music.
Gutlymyradow, who claims to have been the first Turkmen to transcribe the
music, established a number of notation conventions.5 When I asked him about
his transcriptions, he emphasized the importance of noting the performer and
the recording the transcription is based on, and criticized those who transcribed
a halk saz without doing so (Personal interview. 7 July 2009). Rejepow transcribes
in this tradition, seeking to reconstruct precisely what the performer on a re-
cording played, a challenging task given that some of the rapid-fire details are
almost imperceptible on the degraded bootleg recordings that musicians use.
For help, Rejepow seeks the counsel of Çary Sähetmyradow, an aging former
student of Pürli aga, to confirm and correct his hearing of the recordings.
While transcription is a common pedagogical tool and not necessarily a
canonizing practice, in this case there is a clear tendency to view the recording
as a classic and as a standard that one should carefully copy. The strict deference
to the detailed transcription of a recorded performance as a model, furthermore,
appears to parallel the deference to the work represented in the score in Western
classical music. But note that not all performers carefully emulating a master’s
variant resort to transcription; Annamyradow, for example, simply works from
recordings and plays from memory what he has learned by ear.
Jose Bowen observes that the world of jazz “has begun to undergo its own
process of ‘canonization’ with canonic recorded versions (which substitute for
canonic texts), a ‘classic’ period and ‘classic’ works, performers who specialize
in exactly reproducing ‘classic’ versions of ‘classic’ works, and finally, of course,
the creation of actual texts” (1993:157). I argue that recordings have played a
similar role for Turkmen instrumental music that Bowen asserts they have for
jazz. Notation can be used for many purposes, and Bowen’s article discusses
several approaches, including “samples” (transcriptions of one performance)
versus “summaries” (lead sheets, 159). There seems to be a parallel between
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Musical Example 1. Excerpt from Yazmyrat Rejepow’s transcription of Pürli Saryÿew’s
recording of “Garry Saltyk,” which is the seventh section of the “Saltyklar” suite dis-
cussed below. The note at the top of the transcription translates as, “Transcribed on
the basis of the recording played by Pürli Saryÿew; see www.dutar.com “Pürli Sary”
[01.mp3] for an audio recording.
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Gutlymyradow’s and Rejepow’s detailed approach to transcription (which pro-

duces “samples”) and transcriptions of jazz solos used as scores for performance,
in that both take a performance of variable or improvised music as a revered
work and reproduce it as a more fixed performance model.
Yet another example of such a treatment of a past performance is the case
of Abing in China, whose recordings Jonathan Stock argues were in fact impro-
visations even though contemporary erhu players treat them as fixed composi-
tions (1996). In the case of jazz, tributes to past performance have even been
extended beyond mere reproduction, as when the ensemble Supersax arranges
and plays Charlie Parker solos in four-part harmony (http://www.ejazzlines
.com/Supersax-Arrangements-Charts-c1823.html).
The treatment of Turkmen dutar recordings seems to parallel such other
cases, often described in terms of classics and of canonization, where modern
recording technology has enabled musicians to valorize classic performances by
reproducing them precisely even though they were never intended to be exactly
replicated. As I will show, however, in using notation and recordings, Turkmens
are not freezing tradition in some wholly novel way, but rather making the
most of modern technology to take what is in fact a traditional practice—the
veneration, preservation, and reproduction of masters’ contributions—to a new
level.
Venerating the Masters

Complementing the practice of reproducing classic recordings in Turkmenistan
are a number of hagiographies—biographical texts that celebrate great musi-
cians of the past. These texts help solidify the sense of a national pantheon that
parallels pantheons of musical canons elsewhere. Akmuhammet Aşyr’s book
Kyrklar (1993), for example, is filled with portraits and brief texts about the lives
of influential singers and instrumentalists. There are also monographs that focus
on a single star musician such as Mylly aga (Saparow 1986). I have also found
several videos and recordings of radio broadcasts of musicians reminiscing
about past masters, and a favorite pastime of dutar enthusiasts is to sip tea and
recall anecdotes about the exploits of famous virtuosos.
Such hagiographies and tributes typically have a longer memory than the
archives of recordings do, frequently memorializing musical careers begun as
far back as the beginning of the nineteenth century. But the role of recordings
has been to put the leading musicians of the early recording era at the core of
the pantheon. The forebears of Çary aga, Mylly aga, and Pürli aga remain in
popular memory, and numerous anecdotes about these musicians survive, in-
cluding some that attribute specific pieces or parts of pieces to them. However,
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because the recordings of mid-twentieth-century masters constitute the old-

