Mike's Oud Forums

Modulation Charts for Turkish(+Greek/Armenian) Styles

kampanas - 12-5-2022 at 05:36 AM

I love watching Abu Shumays maqam lessons, they're so insightful and an invaluable learning resource. Particularly, I appreciate his maqam modulation diagrams (I've attached an example).

Does anyone have anything similar for Turkish (+Greek and Amenian, though it's a long shot) styles?

It would be great to explore the common modulations and see if they open up some of the changes my ear can't make sense of as a self-taught player.



Screenshot 2022-12-05 at 13.06.23 (1).png - 392kB

maraoud108 - 12-5-2022 at 09:38 AM

Quote: Originally posted by kampanas  
I love watching Abu Shumays maqam lessons, they're so insightful and an invaluable learning resource. Particularly, I appreciate his maqam modulation diagrams (I've attached an example).

Does anyone have anything similar for Turkish (+Greek and Amenian, though it's a long shot) styles?

It would be great to explore the common modulations and see if they open up some of the changes my ear can't make sense of as a self-taught player.



I haven't found anything. Murat Aydemir's book is really great, but still not quite at the level of Shumays in terms of pedagogy.

That being said, having read the Farraj/Shumays book, as well as Shumays' article "A Maqam Primer" I think a lot of the concepts can be applied towards other musics from the region.

Mainly, the way he focuses on Jins rather than whole maqams.

In my experience (perhaps I'm wrong) Arab taqsim tends to modulate much more than Armenian/Greek/Turkish styles, but the modulations in those styles are more subtle.

This may be due to my lack of experience though.

Either way, it's helped me to understand that music as well.

The trick is to have flexibility in your thinking. There's a lot of overlap, but also differences, for example in tuning of certain maqams like Rast and Saba.

ChanningPDX - 12-6-2022 at 10:40 AM

I'd highly recommend picking up Eric Ederer's book "Makam and Beyond" which has a lot of helpful information on common modulations in Turkish practice.

http://ericederer.com/book/book.html