Soru Reading a Score

[Gelu]

Hello everyone! I watched some videos on youtube with Turkish music while watching the score and I discovered something that I don't understand. Why in some cases the piece isn't played how is written but with a fourth or a fifth lower?

 

[efrūḫte]

Hello everyone! I watched some videos on youtube with Turkish music while watching the score and I discovered something that I don't understand. Why in some cases the piece isn't played how is written but with a fourth or a fifth lower?

This is likely about a peculiarity of how the Turkish tuning system works. This might get a bit advanced, but suffice it to say, since you're not playing in a very traditional setting, and since you're playing with Western or Western-adjacent instruments, this does not matter all that much, but if you want an explanation:

Unlike Western music, in which a certain type of scale or melodic material - let's say, Major - can be transposed to center any pitch (C Major, G Major, etc.); in makam music, and especially its usage in modern-day Turkey and the Balkans, all melodic material, in this case makams, have a defined center in terms of pitch. So, for a makam to be considered that certain makam, it has to use the right modal center(s). Because of this limitation, we shift the entire tuning system around to transpose pieces and we call this system 'âhenk', literally 'tuning'. The most common âhenk is Bolâhenk, which is likely what you encountered here.

You could do two things; follow the masters in the âhenk that they are playing in, or just play what is written for now, until you have a better grasp of the âhenk system.