Black Sea and Ardahan-Kars
Door: Liselotte
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Liselotte
14 Juli 2011 | Turkije, Kars
Hi everyone,
This will be my last report before I take a few weeks off; we will continue our research in southern Turkey (along the border with Syria and the Mediterranean Sea) after this break. We hope to get a bit insight in the Kurdish and Arab-influenced music of Turkey, besides a notion of its Mediterranean music. These musics are not very commonly performed in Ghent, but still have their place in the (diasporic) repertoire.
Last two weeks we were working in the Black Sea region and around Kars in the far east of Turkey. By the way, both very beautiful regions with a pure nature; the Black Sea region varying between sea & sand and wild rocky or green mountains; the Ardahan and Kars region coming close to the ‘homeland’ of the Turks in Central-Asia with its steppe-like grassy and flowery plateaus (2000 m height). The Black Sea region’s music is famous in Turkey and also in Ghent, where it is played when a lively, fast and happy (dance) music is needed.
Kars is an important name in the field of Turkish folk music, as it is the place where the asik tradition used to live and develop (situated near Azerbaijan and Iran, being the source of this asik tradition). Ardahan is a province which has experienced much migration to western Turkey and Europe (also to Ghent).
The music of the Black Sea region is closely connected to its natural environment and the way of life of the people. It is a region characterised by many and sudden weather changes (especially sudden heavy rainfall) and variations between wet and cold, and warm and dry periods (as we have experienced ourselves during our stay). The typical quick music and dance are said to originate from the fact that the Black Sea people always had to be fast and quick if they wanted to play music or to dance, as the weather could change any moment and the rain could make an end to everything. The typical movements of the regional dance, the horon – including nervously stamping with the feet and shaking with the shoulders – show the original function of this dance, namely keeping oneself warm in the company of friends…
The horon still has an important place in the culture of the Black Sea. The people are really fond of their folk music and dance and use any occasion to perform the horon. We witnessed this in a gathering of befriended teachers in a ‘çay bahçesi’ (tea garden), where a kemence-player performed his typical quick irregular-metered melodies and a few friends jumped up to dance the horon holding hands in a row; and we filmed horon dancing during a festival in the yayla’s (summer grasslands in the mountains), where two or three hundred people took part in this energetic circle dance, lasting for hours! I don’t think we met people who loved music more than these Black Sea mountain dwellers. Kirsehir was a bit alike, but here the people were still more enthusiastic when they found an opportunity to perform more or less traditional music and dance. Hard workers and at the same time intense players…
The people of the Black Sea region are very open and friendly, although it sometimes takes a little while before you gain their full confidence. The eastern part of the Black Sea (its lower as well as its upper parts) is a real border region; three countries and their respective people and culture are coming together at one point: Turkey, Georgia and Armenia. This is reflected in the musical forms and instruments of the folk music of this place. In particular the Russian and Caucasian influence is obvious in the use of the accordion, which they call ‘armonica’, and the mouth armonica. The other typical instrument is the kemence, mentioned above, which is a vertically played string instrument with three strings, played in parallel chords in the typical quick irregular-metered music style. It is my hypothesis that the armonica attempts to play this same kind of music, but as it has less possibilities regarding flexibility, velocity and (micro)tones, the music is simplified, notes are omitted and in this way the music comes closer to Russian-style music.
The last typical instrument of the Black Sea, and in particular its mountain regions, is the tulum or bagpipe, an ideal instrument to play in open air with its loud intrusive sound. And an ideal instrument to dance the horon…
A bit higher in the mountains (more in the inland direction), mey and balaban are also used; cylindrical wind instruments with a large and broad double reed. Mey and balaban have a very characteristic sound and are used in the music of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Northern Iran (around the Caspian Sea).
An intriguing question is whether the bagpipe or tulum (and by extension the double reed instrument the zurna) are instruments which can be tuned properly or not. The tulum has two pipes, one serving as a pedal and one to play the melody (zurna is also often played this way: one zurna performs the melody while another one plays the same tone, the equivalent of the ‘tonic’, all the time). It appears as if these two pipes or instruments are never completely in tune with each other, and as if the fifth isn’t pure most of the time. I wonder if this is deliberate and is a part of the typical ‘colour’ of these instruments, or it is due to the difficulty to produce instruments which can be tuned finely. As it concerns folk instruments, I suppose it is the second option, but I didn’t manage to find out the true story yet. Until now, all folk musicians ensured me that their instrument could be tuned in some way (even when it didn’t sound in tune at all to my ears)…
From the Black Sea mountains, via Artvin and Savsat, we reached the Anatolian plateau again. Ardahan and Kars are two provinces close to the Georgian and Armenian border, characterised by a beautiful steppe-like nature and a small and dispersed population. The influence of the Caucasian culture is still obvious, and for the first time the closeness to the Azeri and Iranian border can be felt. The dialect of this region is quite close to the Azeri variant of Turkish, which is spoken in the province of Azerbaijan in Iran, as well in the independent Republic of Azerbaijan. The folk poetry, dance and music of this region are close to those existing in Iran.
