EVERY GENRE PROJECT - October 26 - Zeybek
Genre of the Day - Zeybek
Album of the Day - Hiç by Erkan Oğur & Okan Murat Öztürk (1999)
Genres as nation-forming sounds, springing up from centuries-old regional traditions and elevated to symbolic integrality to a nation’s identity by chance, is a recurring theme on this column. Though we’ve heard much royal music, we’ve never delved into the musical world of one of the world’s most expansive empires. Today, we marvel at one of the traditional dances that defined Ottoman culture, which is somehow only our second musical foray into the country of Turkey this year. I am so deprived of sleep and restfulness at the moment that the stray fact bouncing around my mind is that the Turkish word for cat is kedi, a more adorable rendition of the animal’s name if you ask me.
Ironically, the name for an iconic genre of the hyper-organized Ottoman Empire originates from an irregular, disorganized military unit protecting particular ethnically Yörük villages from bandits, tax collectors, and otherwise uncouth instigators. Like these units with their tightly defined albeit unofficial hierarchies, the dance is methodically led by a leader known as the efe and his followers, kızans. Whether a slow or fast Zeybek, these dancers perform through intricate, intensive movement to an unconventional rhythm of nine davul drum beats. Similarly off-kilter and ambitious, melodies weaved on a bağlama lute and kaba zurna span a wide range of maqams greater than one octave.
These tenderly unfolding tunes are not only played with incredible precision, but with visionary crosscultural ingenuity—today’s artist, Erkan Oğur, pioneered the first fretless classical guitar in the 1970s, which wholly untethered its modal constraints allowing it to cover a range of traditional zeybek maqam scales. These unique patterns of resolution or the lack thereof are striking as in “Güzel aşık cevrimizi” and celebratory and propulsive on “Pınar başından bulanır.” Across the album, his pirouettes upon the guitar sustain textural richness, innovating and reinvigorating a centuries-old, iconic tradition.
I apologize for a slightly truncated article; I am still running off three hours of sleep and closed off a very festive, incredibly joyful and life-affirming week with a vampire-themed second joint birthday party, and unfortunately did not make it home until 4 AM and I fear I simply must let myself rest and enjoy a quick last day at home.