est surviving performance models for current musicians, they take on special
importance.
Consider the following statement by Öwez Orazmuhammedow, a young
dutar virtuoso:
There are a number of masters, and they each developed their own way of playing,
their own variants. And the later ones left us recordings: Mylly aga, Pürli aga, Çary
Täcmämmedow, Jepbar Hansähet. They are considered the best. Maybe those who
came before them—Kel bagşy, Amangeldi Gönibek—were even greater masters.
But there was a tradition among the masters. For example, “Burny aşak.” Everyone
had his own way of playing that piece, his own variant. Or “Saltyklar”—there are
seven sections. Each section was composed by a different musician. Gurpak bagşy,
Amangeldi Gönibek, Gulgeldi ussa, Mämmet bagşy, Şyhy bagşy, and there’s Garry
saltyk. Every musician plays his own variant . . . Mylly aga plays a different hasap
from Pürli aga. Everyone has his own way of playing his own variants . . . So you
have to learn one ÿol (road or way) seriously and exactly. You can’t switch to another
ÿol. If you start to combine other ÿols later on, it gets mixed up. You’ll confuse them.
(Personal interview. July 15, 2009)
Setting aside the fascinating case of the suite “Saltyklar” for a moment, this
statement reflects several common attitudes about sources of authority in Turk-
men instrumental music. There are a number of acknowledged masters of the
dutar. Each of these masters has his own way of playing, his own ÿol.6 If one is a
master, having studied with an acknowledged master and received his blessing,
then one’s own ÿol is legitimate. Furthermore, many masters contribute new
ideas to the pieces handed down to them. Future generations remember the
idiosyncrasies and innovations of their masters, taking them as a starting point
for their own paths.
While young musicians like Orazmuhammedow seek to forge their own
way and further develop the music, they also perceive the classic recordings as
sources of great authority. The consensus I have heard frequently expressed is
that no one else has reached a level of performance matching that of Mylly aga
and Pürli aga in many years. The nuances of some passages from their recordings
may defy satisfactory reproduction in the hands of contemporary performers,
or current musicians may feel that these past masters played with a stylistic flair
or depth of knowledge of the tradition that they cannot recreate. This seems to
be one of the reasons young musicians emulate classic recordings so studiously,
learning “one ÿol seriously and exactly,” precisely reproducing the recorded
versions in their own performances. Some dutar players today look to the early
recordings and attempt to recreate them in order to recover lost knowledge and
re-attain the perceived previous peak performance level. The classic recordings
set a standard that even aspiring innovators must meet.
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Valorized Variants or Standardized Version?

Elsewhere, scholars have frequently documented synthesized or standardized
authoritative versions of repertoires, often fixed in notation. These include Yu-
nus Rajabi’s six-volume transcription of the Shash maqam, whose meticulous
execution by an Uzbek conservatory ensemble Levin dubbed “frozen music”
(1996:45–8); the Rashidiyya Ensemble’s composite version of the Ma’luf as docu-
mented by Davis in Tunisia (2004); and the Uyghur Muqam Committee’s official
version of the 12 Muqam, synthesized from separate recorded performances and
regional variants, that Harris describes (2008:34–5). Given the centrality of the
multiple, idiosyncratic variants of traditional pieces captured in the recordings
of Çary aga, Mylly aga, and Pürli aga, the Turkmen case stands in contrast to
these others. It may be instructive to consider potential Turkmen analogues to
such standardized, synthesized versions of a repertoire to show how important
the classic recordings are as performance models vis-à-vis other candidates for
analysis as canons in Turkmenistan.
One possible parallel may be drawn with the arrangements made for the
various official ensembles, especially the National Folk Instrumental Ensemble
founded in 1940 and affiliated with Turkmenistan radio. The group was led
initially by Mylly aga, and later by Pürli aga and then Çary aga, and it doubled
as a kind of master class, the leader of the group tutoring the other members.
These ensembles consisted of several dutars and one or two gyjaks (spike fidd-
les), and the instruments played in unison as opposed to heterophony. This
approach demanded that the ensemble leader arrange pieces in such a way that
all members of the group could perform them together, which usually meant
creating a simplified version.
A second potential analogue to the standard versions documented elsewhere
is the concept of the “halk çalyşy” (halk meaning “folk” or “people” and çalyş
meaning “way of playing”). This is a term I have occasionally heard my teacher
use to refer to “a standard way most people play piece x” as opposed to the way
a specific master played the piece on a recording.
But while these examples of synthesized or imagined standard versions
bear a distant resemblance to the Rashidiyya Ensemble’s version of the Ma’luf or
Rajabi’s Shash maqam, they are less influential, less prestigious than the classic
recordings of individual masters as models for performance in Turkmen inst-
rumental music. In fact, many of the most prestigious halk saz have never been
arranged for ensemble play, because ensemble leaders seem to have restricted
the groups’ repertoire to relatively simple numbers that all members could play
well. Furthermore, in my experience, recorded solo renditions of halk saz are
more highly regarded than ensemble versions. I have never heard anything
akin to the official Tunisian ideology that the Rashidiyya Ensemble’s versions
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represent the authentic, original Ma’luf, which generations of oral transmission

