Folk Music
Folk music or Türkü generally deals with subjects surrounding daily life in less grandiose terms than the love and emotion usually contained in its traditional counterpart, Ottoman court music.
Most songs recount stories of real life events and Turkish folklore, or have developed through song contests between troubadour poets. Corresponding to their origins, folk songs are usually played at weddings, funerals and special festivals.
Regional folk music generally accompanies folk dances, which vary significantly across regions. For example, at marriage ceremonies in the Aegean guests will dance the Zeybek, while in other Rumeli regions the upbeat dance music Çiftetelli is usually played, and in the southeastern regions of Turkey the Halay is the customary form of local wedding music and dance. Greeks from Thrace and Cyprus that have adopted çiftetelli music sometimes use it synonymously to mean oriental dance, which indicates a misunderstanding of its roots. Çiftetelli is a folk dance, differing from a solo performance dance of a hired entertainer.
The regional mood also affects the subject of the folk songs, e.g. folk songs from the Black Sea are lively in general and express the customs of the region. Songs about betrayal have an air of defiance about them instead of sadness, whereas the further south travelled in Turkey the more the melodies resemble a lament.
As this genre is viewed as a music of the people, musicians in socialist movements began to adapt folk music with contemporary sounds and arrangements in the form of protest music.
In the 70s and 80s, modern bards following the aşık tradition such as Aşik Veysel and Mahsuni Şerif moved away from spiritual invocations to socio-politically active lyrics.
Other contemporary progenitors took their lead such as Zülfü Livaneli, known for his mid-80s innovation of combining poet Nazim Hikmet's radical poems with folk music and rural melodies, and is well regarded by left-wing supporters in politics.
In more recent times, saz orchestras, accompanied with many other traditional instruments and a merger with arabesque melodies have kept modern folk songs popular in Turkey.
Read more about this topic: Music Of Turkey
Famous quotes containing the words folk and/or music:
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