Makamsiz: Individualization of Traditional Music on the Eve of Kemalist Turkey (Istanbuler Texte und Studien (IST) Book 39)

The book describes the confusing, contradictory and individualized musicscape in Turkey around the turn of the twenty-first century, including its prehistory throughout the twentieth century and sometimes beyond. Its focus lies on the recent tendency towards a disintegration of musical traditions into internationalism and multiple musical hybrids which might be described as a process of individualization. The category of individual as used here includes individual musicians, individual music pieces, individual life experiences, identities and approaches to music, individual musical projects, individual CDs and concerts, even individual concepts of music theory, conferences or research projects. Several factors lead to this development: A growing rate and importance of migration and international mobility; the increase of cross-cultural encounters and experiences; the availability of almost all Ottoman-Turkish, Anatolian and global musical styles, instruments and other musical elements via media; the opening up of identity discourses. A final chapter is intended as a reflection on the question of how this unprecedented musical expansion could have happened within an authoritarian state and society such as the Republic of Turkey. Read more