had corrupted (Davis 2004:51–69). Likewise, the concept of a “halk çalyşy”
implies a less prestigious version than that of a master musician. If anything,
the ensemble versions and idea of halk çalyşy, by contrasting with the virtuosic
feats of masters performing solo, reinforce the authority of the latter. While
leadership and membership in a prestigious ensemble likely contributed to the
rise of participating musicians’ status, the music produced in this context has
not been celebrated to the extent that the solo recordings have.
As one final candidate for a single, standard version, I have occasionally
encountered the perception that Mylly aga’s recordings represent the original, old
way of playing traditional pieces. For example, virtuoso dutarist Ÿolaman Nur-
ymow wrote that “another characteristic of Mylly Täçmyradow’s performance
style was to play pieces’ original model (nusga) without changing it” (1993:47).
As evidence he cites a statement by Pürli aga: “Mylly aga is true to the hasap of
the melodies he learned from the masters; he doesn’t change or transform them
when he plays” (ibid).7 It is difficult to know precisely what is meant by hasap in
this context, what it is that Mylly aga has maintained. But clearly there is some
sense in which Mylly aga is perceived to be a preserver of old versions.
It is typical of such statements, however, that they appear in the context of
commemorating the particular qualities of the members of a pluralistic pant-
heon. This passage in Nurymow’s book is followed by a section on Pürli aga’s
contributions. The result is to valorize both “Mylly aga the tradition bearer” and
“Pürli aga the innovator.” Furthermore, Nurymow has just enumerated a series
of innovations attributed to Mylly aga, seemingly contradicting the notion that
he has passed on the models he learned unchanged.
Thus, in contrast to these potential standard versions, the multiple masters’
idiosyncratic versions of halk saz the early recordings have captured seem to
bear the most authority as performance models for Turkmen dutar players. For
this reason, I focus on such variants as I discuss how the modernization story in
Turkmen instrumental music culture compares to cases described by other schol-
ars in terms of classicization, canonization, or standardization. Furthermore,
I argue that the dominance of idiosyncratic variants rather than standardized
versions in the canonization story in Turkmenistan results from the durability
of indigenous practices and values that predate the twentieth century’s modern-
izing reforms.
The Soviet Modernization and Nationalization

of Turkmen Music
Present-day Turkmen music culture bears some obvious marks of a modernity
rung in by the Soviets.8 One issue to consider here is the national identity with
which this genre of music is associated. Dutar enthusiasts refer to a traditional
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instrumental tune as a Türkmen halk saz (Turkmen folk piece), and frequently
use the term milli aÿdym-sazlar (national music) to refer in general to the tra-
ditional music broadcast in official media and taught in formal institutions. But
as historian Adrienne Lynn Edgar has shown, at the onset of Sovietization, a
segmentary, genealogically based system of social organization clearly predomi-
nated among Turkmens, and there are many signs that Turkmens identified most
strongly with a kinship group at a clan or tribal level rather than as members of a
Turkmen nation, although sharing a common ancestor (2004:25). This began to
change in the 1920s, when Soviet policy stressed national consciousness based
on broad commonalities—national language, territory, and traditions—rather
than on common lineage. The present-day borders of Turkmenistan were defined
in the 1920s and 30s during the rapid formation of the Turkmen Soviet Socialist
Republic. The Soviets re-shaped Central Asia by strictly defining ethnic distinc-
tions where identities had previously overlapped and blended ambiguously;
they also hardened the porous geographic boundaries among such groups into
solid borders. Simultaneously, they de-emphasized intraethnic tribal diversity
(19; see also Hirsch 2005).
Prior to this Soviet intervention, Turkmens were a loose collection of semi-
nomadic tribes spread around an arid, largely inhospitable territory extending
east from the Caspian Sea. They were often subjects of nearby centers of power
in Bukhara, Khiva, Iran, and, beginning in the latter part of the nineteenth
century, Russia. Various Turkmen tribes frequently fought with each other, and
thus failed to unite against potential common enemies. Any sense of political
independence they may have had more likely resulted from nomadic mobility,
and the option to leave an intolerable political situation, than from independent
occupancy within defined borders (Irons 1974).
Given this historical reality, the Turkmen national identity associated with
the music I am discussing here appears to be a relatively new one, a product of
Soviet nationalities policy. If identities had previously coalesced around music
culture, they were likely tribal and genealogical, or perhaps pan-Islamic. Alex-
ander Djumaev traces the idea of musical heritage in neighboring Uzbekistan to
the pre-Soviet period, during which time culture was considered the common
property of Muslims (as opposed to Europeans), and not nations (2005:167–8).9
One could counter this argument by pointing out that the influential
eighteenth-century Turkmen poet Magtymguly Pyragy (1730?–1790?) used the
word “Turkmen” and explicitly called for the union of the major tribes. Walter
Feldman, who has characterized this stance as a kind of “proto-nationalism,”
has asserted that it must have reflected a more widespread attitude of the time
(1992:170). Magtymguly, whose texts figure prominently in the vocal repertoire,
is a central figure in the region’s music culture. Thus music may have helped
foster a kind of national consciousness among Turkmens well before the ex-
istence of a unified nation-state. Likewise, Edgar acknowledges that “a sense
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of ‘Turkmen-ness’ based on genealogy long predated the Soviet era” (2004:6).

