Steve Mullins

Turkey

Music for this workshop

Editor's Note: Wherever one might travel in the world, there's a good chance of finding the mandolin already there. From India to Turkey, Eastern-Europe to the British Isles, from East-Asia to the Caribbean, and throughout the Americas, the mandolin has found its way into the hearts, ears, and musical traditions of millions around the globe. This column investigates music from around the world that is played on the mandolin (or closely related instruments), with the hope of inspiring mandolinists to further explore the rich possibilities of our instrument.

Turkey is not a place where I first expected to find the mandolin. When I traveled there a few years ago I was pleasantly surprised to discover that our instrument had preceded me. In fact, I was told that the mandolin commonly is used in Turkey as an instrument to train children in music rudiments and string technique before they "graduate" to more traditional Turkish instruments.

There is a long list of stringed instruments in Turkey including the lute-family members -- the oud, and laouta, and the long-necked lutes or Saz family, which includes at least five different sizes, all with almond-shaped bodies with the sound-hole in the end (below the tail piece).

The three most common are the bozuk or long-necked Saz, the baglama or short-necked Saz, and the cura, which is the smallest and most like the mandolin. They all have three double courses of steel strings, though in some cases the lowest course has an added third octave string. They are typically played with a long, thin, and very flexible pick and the left-hand technique includes a lot of reaching over with the thumb onto the lowest string.

One of the interesting differences between these instruments and the mandolin is that their fretting system allows for a number of extra pitches (or micro-tones) that aren't found on the mandolin or other European instruments. I own a Turkish laouta which has 23 notes per octave, and a Saz with 17, compared to the 12-notes of a mandolin or piano, etc. -- and all of these extra notes came for no extra charge!

Turkish music uses many different scales or maqams which make use of these "extra" pitches, and they also allow for more pure tuning of certain intervals that the equal-tempered system of Western music tends to "fudge." Only certain of the Turkish modes are therefore playable on the mandolin.

Another interesting Turkish instrument with connections to the mandolin is the cumbus. The original cumbus was invented in the late 1920's as a sort of combination of the Turkish oud and the banjo. It has six double courses of strings with a fretless neck and a metal body and skin sound-board.

The cumbus became very popular as a Turkish classical musical instrument from the 1930's until the 60's or 70's after which it has waned in popularity, becoming more associated with rural areas and gypsys. Variations of the cumbus were also invented, including a cumbus saz, and a cumbus mandolin. The cumbus mandolin is fretted like regular mandolin but with the construction style of a cumbus, very similar in sound and appearance to the banjo-mandolins of the United States. This form of mandolin is possibly the most common in Turkey today.

The piece I've chosen to illustrate Turkish music is called Ankara Zeybek (which means a Zeybek from Ankara). The Zeybek is a type of dance which comes from the Aegean region of Turkey which features colorfully dressed men and movements symbolizing courage and heroism.

It, like many Turkish dances, is in a nine-beat meter, in this case, a slow nine/four, divided as follows: one-two-three, one-two, one-two, one-two. This is a pretty straightforward arrangement of a simple tune. Pay attention to the ornament markings. Ornamentation is an important part of Turkish style. The most common type of ornament is a trill onto the adjacent note above the melody tone, usually without regard for the scale being used. In other words, if you were ornamenting a C-note, for example, you would use the C-sharp above it, even though it might not be found in the scale of the piece.

The scale used in this piece is one of the most common Turkish scales playable on Western instruments, known as hijaz (in this case beginning on A). It is essentially a phrygian mode scale with a raised third, or you could think of it as a harmonic minor scale beginning on the fifth degree.

This scale is common throughout Eastern Europe and in Spain, where it is sometimes called "Spanish phrygian." Hijaz tunes can be fun and easy vehicles for improvisation because it is difficult to hit a "wrong" note in this mode. Have fun!

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