The provinces of Kars and Ardahan are famous for their asiks (pronounced ‘aasheks’). As said before, the asik tradition was an important phenomenon in Central-Asia and Iran during many centuries (it is said to exist for at least 3000 years…). The asik tradition is sometimes associated with pre- or non-Islamic shamanism and Islamic mysticism or Sufism. Many but not all asiks are Alevi, and the same is true for a progressive, left-wing political vision. Asiks used to play an important social and sometimes religious role, as their vision on the situation and problems of society was considered as very meaningful. Their skills and talent are said to originate directly from God. In the past, asiks wandered around from region to region, always staying at the same place for a little while, performing on weddings, religious feasts, gatherings of friends (muhabbet or oturak), or during chilly winter evenings for families packed together in the central place of the house, singing songs and telling stories to pass the time… Later on, this entertaining function moved towards the asik cafes (or rather tea houses), where the (exclusively male) public came together to pass the time by drinking tea, talking to friends and listening to music, poetry and stories.
Those asik cafés still exist in Kars, but during the time we were there, we didn’t manage to attend an asik performance. It was even a hard job to find such an asik café, as the conservatory and city hall were closed during the weekend, and the common people seemed to have no idea where the asiks could be found or even íf they still could be found in the city… Maybe, the conclusion can be that the asiks of Kars are still famous throughout Turkey, but that they aren’t so important at all in their own home city. Society changes, and the former social role of the asiks has apparently disappeared for the largest part.
Still, some asik activities still exist. During the month of Ramadan, they fulfil their former function of evening entertainment. Important are also the ‘asik bayramlari’ or asik festivals, where many asiks from all over the country and even from abroad (Azerbaijan) come together and perform their skills on stage in front of an audience. In these festivals, asiks illustrate the different branches of their art, which consists of improvisation (or ‘extemporisation’) based on existing musical and poetic forms or templates. For example, stereotypic rhythmical or melodic patterns or phrases are used in a literal or varied form, in combination with existing poetic rhyme and syllable schemes filled in with texts created on the spot. Those texts are sometimes based on a verse or two or three separate words provided by someone from the audience, or have to be rendered without using the following characters: b, p, m, v, f, as a needle is place between upper and lower lip (this branch is call ‘leb degmez’: lip doesn’t touch). The most popular branches of the asik art are ‘atisma’, improvisation on the spot, in which the present asiks sing about a certain theme or perform a panegyric song for an important member of the audience, and ‘taslama’, in which two asiks try to make each other ridiculous, in this way attempting to gain the sympathy of the audience, until one of the two asiks has reached the status of winner.
It will be clear that those kinds of present-day manifestations of the asik tradition are more organised, planned and controlled than the former, more spontaneous and socially relevant manifestations of this tradition. The tradition has reached the stage of crystallisation to some extent. It is still living, but only in a limited way (the richness of the tradition has disappeared in favour of some parts of the whole, which are more popular for the present-day people of Turkey), and its natural environment and function have been abandoned in favour of performances in a more controlled, public sphere, somewhat ‘arty’ or even academic. However, I don’t think the Turkish people and the present-day asiks look at their status or activities in this way. All asiks with whom I spoke, confirm that they are still continuing and developing the centuries-old traditions and are fulfilling an important social and cultural role as such.
In each case, the asiks we met in Sivas and Cildir (Ardahan), represent an interesting part of Turkish folk culture. It will be interesting to compare the performances we recorded in Sivas, the city of Asik Veysel, and the performances we registered in Ardahan-Kars, the place of Asik Senlik, Asik Cobanoglu and many other famous asiks.
So far for the first part of our journey, from the Aegean Sea, over Central-Anatolia, via the Black Sea to East-Anatolia… I’ll come back to you in a few weeks, reporting about our experiences in South-East and South-West Turkey!
