Turkish folk music
| Music of Turkey | |
|---|---|
| General topics | |
| Genres | |
| Specific forms | |
| Ethnic music | |
| Turkish marches | |
| Media and performance | |
| Music awards | |
| Music charts | |
| Music festivals | |
| Music media | |
| Nationalistic and patriotic songs | |
| National anthem | Independence March |
| Regional music | |
Turkish folk music (Türk Halk Müziği) combines the distinct cultural values of all civilisations that have lived in Turkey and its former 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 the Turkish Republic, Atatürk asked to make a wide-scale classification and archiving of samples of Turkish folk music from around the country, which 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 some ground, but singers like Belkıs Akkale, İzzet Altınmeşe, Selda Bağcan and Arif Sağ made successful hit songs and became important representatives of the genre.
Türkü, literally "of the Turk", is a name given to Turkish folk songs as opposed to şarkı. In contemporary usage, the meanings of the words türkü and şarkı have shifted: Türkü refers to folk songs originated from music traditions within Turkey whereas şarkı refers to all other songs, including foreign music.
Classically, Türküs can be grouped into two categories according to their melodies:
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), Dastan (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.
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Wikipedia