Makam - Basic Makam Theory

Basic Makam Theory

A makam, more than simply a selection of notes and intervals, is essentially a guide to compositional structure: any composition in a given makam will move through the notes of that makam in a more or less ordered way (in this, it resembles a tone row à la Schoenberg or Webern). This pattern is known in Turkish as seyir (meaning basically, "route"), and there are three types of seyir:

• rising (çıkıcı);
• falling (inici);
• falling-rising (inici-çıkıcı)

As stated above, makams are built of a tetrachord plus a pentachord (or vice versa), and in terms of this construction, there are three important notes in the makam:

• the durak ("tonic"), which is the initial note of the first tetrachord or pentachord and which always concludes any piece written in the makam;
• the güçlü ("dominant"), which is the first note of the second tetrachord or pentachord, and which is used as a temporary tonic in the middle of a piece (in this sense, it is somewhat similar to the axial pitches mentioned above in the context of Arab music). This use of the term "dominant" is not to be confused with the Western dominant; while the güçlü is often the fifth scale degree, it can just as often be the fourth, and occasionally the third;
• the yeden ("leading tone"), which is most often the penultimate note of any piece and which resolves into the tonic; this is sometimes an actual Western leading tone and sometimes a Western subtonic.

Additionally, there are three types of makam as a whole:

• simple makams (basit makamlar), almost all of which have a rising seyir;
• transposed makams (göçürülmüş makamlar), which as the name implies are the simple makams transposed to a different tonic;
• compound makams (bileşik/mürekkep makamlar), which are a joining of differing makams and number in the hundreds