Turkish Folk Music

Turkish folk music (Türk Halk Müziği) combines the distinct cultural values of all civilisations that have lived in Anatolia and the past territories in Europe and Asia. Its unique structure includes regional differences under one umbrella. It was the most popular music genre in the Ottoman Empire era. After the foundation of Turkish Republic, Atatürk made a wide-scale classification and archiving of samples of Turkish folk music from around Anatolia was launched in 1924 and continued until 1953 to collect around 10,000 folk songs. In the 1960s, Turkish folk music met with radio and folk musicians like Aşık Veysel, Neşet Ertaş, Bedia Akartürk became the most popular names of the Turkish folk music. In the 1970s and 1980s, with the rising popularity of arabesque and Turkish light western, Turkish folk music has lost its old prestige, but singers like Belkıs Akkale, İzzet Altınmeşe, Selda Bağcan and Arif Sağ made successful hit songs and became important representatives of the genre.
Music accompanied by words can be classified under the following headings: Türkü (folksongs), Koşma (free-form folk songs about love or nature), Semai (folk song in Semai poetic form), Mani (a traditional Turkish quatrain form), Destan (epic), Deyiş (speech), Uzun Hava (long melody), Bozlak (a folk song form), Ağıt (a lament), Hoyrat, Maya (a variety of Turkish folksong), Boğaz Havası (throat tune), Teke Zorlatması, Ninni (lullaby), Tekerleme (a playful form in folk narrative), etc. These are divided into free-forms or improvisations with no obligatory metrical or rhythmic form, known as "Uzun Hava", and those that have a set metrical or rhythmic structure, known as "Kırık Havalar" (broken melodies). Both can also be employed at the same time.
Music generally played without words, and dance tunes, go by the names Halay, Bengi, Karsilamas, Zeybek, Horon, Bar, etc. Each region in Turkey has its own special folk dances and costumes.
Here are some of the most popular:

• Hora - A type of circle dance, also known as Syrtos, originating from the ancient Greek art form of χορεία (Chorea).

• Horon - This Pontic Greek dance from Black Sea, was performed by men only living in Trabzon, dressed in black with silver trimmings. Today, the dancers link arms and quiver to the vibrations of the kemenche (an instrument similar to violin).

• Kasap Havası/Hasapiko - A Greek folk dance. The dance originated from the Greek butchers guild, living in Constantinople, during the Byzantine Empire.

• Kaşık Oyunu - The Spoon Dance is performed from Konya to Silifke and consists of gaily dressed male and female dancers 'clicking' out the dance rhythm with a pair of wooden spoons in each hand.

• Kılıç Kalkan - The Sword and Shield Dance of Bursa represents the Ottoman conquest of the city. It is performed by men only, in Ottoman battle-dress, who dance to the sound of clashing swords and shields, without music.

• Zeybek - In this Aegean dance, dancers, called "efe", symbolize courage and heroism.Although some of the scales ('ayak' - foot) employed in Turkish folk music melodies are similar to the some of the 'makam' scales of traditional Ottoman/Turkish Classical Music, not all of the folk music scales have Classical music counterparts, and there are important differences between the two concepts. The 'makam' of Turkish Classical Music is not just a scale, but has certain rules of progression, which in some cases are quite detailed, and in the course of the development the whole scale of the makam is used. Though sometimes referred to as makams by exponents of Turkish Classical Music, the scales of Turkish Folk Music are more properly called 'ayak' (foot) and are simply scales, with no rules of progression, thus bearing closer comparison with the concept of medieval church modes than do makams. Furthermore in many Turkish folk songs only part of the scale is used. Both forms of music are diatonic, but use notes that are additional to the 12 semitones of western music. In Turkish folk music, for example, some scales include the note B, others B flat, and still others a note roughly halfway between B and B flat.
  The scales of Turkish folk music are associated with different regions, and can be known by different names depending on the region, such as: Beşiri, Garip, Kerem, Misket, and Müstezad.