However, even if this is the case, Soviet nation-building undoubtedly altered
many particulars of the way that Turkmens conceive of their national identity.
A key element of this nationalization story is the prominence of the musi-
cians of one particular region in the pantheon I have been discussing. Mylly aga,
Pürli aga, Çary aga, and their followers hail from the Ahal region of Turkme-
nistan, a south-central province that surrounds the key cities of Ashgabat and
Geokdepe. They belong to a musical lineage referred to as the Ahal School, or
the Ahal ÿol. Most musicians I have spoken with recognize two regional styles
of instrumental performance: the Ahal School and the Mary School (based in
the southeastern part of the country). However, Ashgabat-based, Ahal School
musicians have been disproportionately represented in state television and ra-
dio broadcasts of traditional music. Invariably, these musicians were selected
to spearhead efforts to create national music entities such as the National Folk
Instrumental Ensemble at Turkmenistan Radio in the early 1940s.10 This music
was then beamed throughout the entire country. Stephen Blum reports that even
Turkmens in northern Iran tune in to Radio Ashgabat (Personal communica-
tion. December 16, 2009).
I have occasionally encountered natives of other regions, especially the
Afghan border region, who favor their own local music. Often such sentiment is
tinged with resentment that the regional tradition in question enjoys less atten-
tion in public media outlets than the dominant Ahal-based music does. There are
many ways in which regional stylistic diversity has been celebrated and granted
national exposure. Ashgabat’s official musical institutions do feature members
from other parts of the country, state media have broadcast performances of
musicians representing various regional styles, and Ahal-based musicians have
occasionally co-opted portions of the repertoire of other regions, integrating
them into their own. Ahal Schoolers do recognize and admire top Mary School
performers. Furthermore, in the realm of vocal (bagşy) performance, there is
a greater tendency to celebrate a diversity of regional styles within the national
music. Nonetheless, in the world of instrumental performance, Ahal School mu-
sicians have their own pantheon of great performers who also seem to dominate
the national pantheon.
The tradition of Ahal-based musicians representing the Turkmen nation
can be traced back to the earliest days of Soviet-sponsored cultural activities.
The composer and ethnographer Viktor Uspenskii, whose book Turkmen Music
(Beliaev and Uspenskii 1928) helped document and define Turkmen national
music at the earliest stages of the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic, was first
exposed to Turkmen music at ethnographic concerts in his native Tashkent
beginning in 1921 (Gullyev 2003:19). The concerts featured musicians perform-
ing “national” music from various Central Asian Soviet republics. Representing
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Turkmenistan were some Ahal School figures, including Sary bagşy (Pürli aga’s
father and Mylly aga’s collaborator), who would later serve as contacts and guides
for Uspenskii during his expeditions in Turkmenistan, and who now occupy
central pedestals in the national pantheon. The question of how Ahal School
musicians have come to represent national instrumental music culture is one
that begs for further research. Some Ahal Schoolers make a musicological argu-
ment to explain their prominence—more on this below—but they also enjoy an
advantage in their proximity to the republic’s capital city Ashgabat.
In addition to such music-cultural changes associated with Soviet nation-
alities policy, other modernizations were also introduced in the 1920s and 30s.
Technological innovations such as radio and recordings have clearly exposed
certain performances to a mass audience and enabled them to survive in per-
petuity for future musicians to consider classic (compare to Weber’s [1977]
argument that the rise of classical masters in Europe was an early form of mass
culture). Another important modernization was the recontextualization of musi-
cal practice into institutions where now-revered musicians like Mylly aga, Pürli
aga, and Çary aga were involved or given salaried positions (arts institutes,
Turkmenistan Radio, the composers’ union). Finally, I have heard musicians
draw direct parallels to the Western art music canon, referring to a particular
dutar master as “the Turkmen Brahms,” for example, or analyzing the sections of
a halk saz in terms that recall Sonata form (expozitsiÿa [exposition], razrabotka
[development], and repriz [reprise]). This practice suggests that musicians, fans,
and cultural authorities in a modernizing Turkmenistan may have consciously
tried to promote particular dutar players as answers to the European masters.
That figures at the core of the pantheon were participants in and benefi-
ciaries of such modernization efforts; that Turkmen dutar music is perceived
as the heritage of a nation whose construction was motivated largely by Soviet
policy; and that direct analogies are drawn to the Western art music canon
suggest that the practice of venerating masters’ classic versions in Turkmen
instrumental music was a product of twentieth-century westernization. But as
I have suggested above, canonization or classicization may have a longer history
than one would expect.
Indigenous Precedents for Valorized Variants