Bye bye,
All the best!
Liselotte
This will be my last report before I take a few weeks off; we will continue our research in southern Turkey (along the border with Syria and the Mediterranean Sea) after this break. We hope to get a bit insight in the Kurdish and Arab-influenced music of Turkey, besides a notion of its Mediterranean music. These musics are not very commonly performed in Ghent, but still have their place in the (diasporic) repertoire.
Last two weeks we were working in the Black Sea region and around Kars in the far east of Turkey. By the way, both very beautiful regions with a pure nature; the Black Sea region varying between sea & sand and wild rocky or green mountains; the Ardahan and Kars region coming close to the ‘homeland’ of the Turks in Central-Asia with its steppe-like grassy and flowery plateaus (2000 m height). The Black Sea region’s music is famous in Turkey and also in Ghent, where it is played when a lively, fast and happy (dance) music is needed.
Kars is an important name in the field of Turkish folk music, as it is the place where the asik tradition used to live and develop (situated near Azerbaijan and Iran, being the source of this asik tradition). Ardahan is a province which has experienced much migration to western Turkey and Europe (also to Ghent).
The music of the Black Sea region is closely connected to its natural environment and the way of life of the people. It is a region characterised by many and sudden weather changes (especially sudden heavy rainfall) and variations between wet and cold, and warm and dry periods (as we have experienced ourselves during our stay). The typical quick music and dance are said to originate from the fact that the Black Sea people always had to be fast and quick if they wanted to play music or to dance, as the weather could change any moment and the rain could make an end to everything. The typical movements of the regional dance, the horon – including nervously stamping with the feet and shaking with the shoulders – show the original function of this dance, namely keeping oneself warm in the company of friends…
The horon still has an important place in the culture of the Black Sea. The people are really fond of their folk music and dance and use any occasion to perform the horon. We witnessed this in a gathering of befriended teachers in a ‘çay bahçesi’ (tea garden), where a kemence-player performed his typical quick irregular-metered melodies and a few friends jumped up to dance the horon holding hands in a row; and we filmed horon dancing during a festival in the yayla’s (summer grasslands in the mountains), where two or three hundred people took part in this energetic circle dance, lasting for hours! I don’t think we met people who loved music more than these Black Sea mountain dwellers. Kirsehir was a bit alike, but here the people were still more enthusiastic when they found an opportunity to perform more or less traditional music and dance. Hard workers and at the same time intense players…
The people of the Black Sea region are very open and friendly, although it sometimes takes a little while before you gain their full confidence. The eastern part of the Black Sea (its lower as well as its upper parts) is a real border region; three countries and their respective people and culture are coming together at one point: Turkey, Georgia and Armenia. This is reflected in the musical forms and instruments of the folk music of this place. In particular the Russian and Caucasian influence is obvious in the use of the accordion, which they call ‘armonica’, and the mouth armonica. The other typical instrument is the kemence, mentioned above, which is a vertically played string instrument with three strings, played in parallel chords in the typical quick irregular-metered music style. It is my hypothesis that the armonica attempts to play this same kind of music, but as it has less possibilities regarding flexibility, velocity and (micro)tones, the music is simplified, notes are omitted and in this way the music comes closer to Russian-style music.
The last typical instrument of the Black Sea, and in particular its mountain regions, is the tulum or bagpipe, an ideal instrument to play in open air with its loud intrusive sound. And an ideal instrument to dance the horon…
A bit higher in the mountains (more in the inland direction), mey and balaban are also used; cylindrical wind instruments with a large and broad double reed. Mey and balaban have a very characteristic sound and are used in the music of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Northern Iran (around the Caspian Sea).
An intriguing question is whether the bagpipe or tulum (and by extension the double reed instrument the zurna) are instruments which can be tuned properly or not. The tulum has two pipes, one serving as a pedal and one to play the melody (zurna is also often played this way: one zurna performs the melody while another one plays the same tone, the equivalent of the ‘tonic’, all the time). It appears as if these two pipes or instruments are never completely in tune with each other, and as if the fifth isn’t pure most of the time. I wonder if this is deliberate and is a part of the typical ‘colour’ of these instruments, or it is due to the difficulty to produce instruments which can be tuned finely. As it concerns folk instruments, I suppose it is the second option, but I didn’t manage to find out the true story yet. Until now, all folk musicians ensured me that their instrument could be tuned in some way (even when it didn’t sound in tune at all to my ears)…
From the Black Sea mountains, via Artvin and Savsat, we reached the Anatolian plateau again. Ardahan and Kars are two provinces close to the Georgian and Armenian border, characterised by a beautiful steppe-like nature and a small and dispersed population. The influence of the Caucasian culture is still obvious, and for the first time the closeness to the Azeri and Iranian border can be felt. The dialect of this region is quite close to the Azeri variant of Turkish, which is spoken in the province of Azerbaijan in Iran, as well in the independent Republic of Azerbaijan. The folk poetry, dance and music of this region are close to those existing in Iran.
