Introduction of DîvânMakam, a new website for classical Turkish culture (music) enthusiasts

Hello,

first of all let me greet all of you and I want to thank you for reading my post.

In advance I asked for permission if I am allowed to promote a website and I got the green light, so here we go.

Why am I here?

I want to introduce you to a new non-commercial website (forum) about classical Turkish culture, specially Classical Turkish Music.
This forum is from this day on officially open to the public.



https://divanmakam.com/


Who is invited?

So all of you are invited to this forum. We make no differences in ethnicities, religion or political beliefs as long as we all treat each other with respect, anyone can have his own opinion. Of course we don't want to "steal" you from this great place, we encourage you to use both of it as both have different purposes.

About DîvânMakam

Please visit our introduction thread of the website for more information.

https://divanmakam.com/forum/divanmakams-mission.50916/

Our prime focus is on Classical Turkish Music, as I said above and for that cause we have created a sheet of music library with over 45k compositions and 65k sheet of music. You can basically find any composition by using 3 types of search.

https://divanmakam.com/_forum_/eser-nota-arsivi.4/

I don't want to talk much about it as you can do it on the forum if you wish.


Language Problems?

The website can be used both in Turkish and in English. On the top right corner you can choose the language you wish to surf the website with and everything is translated into English (if some stuff is missing, feel free to inform us). Some words are intentionally not translated as you should use that lingo to have a ground base and feeling for the culture. But of course we can discuss all of these things and change things.

On top of that not only can you browse the website in English, you can exclude with 1 setting every Turkish forum, which means if you are logged in and chose that setting, you will only see the English sections of the forum. At least this is the intention and it should work flawlessly. You can change this setting whenever you want. Unlogged, as a guest, of course you will see the website with all of its sections, Turkish and English. As the website is new, you may be the majority of people for quite some time until Turks take over and you will become the minority on that place. Nevertheless you all are welcome at any time, please feel like you are entering into a new big family which will grow over time.

Obviously you are only allowed to talk in English in the English sections, except for the libraries. There you can also talk in English.

How can you contribute?

As I said above we have a library already and are planning to create more libraries. Our Recordings library is the main focus from this day on.
But the sheet of music library is obviously in Turkish notation. And I know that many of you are trained in Western/Arabic notation. Well here is your chance.
We also want to create the exact same type of library for sheet of music for you guys, except the scores are only allowed to be NON-Turkish notation.
It is not decided yet what type of notation (standard western only?) should be allowed, but this kind of discussion is exactly the right thing to be talked on a forum.

This is the library we want to have for you people:
https://divanmakam.com/_forum_/sheet-of-music-arabic-or-western-nota...

It is empty right now but you can use a form to share with us your stuff. Just click on the right button and you will be directed to it.

Thank You!

I am out of words, I think I talked about all of the things which are important.

Feel free to share your opinion, whereever you see it fits.

I wish all of you a great experience on divanmakam.com and have a nice day!

Hey

Excellent work with this site - it is amazing and will be an important new resource for all maqam-makam music lovers.

Thank you for your hard work!

Thank you for your kind words @Jono Oud N.Z

I know many of you have a lot of transcribed Turkish music. And there are often questions like "does someone have that piece" etc. and for stuff like that we want to create an additional library where you can find that stuff only. You just need to fill out this form, attach the files and your thread is created. I will assign them with the correct keywords to the system and then you will find those things.



But it is undecided yet about if there should be an additional field called "transcribed by" and if pieces from other makam traditions will be allowed or not.

Anyway, the site also works on your mobile phones and has a lot of great features. I just hope you will feel welcomed there.

Or you can just use the Turkish library. If you have questions, feel free to ask them.

Quote: Originally posted by DivanMakam

Thank you for your kind words @Jono Oud N.Z I know many of you have a lot of transcribed Turkish music. And there are often questions like "does someone have that piece" etc. and for stuff like that we want to create an additional library where you can find that stuff only. You just need to fill out this form, attach the files and your thread is created. I will assign them with the correct keywords to the system and then you will find those things. But it is undecided yet about if there should be an additional field called "transcribed by" and if pieces from other makam traditions will be allowed or not. Anyway, the site also works on your mobile phones and has a lot of great features. I just hope you will feel welcomed there. Or you can just use the Turkish library. If you have questions, feel free to ask them.

Quote: Originally posted by John Erlich

I have a Facebook page for Arabic/Western concert scores of Turkish/Ottoman music: https://www.facebook.com/turkishmusicfornonturks/ Would love to share material.

Quote: Originally posted by Jack_Campin

Looks really good. One problem I had: your list of composers is very long, and you expect to have a problem finding someone with a name/title like Kemani Ali Ağa - but where on earth did you file Sultan Selim III?

Thanks.

You can use the quick search function which you can find on the left side top corner. By using that you can find most of the things.

The good thing here is, it is not character sensitive, like you don't need to type any Turkish letter, you can just use English letters.
So you don't need to use ç, ş, ı ö, ü, ğ, you can use the equivalent of those c, s, i, o, u, g and it will still find the result. Of course given you write it correctly, cause it is very sensitive for typing wrong words.

Another thing is, if you use the dropdown selection boxes and you are browsing on your computer, after you clicked on a dropdown, you can press on your keyboard on a letter and the selection will go to that letter. If you are quick you can even press more letters.

About names. Exactly because of the reasons of people having multiple names and titles, the logic we used was making it like encyclopedic order.
So for all people it will be Name - Surname (title).
For example Tanbûrî Cemil Bey will be listed under Cemil Bey (Tanbûrî).
There are some exceptions and those are because those are mistakes.
If you report those names, we can also make them appear like it should be.

For Sultans it is an exception. I thought it might be a good idea to list them under Sultan. I was not sure if it was a good idea though. This can be discussed and changed.

Thanks for al-Halabi for explaining it though (he did it in 2 lines and look at me ).

Quote: Originally posted by al-Halabi

One exception that I noticed was Sultan Abdülaziz, who appears as 'Abdülaziz Han (Sultan)'. This is an outstanding database of notations, with a comprehensive list of composers and with scores that often include variant editions.

Quote: Originally posted by DivanMakam

Quote: Originally posted by John Erlich   I have a Facebook page for Arabic/Western concert scores of Turkish/Ottoman music: https://www.facebook.com/turkishmusicfornonturks/ Would love to share material. I was really hoping for you to say something like this, much appreciated. I was planning on contacting you, if you didn't answer here honestly. Rest in pm.

Quote: Originally posted by John Erlich

Quote: Originally posted by DivanMakam   Quote: Originally posted by John Erlich   I have a Facebook page for Arabic/Western concert scores of Turkish/Ottoman music: https://www.facebook.com/turkishmusicfornonturks/ Would love to share material. I was really hoping for you to say something like this, much appreciated. I was planning on contacting you, if you didn't answer here honestly. Rest in pm. I just uploaded an Arabic score of an Ottoman samai (sazsemasi) as a trial. What is the maximum file size for uploading? My initial attempt to convert the PDF to JPEG resulted in a file too large for uploading; I had to go back and decrease the quality before I was allowed to upload. Thanks, teşekkürler & شكرا , "Udi" John