Having shown how idiosyncratic variants seem to occupy a place in Turkmen
dutar culture comparable to that occupied by monumental repertoires or official
versions elsewhere, I wish to explore questions about the historical depth of this
practice of valorizing variants of halk saz. How did these masters’ versions come
to be so venerated? What were the precedents for this practice? As I will show
below, there is evidence that today’s employers of variable-speed tape players
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and detailed transcription are simply putting modern tools to use in the service
of older aims.
While little written evidence predating the 1920s exists to support the idea
of a longer tradition of valorizing individual variants, oral history seems to
suggest a precedent. Orazmuhammedow’s quotation above refers to “Saltyk-
lar,” a piece or suite with seven parts, each composed by a different musician.11
There are various stories about the suite’s origins, but according to Abadan
Amangeldiÿewa, a conservatory student who wrote a thesis on the topic, it is
said that the suite began with an instrumental variant of the song “Artyknyÿaz
atly ÿarym amanmy?” (“Is my beloved Artyknyÿaz well?”). The author of this
song is supposed to be a musician from the Saltyk clan of Turkmens. Each of
the pieces (I–VII) is linked to a particular personality, namely, a renowned
nineteenth-century musician. (2008:7)
Through a process of developing the original piece—perhaps “Artyknyÿaz
atly ÿarym amanmy?”12—, a series of different dutar players are said to have
created original variants that make up the seven parts of the “Saltyklar” suite.
Parts I–III and part VII are often played independently, or all seven parts may
be played in succession, which can take over twenty minutes. “Saltyklar” does
not appear to be the only case of such concatenated variants. For example, the
halk saz “Hajy golak” bears the marks of a similar construction, and Ahal School
insiders recall nineteenth-century names associated with various portions of
the piece: Amangeldi Gönibek, Gulgeldi ussa, Kel bagşy, and so on (Rejebow
1995:18).
Taken at face value, the oral-history accounts of the creation of such suites
of individual variants suggest that a format for preserving individual versions
existed before the recording era. One can imagine a musician in say, 1900, per-
forming a few variants of “Saltyklar” and reverently informing his enchanted
listeners that “this is the way the great Amangeldi Göni played this saz . . . and
here’s how Gulgeldi ussa played it . . .” Given this tradition of concatenating vari-
ants, the current veneration and exact recreation of classic variants as performed
by past masters appears to be an extension of an older practice.
There are a few problems, however, with taking these accounts at face value.
In her thesis, Amangeldiÿewa tracks down the specifics of what different experts
say about the “Saltyklar,” recording their attributions of authorship to determine
precisely which part of the suite was developed by whom. She draws up a chart
comparing the various attributions made by five different authorities she ques-
tioned on the matter, and the result is telling (2008:22). There is almost no agree-
ment as to exactly which part was composed by whom. The same credits appear
repeatedly: Amangeldi Göni, Gulgeldi ussa, Mammedi bagşy, Şyhy bagşy, Garry
Saltyk, and a few other nineteenth-century names that bear mythic importance
for Turkmen musicians. But no more than two of the five respondents agreed
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in any case as to who composed a particular part of the suite. However, no one
responded in any case by saying “I don’t know,” or “there are two possibilities.”
And no respondent attributes authorship of two parts to the same musician.
Thus, despite the problematic disagreement as to the particulars, all seem to
agree that each part of the suite must have been composed by a different nine-
teenth-century master.
A second problem with viewing suites like “Saltyklar” as a way of preserving
individual variants is that the parts that make up such suites or composite pieces
do not always appear to be versions of the same composition. In some cases,
two parts may sound like two variations on a theme, but in others, a part may
sound like a completely new idea inserted to expand the piece. The terminology
Turkmens use for talking about what I am calling a “part” and a “variant” is
often ambiguous as to whether a part is a preserved variant or a newly inserted
section; the word “waryÿant” can refer to either phenomenon.
With these problems in mind, we should consider the possibility that the
story of the “Saltyklar,” the idea that it is a suite composed of the variants be-
longing to a series of past masters, is an invention of a later era, a “just-so story”
created to account for its formal structure and bolster the idea of a canonical
pantheon of masters. Certainly the disagreements as to the specific attributions
of authorship of the variants that make up “Saltyklar” suggest an inventedness
of details even if the general idea is historically accurate. While it is impossible
to verify the story of the origins of “Saltyklar” and account for discrepancies
among various reports about it, this case and other examples like it do show that
Turkmen musicians often explain formal complexity and variation in terms of
the contributions of masters of the past.
For the purposes of my larger argument, the historical factuality of the
“Saltyklar” story is not important. What I would like to show is that this tendency
to memorialize and valorize masters by crediting them with authoring variants
has a longer lineage than Soviet modernity. The question is, then, how far back
we can find evidence of such a tendency. The earliest written evidence I have
encountered lies in Viktor Uspenskii’s notes on his first ethnographic expedition
to Turkmenistan in 1925–6, in the very earliest years of the implementation of
Soviet cultural policies in the region. Here, there are some remarkable resonances
with the phenomenon I am tracking.
Perhaps the most relevant example is his account of four pieces called
“Bagşylar” (the plural of the word bagşy), which he transcribed on the basis of
a performance by a then thirty-two-year-old musician named Garly bagşy, in
the town of Tagta-bazar (near the border with Afghanistan):
These four pieces are of particular interest, as they represent a competition of Turk-
men musicians that used to take place, according to what I have been told, in Serahs
at the time when this city was the center of Turkmenia. This competition was for
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the prize “ala gaÿş,” a valuable ornament for a horse. The first of these four pieces
was submitted by Nobat-Nyÿaz, the second by Gara şahyr, the third by Jepbar bagşy,
and the fourth by Kör Hojaly. Among these pieces there are many commonalities
and they may rather be considered four virtuosic elaborations of one and the same
original piece, involving а sort of theme for emulation and rivalry. With this, ev-
ery musician, playing in turn, tried to eclipse his competitor by means of his own
technique and inventiveness in variation and complications of the basic motive.
(Beliaev and Uspenskii 1928:127–8)
Thus, “Bagşylar” consists of several parts, each said to be a variant of the
same piece, and each variant imagined or remembered as the work of a past
master (the names listed here date to the early nineteenth century13). This ac-
count of the piece’s/suite’s origin, likely related to Uspenskii by Garly bagşy
himself, bears a striking resemblance to that of “Saltyklar,” and seems to me
solid evidence that a tradition of concatenating variants and attributing them
to masters predates the Soviet era.
Remembered Innovation as an Indigenous

