My proposition for the Istanbul Symposium dated 6-7-8 October 2005.

On the Correct Representation of Cantemir, Ebjed and Hamparum Notations on Western Staff Notation in Turkish Maqam Music, with the Revered Ney Taken as Basis:

Being conscious of the fact that Turkish Maqam Music is a venerable art form inherited from the Ottoman Culture, it is highly important that the “perdeler system” and “historical notations” are explained via prominent treatises on the subject and integrated within a consistent educational methodology. This issue, which has been quite neglected to this day, inflames confusions that are not possible to evade in Maqam Music education, due both to the disfiguration of Western notation (which is a musical language in its own right), and to the jejune interpretation of “perdeler system” (which is the main language of Maqam Music). Whereas, without scrutinizing the famous phonogram-notations known as Cantemir, Ebjed and Hamparsum, and without comparatively investigating the “perdeler system” that these are based on, the fabric of Turkish Maqam Music cannot be fairly understood. Many a hindrance such as “Diapason disgrace”, “Ahenk disorder”, “perde-tone frequency dilemmas”, “desultory application of accidental symbols in Pythagorean Cycle of Fifths”, “Ineptitude in determining performed intervals”, “Key transposing of all instruments (the wrong way) aside from the revered Ney.” and “Failure to acquire the habit of transcribing partitions” impede Maqam Music education and cripple the growth of virtuosos. Our paper, by focusing on the above-mentioned problems, shall deal with these impediments in an analytical manner and put the urgent corrections and changes that ought to be undertaken in Maqam Music Theory on agenda.

Ozan Yarman