The provinces of Kars and Ardahan are famous for their asiks (pronounced ‘aasheks’). As said before, the asik tradition was an important phenomenon in Central-Asia and Iran during many centuries (it is said to exist for at least 3000 years…). The asik tradition is sometimes associated with pre- or non-Islamic shamanism and Islamic mysticism or Sufism. Many but not all asiks are Alevi, and the same is true for a progressive, left-wing political vision. Asiks used to play an important social and sometimes religious role, as their vision on the situation and problems of society was considered as very meaningful. Their skills and talent are said to originate directly from God. In the past, asiks wandered around from region to region, always staying at the same place for a little while, performing on weddings, religious feasts, gatherings of friends (muhabbet or oturak), or during chilly winter evenings for families packed together in the central place of the house, singing songs and telling stories to pass the time… Later on, this entertaining function moved towards the asik cafes (or rather tea houses), where the (exclusively male) public came together to pass the time by drinking tea, talking to friends and listening to music, poetry and stories.
Those asik cafés still exist in Kars, but during the time we were there, we didn’t manage to attend an asik performance. It was even a hard job to find such an asik café, as the conservatory and city hall were closed during the weekend, and the common people seemed to have no idea where the asiks could be found or even íf they still could be found in the city… Maybe, the conclusion can be that the asiks of Kars are still famous throughout Turkey, but that they aren’t so important at all in their own home city. Society changes, and the former social role of the asiks has apparently disappeared for the largest part.
Still, some asik activities still exist. During the month of Ramadan, they fulfil their former function of evening entertainment. Important are also the ‘asik bayramlari’ or asik festivals, where many asiks from all over the country and even from abroad (Azerbaijan) come together and perform their skills on stage in front of an audience. In these festivals, asiks illustrate the different branches of their art, which consists of improvisation (or ‘extemporisation’) based on existing musical and poetic forms or templates. For example, stereotypic rhythmical or melodic patterns or phrases are used in a literal or varied form, in combination with existing poetic rhyme and syllable schemes filled in with texts created on the spot. Those texts are sometimes based on a verse or two or three separate words provided by someone from the audience, or have to be rendered without using the following characters: b, p, m, v, f, as a needle is place between upper and lower lip (this branch is call ‘leb degmez’: lip doesn’t touch). The most popular branches of the asik art are ‘atisma’, improvisation on the spot, in which the present asiks sing about a certain theme or perform a panegyric song for an important member of the audience, and ‘taslama’, in which two asiks try to make each other ridiculous, in this way attempting to gain the sympathy of the audience, until one of the two asiks has reached the status of winner.
It will be clear that those kinds of present-day manifestations of the asik tradition are more organised, planned and controlled than the former, more spontaneous and socially relevant manifestations of this tradition. The tradition has reached the stage of crystallisation to some extent. It is still living, but only in a limited way (the richness of the tradition has disappeared in favour of some parts of the whole, which are more popular for the present-day people of Turkey), and its natural environment and function have been abandoned in favour of performances in a more controlled, public sphere, somewhat ‘arty’ or even academic. However, I don’t think the Turkish people and the present-day asiks look at their status or activities in this way. All asiks with whom I spoke, confirm that they are still continuing and developing the centuries-old traditions and are fulfilling an important social and cultural role as such.
In each case, the asiks we met in Sivas and Cildir (Ardahan), represent an interesting part of Turkish folk culture. It will be interesting to compare the performances we recorded in Sivas, the city of Asik Veysel, and the performances we registered in Ardahan-Kars, the place of Asik Senlik, Asik Cobanoglu and many other famous asiks.
So far for the first part of our journey, from the Aegean Sea, over Central-Anatolia, via the Black Sea to East-Anatolia… I’ll come back to you in a few weeks, reporting about our experiences in South-East and South-West Turkey!
Bye bye,
All the best!
Liselotte
Reageer op dit reisverslag
Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