Concept of Authorship
Beyond the handful of truly paradigmatic cases of concatenated variants, the
underlying concept of remembered innovations to older halk saz is a pervasive
one in the music culture surrounding dutar instrumentals. Looking at “Saltyklar”
and “Bagşylar” in the larger context of Turkmen halk saz, we could place the
idea of concatenated variants on a general spectrum of remembered innovation.
The careful emulation of recorded versions would lie on one extreme end of the
spectrum, with “Saltyklar”-type concatenated variants near it, and at the other
end might lie the attribution of one particular section or detail of a piece to a
particular master. Most halk saz lack the kind of origin myth “Saltyklar” features,
but Ahal Schoolers nonetheless recall, for example, that the third and final part
of “Ÿandym” was composed by the early-nineteenth-century master Garadäli
Göklen, and later musicians added the initial two parts, whose authorship is
viewed as collective or forgotten. Rejepow also once played a recording of the
halk saz “Uçradym” for me, pausing to indicate where the second part of the
piece begins, a lengthy section supposedly composed by the mid-nineteenth-
century musician Kel bagşy in one night during a trip to Iran. He also pointed
out a short flourish later inserted by Pürli aga.
Perhaps it is indicative of the centrality of such remembered innovation that
many of the most revered halk saz are those that seem to have grown most by
accretion and contain a wealth of remembered innovations (“Saltyklar,” “Burny
aşak,” “Hajy golak,” and a number of others). Such halk saz gain prestige as they
develop over time largely because the contributions of numerous innovators
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make them formally more complex. I have heard Ahal-based musicians claim
that this approach to developing halk saz is unique to their region. For example,
Nurymov states that
We would not be wrong to say that even if [in the Mary region] dutar saz are played,
from the standpoint of their construction, their form, there has not been enough
attention paid to bringing them to a developed level, and to their full and correct
performance. The song melodies that are played [instrumentally] have remained
in the stanzaic form particular to songs. [If you compare the Mary and Ahal styles]
you will feel the weakness of dutar performance in the Mary region regarding the
important elements of bringing the music to a developed level in terms of its struc-
ture, its form, with new sections, different variations and versions reworked several
times over, as they do in Ahal. (1993:7)
Nurymov’s argument, which I have heard echoed by others, suggests a mu-
sicological justification for the Ahal School’s dominance of national music. The
form of many of the Ahal region’s traditional halk saz has become more complex
through careful preservation of new variations and expansions past masters have
invented.
Particularly suggestive of the historical depth of the habit of remembering
innovation is the contrast between this notion of composite authorship and
another concept of authorship that appears to have been introduced in the
Soviet era. For example, Turkmen music scholar A. Ahmedow states that one
“peculiarity of the new [Soviet] age was the transition from authorless creativity
to authored creativity” and associates this development with the formation of
the Turkmenistan radio ensemble in the early 1940s (Ahmedow and Saparow
1983:86).
Members of the ensemble began to compose original works for dutar, works
often given propagandistic titles such as “Gyzyl baÿdak” (The red flag), “Ÿaşa
Lenin” (Long live Lenin), or “Gahryman Rus halkyna” (To the Heroic Rus-
sian Nation). This campaign to produce new authored works ran parallel to
other efforts to modernize Turkmen national music culture and draw it closer
to Western classical music models (the arrangement of Western art music for
performance on modified folk instruments, the formation of large ensembles,
and the composition of new symphonic works that incorporated themes from
traditional music). Some of the compositions from this period were liked enough
that they remain popular, although it is common to distinguish them from halk
saz by designating them as öz döreden saz (an original piece) or kompozitorskii
saz (a piece by a composer).
But the practices of remembering innovations by concatenating suites of
variants associated with particular masters or of attributing portions of halk
saz to famous dutar players contradict the dichotomous view of authorship that
categorizes compositions as either anonymous or works by a single composer.
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As contemporary virtuoso Akmyrat Çaryÿew puts it, “many of our pieces do not
have one known author. We don’t know such things exactly. We say it’s something
the people created. But really those things were created by the masters” (personal
interview, August 7, 2009). Given that the masters are specific people memorial-
ized in hagiographies and who are often credited with specific creative contribu-
tions, it is possible to argue that an indigenous view of authorship challenges
the view advocated under Soviet cultural policy and that the indigenous view
underlies the criteria for membership in the modern pantheon. Furthermore,
in addition to problematizing the idea that halk saz are anonymous, Çaryÿew
questions the notion that a kompozitorskii saz will continue to be viewed as the
work of a single author. “My halypa (master) composed some of his own pieces.
. . . Those things are not being called ‘new’ by the people. You have to listen to
them like halk saz, because those new compositions can also turn into halk saz
as they are passed down over time and more and more people add something
to them” (ibid). This persistent conception of authorship represents yet another
apparently indigenous strand in the history of practices that look so much like
modernization in Western art music’s image.
Concluding Thoughts
In this paper, I have examined the modern Turkmen practice of valorizing vari-
ants of traditional, orally transmitted instrumental compositions by fixing them
in notation, studiously reproducing them in performance, and commemorating
the contributions of their makers in celebratory discourse. Evidence strongly
suggests that the tendency to valorize variants predates the onset of musical
modernization according to the aims of Soviet Turkmenistan’s cultural policy.
Furthermore, the associated indigenous ideas about authorship prevailed for
decades against Soviet ideologues’ attempts to introduce competing notions
derived from Western art music culture. Today’s venerators and emulators have
deployed the implements of modernity—recording technology, transcription,
publication, and state media—for the task, adapting the practice to Soviet and
post-Soviet national milieus. Such devices as variable speed playback technol-
ogy afford Turkmen musicians a new, sharper tool for achieving the old aim of
preserving and perpetuating the masters’ versions and contributions.
These findings speak to larger questions in ethnomusicological discourse
on musical modernization. Scholarship in this area has often emphasized the
newness of national heritage, standardized canons, and classical musics, seek-
ing to expose the recent inventedness of processes that appear to have arisen
after encounters with Western powers. A few scholars like Harris and Schofield
have pointed to cases in which the apparently recent invention turns out to
be deeper-rooted than the skeptical scholar of traditional music might at first
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think. In exploring Turkmen instrumental music, I have attempted to further

