Mso872
Oud Lover
Posts: 17
Registered: 3-4-2013
Location: Monterey, CA
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Mood: Rast
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Turkish vs. Western pitch
This is something I learned from Halil Karaduman's kanun instruction video and I just want to confirm that my understanding is correct.
Halil said that Turkish notes in a scale are referred to as "Do Re Mi...Do" just as many western musicians learn, except that unlike the rest of the
world they haven't adopted the A/440hz/"La" standard. Am I understanding that Turkish "do re mi" is a perfect 4 steps lower relative to the Western
"do re mi", making Turkish rast in "Re" (D) G instead of D?
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DavidJE
Oud Junkie
Posts: 265
Registered: 7-14-2013
Location: Vienna, Austria
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In Turkish music theory solfege (do, re mi, etc.) really only represents intervalic structure. "Do" can be any pitch, as long as "re" is a whole step
up, and so on.
Turkish theory and musicians use what they call "tunings" in English, which determines what pitch each of the note names corresponds to. Maybe the
Turkish word for it is more accurate, because what they are actually referring to is what I would call "transposition on the fly". In the most
commonly used "tuning", which is called Bolahenk, the note that is called "rast" (also called "sol", as it is ALWAYS notated as a G) would be a
concert pitch D. However, if you were playing in the Kiz tuning it would be a concert pitch A. And if you were playing in Mansur tuning it would
actually be a G (as it is notated).
So in Turkish notation rast is always written on the staff as a G, and it is always called "sol". However, it can have practically any concert pitch.
This is rather complex and hard to wrap your head around at first, but it's actually a great and flexible system, as it allows musicians to play
along with anyone who might be playing in a different key, without having to re-write a score.
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Mso872
Oud Lover
Posts: 17
Registered: 3-4-2013
Location: Monterey, CA
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Hmm. Thank you for the info, I will try to wrap my head around it.
I wanted to know since there are usually discrepancies between the notated and played tuning of sheet music whenever I try to teach my
classically-trained musician friends that don't learn by ear. Additionally, I have a friend from Turkey that plays kaval and she learned a different
"Do-re-mi" system than we use in America. It would probably just be best to teach her the notes as we know them in the Western world.
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pvk
Oud Admirer
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Registered: 6-3-2014
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I'm not sure if my little contribution will be a help or a hindrance in what can be a very confusing matter.
Turkish music for instruments like bağlama and ud is usually notated around the base key of 'A' (this is more relevant to folk music notated for
bağlama than perhaps for makam music of course) . At least this was the case in the past. In respect to the ud (oud) in older instructional
methods such as that by Kadri Şençalar you will see the music notated for the ud as if it was tuned EAdg (I'm just using the top four strings
for simplicity, from lowest sounding to highest). However the actual notes (strings) that sound on the ud are BEad (that would be ADgc in Arabic
tuning). So to play the tunes on the sheet music that is confusing you, you may have to think of the ud as a transposing instrument. Think of your E
string (if tuned in Turkish tuning or D string if in Arabic tuning) as A - and all will be simple!!
If this adds to the confusion just ignore me 
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adamgood
Oud Junkie
Posts: 499
Registered: 6-27-2005
Location: Brooklyn, NY
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Mood: 2.7 koma flat
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This is a pretty loaded question and many ways to approach it.
In a way, yes it's true what you gathered from the (Master) Halil video. When I was rehearsing with the Turkish music choir in Berlin years ago, the
chef would get us all in tune by asking for "La" when tuning an E string, regardless of what tuning system we were in at the time. "Do" would sound
like G, etc. That's fairly annoying but ok I get it. I don't adopt that into my own daily usage for Turkish music.
For everything else, I'm a believer 
I recently started putting more effort into singing solfege syllables in pieces. A long car ride inspired me. "La" will be used for any form of
A...A#, Ab (however many komas), A. Find some pieces online and sing through them with the syllables and it will really benefit your understanding of
makam, I guarantee.
Turkish musicians use:
do re mi fa sol la si
for
c d e f g a b
Have fun
Adam
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