Turkish Traditional Music

From Andrew Garton's wiki

Notes

have been reading about the origins of turkish notation and how it was influenced by western notion, that their musicians were the single most consistent over centuries in defining a form of communication to not so much archive music as to communicate it in real time... up until the early 19th century they had no notational definition of an octave. every note had its own "name" and eventually its own unique character. where as western notation provided turkish musicians with a language built on their own, it robbed korean musicians of the meditative, deep listening techniques that had to acquire with which to communicate their musical heritage.

Artists

Zeki MÜREN

Senede Bir Gün - Taş Plak

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKjM5i5PC5U&feature=related

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aşık_Veysel_Şatıroğlu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy6La0AB9AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHg-Z3SNxsY

Sulukule Orchestra

.. our band was formed in ankara in 2004 and then we moved to istanbul. Nowadays we are recording new songs and practicing for live performance. Deniz is a conservatory graduate viola player and he is doing his master degree on sound engineering in MIAM, ITU. Now he is working in a advertisement jingle company. he composes, mixes and edits the songs, moreover he plays the keyboards and bass. our guitar player and composer Can has been playing with lots of bands, does musicals, blues and rock for many years.he graduated from metu mechanical engineering, and he is working as an IT professional for a long time. oturma grubu now has nearly 30 songs beside the 5 that you can hear at myspace. also we would like to thank to lovely "Sesim" for her great support and help, especially for starting this myspace. to visit us on facebook& iLike:

Selim Sesler

http://www.myspace.com/selimsesler

Selim Sesler was born into a professional reed horn family in 1957 in Kesan, a village located in Edirne. After the population exchanges of 1923, Sesler's family moved from Greece to Turkey and settled in an enclave of Kesan called Ibriktepe where they lived in the Yeni Mescit neighborhood. Selim began his love affair with music by learning how to play the horn, however during the 1960s many children from drum and reed horn families began to play Turkish Classical ensemble instruments and Sesler followed the trend by jumping on the bandwagon and learning how to play the clarinet. Already a regular at weddings and fairs by the age of 14, by the mid-80s Sesler set out with Roman musician friends to play in Istanbul and to develop his craft. He gained experience and recorded a lot of material by playing at restaurants with fasil groups, as a musician at the Ferhan Sensoy Theater, and by continuing to play at Roman and non-Roman weddings. In 1998 he got the chance to tour Canada with Brenna MacCrimmon, which afforded him the opportunity to represent his Turkish Roman and Rumelian roots. Drawing from his medley of musical experiences, Sesler developed a repertoire and musical style deeply reflective of his region. Whether he is among Roman peers or solo, Selim Sesler stands alone, famous for his master improvisations, expert wedding airs, and repertoire of dance melodies. Aside from being invited to play at many important festivals in countries such as Germany, France, and Sweden, over the past two years Sesler has performed many special concerts and taught at music workshops across the United States of America.

Dolapdere Big Gang

http://www.myspace.com/dolapderebiggang

Dolapdere Big Gang, the band that consists of 9 musicians, mostly from Dolapdere, entered the music world with their first album, “Local Strangers”, with the Yakartop Music label last year. The band is covering worldwide hit pop and rock songs with Turkish instruments and “A la Turka” form. They have reached a very large amount of listeners in Turkey and all around the world. Dolapdere Big Gang is different than other bands and they explain this by saying: “Turkey is a country that includes a lot of cultures in its structure due to its location as a bridge between Asia and Europe. Therefore it has been influenced equally by these cultures. In music, we see these influences too, but till now, our music was tried to be adapted into the western style and the world music understanding and even their rhythm. What we are doing is quite the contrary, because we understood that in order to have our music recognized all over the world, we have to make music in our own traditional way using our own instruments and musical ideas. We recomposed the songs in “our way”. Furthermore they add: “For years we have been great admirers of people’s famous music hits. Now it’s our turn. It’s time for everybody from Sting to Madonna and Deep Purple to Michael Jackson to be our admirers now.”

After releasing their first album, DBG played over 80 concerts in one year. Now, one year and a lot of hard work later, their second album has been released. “Just Feel” was put on the market on December 17th. This album, packed with surprises, reveals a new, even stronger, energetic and different sound to music lovers from all over the world. After months of hard work and thinking about the new repertoire, the band decided not to cover songs from the artists in the first album. The new album offers its listeners more of their favourite hits in the musical unique DBG version. In addition to 14 cover songs, DBG decided to include one original song composed by Aykut Süto--lu (clarinet) and Gökay Süngü (keyboard) with lyrics written by Emir Yesil (singer). The song is called “Oh Life” and gives listeners the first insight of how DBG’s own music will sound like. There will be more to come in the next album. One of the biggest surprises of the album is the duets with Isin Karaca and Teoman. Isin Karaca sang the legendary song Final Countdown from Europe, and Teoman sang the Drinking Song from Helldorado. Whilst choosing the repertoire, the band had to make sure to pick the songs their audience react to the most, these turned out to be: Alphaville’s Big in Japan, Tom Jones’s Sex Bomb, and Eddy Grant’s Gimme Hope Jo’anna. Alongside from the original CD of the album Just Feel a “special edition box” was released. It was especially designed for collectors and fans of the band and includes the first album, “Local Strangers” as well as “Just Feel”. In addition, it includes a clock, a calendar for 2008, a bookmark and a fridge magnet.

Mercan Dede

http://www.myspace.com/mercandede

Argos Art Management, Turkey
Concert, Project and Press:
Nevin Urgan
nevinurgan@argos.com.tr
T : +90 212 282 90 90
T : +90 533 593 27 54

Instruments

Saz

Tuning

"Bağlama düzen (tuning), the notes (for tambura saz) are from top downward A-G-D. The bağlama düzen is specific to the bağlama saz, which has a shorter neck by 4 half steps (minor third) and is mostly used for the traditional folksong style." (reference)

Turkish Traditional Music - Andrew Garton's wiki