highlight the importance of tracing indigenous practices and values as they
shape modernization processes that appear as Westernizing reforms.
The Turkmen case further complicates the matter in that it is difficult to
trace the modern-looking practice of valorizing variants to a pre-colonial power
center, the kind of place where Harris and Schofield have suggested we might
find explanations. While I have insufficient data to account for the early rise of
valorized variants, the Turkmen case raises the intriguing question of how such
processes might arise outside the setting of a courtly power center. Turkmen
instrumental music did not develop in interaction with members of an impe-
rial court. Certainly pre-Soviet Turkmens were, to varying degrees, subjects
of neighboring power centers that rose and fell in influence at various times—
Khiva, Bukhara, Persia, Czarist Russia—but I have yet to encounter evidence
linking the rise of canonization processes to interactions with such powers, and
none of these undertook widescale cultural reform projects among Turkmens
as the Soviets did.14 Perhaps further historical research will reveal a connection
between the practice of valorizing variants and some other aspect of pre-Soviet
modernity in Central Asia. It also seems possible to speculate that the traditional
importance of genealogy to Turkmen identities naturally inspired veneration of
members of musical lineages. At any rate, the case suggests that canonization
processes may occur outside the context of an elite court fashioning musical
symbols of its power and refinement, as Harris’ and Schofield’s examples seem
to indicate.
The Turkmen example suggests that ethnomusicologists, whether viewing
their subjects through the lenses of canonization, classicization, standardization,
or any other rubric of modernization, would be well advised to consider the
ways that specific music-cultural practices grounded in indigenous precedent
may have put on the dress of the new, the western, the colonial modern.
Acknowledgments
This paper would not have been possible without the opportunity to study music
in Turkmenistan first while a Peace Corps Volunteer from 2004 to 2006, and
later while on a Title VIII language fellowship from American Councils for
International Education in 2009. My friends to whom I am indebted in Turk-
menistan are too many to name, but I am especially grateful to Annamuhammet
Annaorazow, Yazmyrat Rejepow, Ata Gutlymyradow, Çary Suwçy, Akmyrat
Çaryÿew, Annaseÿit Annamyradow, Baÿram Söÿünow, and Öwez Orazmuham-
medow for their invaluable help with my research for this article. I wish to thank
Marc Perlman for his feedback on several drafts of this article; Katherine Butler
Schofield and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments; feedback
ETM 59_2 text.indd 223 4/3/15 11:34 AM

