Ottoman music

A tradition of music that reached its golden age around the early 18th century, Ottoman music traces its roots back to the music of the Hellenic and Persianate world, a distinctive feature of which is the usage of a modal melodic system. This system, alternatively called makam, dastgah or echos, are a large and varied system of melodic material, defining both scales and melodic contour. In Ottoman music alone, more than 600 makams have been used so far, and out of these, at least 120 makams are in common use and formally defined.^[1] Rhythmically, Ottoman music uses the zaman and usûl systems, which determine time signatures and accents respectively. A wide variety of instruments has been used in Ottoman music, which include the turkish tanbur (lute), ney (end-blown reed flute), klasik kemençe (lyra), keman (violin), kanun (zither), and others.


Until the 19th century, in which Westernization caused Western classical music to replace the native Ottoman tradition, Ottoman music remained the dominant form of music in the empire, and therefore evolved into a diverse form of art music, with forms such as the peşrev, kâr and saz semaî evolving drastically over the course of the empire's history, as the Ottomans' classical tradition also found its place outside of the court. By the end of the 18th century, Ottoman music had incorporated a diverse repertoire of secular and religious music of a wide variety of musicians, including post-Byzantine music, Sephardic music and others.


19th century Ottoman elites saw Ottoman music as primitive and underdeveloped in relation to Western music, and stopped its courtly patronage. This resulted in many classical musicians being forced to work in entertainment-related contexts, and gave rise to a much simpler style, named gazino. After the Ottoman Empire collapsed, the new republican elite tried to suppress Ottoman music further, in an attempt to hasten the process of Westernization. The decline which followed resulted in drastic changes in Ottoman music, and as the new republican elite failed to create an alternative to Ottoman music, the remnants of Ottoman tradition were appropriated and nationalized by the 1980 military regime.

Naming conventions[edit]

The naming conventions of the Ottoman's Empire's classical tradition are the cause of significant controversy, as naming schemes proposed by governments often place significant importance on the "nationalization" of music, resulting in contradiction.^[2][3]


It is known that the Ottomans did not often distinguish between different musical traditions, calling them all by the name musikî, ultimately from Ancient Greek mousiké.^[4] This naming convention broke down during the Westernization of the Ottoman Empire, as Western cultural norms and practices were slowly integrated into the empire. The resulting dichotomy between Western and Ottoman classical music was referred to as alafranga and alaturka (European and Turkish) by the Ottoman elites. However, as the Ottoman Empire collapsed, new terms were employed for the Ottoman tradition, forming the current naming convention of Ottoman music.^[5]


The controversies fueled by these changes are often further aggravated by an uncertainty of periodization; according to researcher on Middle Eastern music Owen Wright, starting from late 17th century, Ottoman music differed from its predecessors to such an extent that "if the two were juxtaposed, we would need to speak of musical diglossia."^[6][7] Walter Zev Feldman, another researcher on Middle Eastern music, has therefore claimed that a uniquely Ottoman style emerged no earlier than the 1600s.^[6]


Numerous comparative works done by Greek musicians of the 18th and 19th centuries have also pointed out that "the Greek and Turkish modal systems resemble each other to a very high degree", and that there was a near "one-to one correspondence" in terms of most diatonic and non-diatonic structures, as well as the chords that make up the two traditions' modal structures.^[8]