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The modern Turkish state was proclaimed in 1923, and was immediately followed by a campaign to create a pan-Turkish cultural identity. These efforts have been only partially successful, and regional varieties of music and other expressions remain. Turkish classical music was the country's best-known musical export at the time, but was considered too Arab by Kemal Atatürk's government. He restricted Arabic language musical films and promoted Western style classical music and halk music , a generic term for multiple varieties of Anatolian folk music. Parallel to this, some radical and practical actions were taken, such as the transfer of the former Mizika-i Hümayun (Imperial Orchestra) from Istanbul to the new capitol of the state Ankara, and renaming it as Riyaset-i Cumhur Orkestrasi (Orchestra of the Presidency of the Republic) in 1924; founding of a new school for the training of Western style music instructors in 1924, renaming the Istanbul Oriental Music School as the Istanbul Conservatory in 1926, sending talented young musicians abroad for further music education (these students include well-known Turkish composers such as Cemal Resit Rey , Ulvi Cemal Erkin , Ahmet Adnan Saygun, Necil Kazim Akses , Hasan Ferit Alnar ), and finally the founding of the Ankara State Conservatory with the aid of the German composer and music theorist Paul Hindemith in 1936.

Again on Atatürk's order, a wide-scale classification and archiving of samples of Turkish halk music from around Anatolia was launched in 1924 and continued until 1953 to collect around 10,000 folk songs. Hungarian composer Bela Bartok visited Ankara and the south-eastern Turkey in 1936 within the context of these works.

Atatürk's restriction of Arab influenced music policy in 1934 was misinterpreted by the burocrats, and turned into a full-scale ban on the Ottoman classical music, which was abolished about a year later by Atatürk himself. By 1976, sanat (a form of classical art music) had undergone a renaissance and the State Conservatoire in Istanbul was founded to give classical musicians the same support as folk musicians. The 1980s saw President Turgut Özal liberalize media regulations, and popDepending on context, pop music is either an abbreviation of popular music or, more recently, a term for a sub- genre of it. The subgenre of pop is perhaps the most widely crowd-pleasing form of all popular music. The defining musical characteristics of t, rock, hip hopHip hop is a cultural movement that began amongst urban , African American & Puerto Rican youth in New York and has since spread around the world. The four main elements of hip-hop are MCing, DJing, graffiti art, and breakdancing. Some consider beatboxing and arabesk music made inroads into mainstream Turkish music. Kurdish languageGeographic distribution The Kurdic languages (also called dialects of Kurdish) are spoken in the region loosely called Kurdistan including Kurdish populations in parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. Classification and related languages The Kurdic langua music was also allowed for the first time, and religious Sufi music , especially Mevlevi ayin ( whirling dervishes).

1 Pop music

Arabesk music dominates the Turkish pop cene. It is largely Arabic in origin, which led to condemnation from some Turkish nationalists. Arabesk stems from Raks Sarki (more often known as belly-dancing music) and was popularized beginning in the 1940sCenturies: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s Years: 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 Events and trends Technology First nuclear bomb First cruise missile, the by Kaydar Tatliyay and other performers, leading to a 19481948 is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). Events January January 1 Nationalisation of UK railways to form British Railways. Arab militants lay siege to the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. First day of the Ital ban on Arabic language music. The effort was largely unsuccessful, as most Turks listened to Radio Cairo and Arabic music continued to be popular. In the middle of the 1960s, Turkish urban and folk styles were incorporated into Arabesk by musicians like Ahmet Sezgin , Abdullah Yüce and Hafiz Burhan Sesiyilmaz . This was followed by performers like Orhan Gencebay who added Anglo-American rock and roll to Arabesk music. Cem Karaca is the best known performer of Anadolu rock music, which was banned for most of its existence. Karaca set the stage for politically-charged performers like Mogollar, Yeni Türkü , Bulutsuzluk Özlemi , Zen and Zülfü Livaneli . Livaneli was known for the mid-80s innovation of özgün , a guitar-based genre that combined mellow vocals with Arabesk music and rural melodies. The lyrics were generally not revolutionary, though the Kurdish Ahmet Kaya performed the poems of Nazim Hikmet, a leftwing activist banned by the government.

The biggest Turkish pop star of the 20th century was probably Sezen Aksu, known for overseeing the Turkish contribution to the Eurovision Song Contest and was known both for her light pop music and her controversial stances on feminism, Serbia and the Cumartesi Anneleri .

In 1995, the Turkish-German community produced a major hip hop crew named Cartel which caused controversy in Turkey and Germany for its revolutionary lyrics. Other Turkish-German rappers include Aziza-A , DJ Volkan , KMR and DJ Mahmut .



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