from several audience members who commented on my readings of a version

of this paper at the 2011 meeting of SEM in Philadelphia and the 2012 Musical
Geographies of Central Asia conference in London; and Mark Slobin, Su Zheng,
and Eric Charry, my Wesleyan MA Thesis committee, whose careful reading
greatly improved the thesis on which much of this article is based. Any errors
in this article are my own.
Notes
1. This is the long version of a paper awarded the Charles Seeger Prize for most distinguished
student paper at the 2011 SEM conference in Philadelphia, PA. All quotes from the Turkmen and
Russian are translated by the author.
2. Two sources for listening to recordings of Turkmen instrumental music are www.dutar.com
and YouTube, where searching “Turkmen dutar” will yield a variety of hits, from classic recordings
to videos of young performers today.
3. In some regions of the country instrumental traditions for gyjak (spike fiddle) and tüÿdük
(reed flute) also exist, but the dutar is by far the most widespread and commonly performed
instrument and has the largest repertoire. In this article I will therefore focus on the tradition of
instrumental performance for dutar.
4. For music analyses that examine in greater detail the creation of individual variants and
the process of collective composition, see Fossum 2010, especially chapters 8–10.
5. The Russian composer and ethnographer of Turkmen music, Viktor Uspenskii (discussed
below), was perhaps the first person to transcribe Turkmen music, but his transcriptions were not
detailed or accurate enough for current musicians to work from, and he has not proven to be a
precedent-setter in this area.
6. See Zeranska-Kominek 1998 for more on the many meanings of the word “ÿol” in Türkmen
musical contexts.
7. This quotation comes from a semi-fictional text by author Hudaÿberdi Durdyÿew (1982).
I am not sure how closely this resembles actual statements by Pürli Saryÿew. But it is indicative of
Turkmen perceptions about Mylly aga and Pürli aga.
8. In using the terms “modernity” and “modernization” in the following discussion, I do not
wish to imply that geographic Turkmenistan was not modern before the Soviet era; I use these
terms rather to refer to the ways Soviets deeming the region underdeveloped according to their
own criteria self-consciously sought to “modernize” aspects of the society and culture, including
music.
9. Djumaev notes that the Shash maqam developed in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Bukha-
ra, where Jews, Turkmens, and Iranian musicians cooperated with Tajiks and Uzbeks (2005:172).
He argues that the association of Shash maqam with the Uzbek nation materialized under Soviet
cultural policy and reflected the formation of national art schools in Europe (170).
10. Saparow lists the members of the first manifestation of this group, which was led by Mylly
aga (Ahmedow and Saparow 1983:86).
11. At the time of the writing of this article, there were at least two internet sites on which one
could listen to versions of “Saltyklar.” On www.dutar.com, selecting “Çary Taçmammet” on the left
sidebar leads to a page of links to mp3s of Çary aga recordings. Track 8, “Saltyklar,” contains one
rendition of the suite. “Mylly Täçmyrat” on the sidebar leads to a series of Mylly aga recordings,
one of which (number 11) is a version of “Saltyklar.” Searching “Saltyklar” on YouTube also led to
one version of the suite as performed by Çary aga.
12. Uspenskii (Beliaev and Uspenskii 1928:139–41) confirms the connection between “Saltyk-
lar” and “Artyknyÿaz atly ÿarym amanmy?” or perhaps Amangeldiÿewa’s sources draw on Uspenskii.
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13. According to Uspenskii’s list of Turkmen musicians (compiled on the basis of reports

from the musicians he interviewed), Kör Hojaly was born ca. 1800. Uspenskii and his informants
do not venture a guess as to the birth and death dates of the other three, but Jepbar bagşy is said to
have been “already an old man when Aly bagşy was young,” and Gara şahyr Aly bagşy’s “father?”
(1928:41). Aly bagşy serves as a yardstick here because he was an elder collaborator of the famous
dutar player Şükür bagşy, whom Uspenskii met as a very old man on this expedition. Thus, these
four musicians are early nineteenth century figures. Of course, the pieces and the story could have
been invented later, but in that case the story still evinces an oral-historical orientation to a remark-
ably deep past.
14. The early twentieth century did see the rise of cultural reform movements in Bukhara
and Khiva (both now across the border in modern Uzbekistan), where Russians ruled by proxy
through local elites. Russians also ruled transcaspian Turkmenistan by proxy through a local elite
they developed (Edgar 2004:30–1). However, it is unclear to me how these developments might
have influenced musical canonization processes.
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Westernizing Reform and Indigenous Precedent in Traditional Music: Insights from

Westernizing Reform and Indigenous

Abstract. Ethnomusicologists have often shown how traditional musics at

Teswirnama. Dürli medeniýetleriň sazlaryny öwrenijiler (etnomuzykowedler)

© 2015 by the Society for Ethnomusicology

ETM 59_2 text.indd 202 4/3/15 11:34 AM

S cholars working in a broad swath of territory from North Africa to Central

ETM 59_2 text.indd 203 4/3/15 11:34 AM

Turkmen Music as an Instructive Case of Canonization

ETM 59_2 text.indd 204 4/3/15 11:34 AM

As I will describe below, some early- to mid-twentieth-century members

ETM 59_2 text.indd 205 4/3/15 11:34 AM

theater’s transformation from lower-class entertainment to refined art form

Turkmen Instrumental Music Today2

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Reproducing the Classics

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Gutlymyradow’s and Rejepow’s detailed approach to transcription (which pro-

Venerating the Masters

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because the recordings of mid-twentieth-century masters constitute the old-

ETM 59_2 text.indd 212 4/3/15 11:34 AM

Valorized Variants or Standardized Version?

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represent the authentic, original Ma’luf, which generations of oral transmission

The Soviet Modernization and Nationalization

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of ‘Turkmen-ness’ based on genealogy long predated the Soviet era” (2004:6).

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Indigenous Precedents for Valorized Variants

ETM 59_2 text.indd 217 4/3/15 11:34 AM

ETM 59_2 text.indd 218 4/3/15 11:34 AM

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Remembered Innovation as an Indigenous

ETM 59_2 text.indd 220 4/3/15 11:34 AM

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think. In exploring Turkmen instrumental music, I have attempted to further

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from several audience members who commented on my readings of a version

ETM 59_2 text.indd 224 4/3/15 11:34 AM

13. According to Uspenskii’s list of Turkmen musicians (compiled on the basis of reports

ETM 59_2 text.indd 225 4/3/15 11:34 AM

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13. According to Uspenskii’s list of Turkmen musicians (compiled on the basis of reports