Maqam Modulations in Traditional Turkish Art Music

Turkish music has taken its place in the World music thanks to its richness of modal music and the rhythm which came from the past to present day. The pitch system, which has been utilized in Turkish Music has further increased the modal liveliness. Considering the fact that 628 modes have been created in Turkish music, it would not be wrong to discuss about an enriched form, which has constantly been developing between the past and the future. In addition to the abundance of the modes, the variety of tempo styles ranging from 2 to 128 intervals adds a distinctive richness to traditional Turkish music. For a mode to exists and be used by performers, many verbal and instrumental works must be composed, as well as a sequence of compositions. The composers have composed works approximately in 100 modes and have preferred to compose certain modes instead of the recently created ones. In the same work, however; they used the late technique and many of the same authorities at the same time. Most of the modes, which have not been exercised in terms of repertoire, or have been composed scarcely any, has fallen into oblivion. It is known and practiced by traditional musical performers that the tradition of intermodulation takes an important place regarding performance. In addition to spontaneous compositions such as taksim, na't, kaside and gazel, modulation among modes has been used in most of the verbal and instrumental genres of traditional Turkish music. However, the absence of written sources other than a few short texts with regard to the teaching of modulation constitutes the problematic part of our article. When the sources of Turkish music have been examined, it is understood once again that how much that issue has been neglected. Composers have frequently used modulations in their compositions to enhance their melodic liveliness and show their talents as well. That tradition has reached the peak, especially in the form of kar？ nat？k as can be seen at Ahmet Avni Konuk’s “Rast Kar-Nat？k (Fihrist- Makamat)” with 119 different modes in it. The issue of modulation has also been common among composers as well as instrumentalists. Especially in the form of taksim, modulation has been utilized widespread. Improvisations and modulations during the intervals of suites, have the utmost importance in Turkish Music. The instrumentalists have demonstrated their skills by using improvisation by using modulation, while vocalists have demonstrated their abilities by using freely performed genres such as gazel, kaside, na’t by utilizing modulation. This tradition