The trip started in Istanbul, where initially I was in awe of the ubiquitous muezzin call. The strong but sonorous a-capella song would echo throughout the city, repeated by the next mosque nearby. It seemed to dominate life and set a schedule for the day. Of course, that’s the purpose, to remind people of the need to pray; but I think because it was all new to me, I was in awe of the exotic nature of it. Here is the muezzin call during the busy Iftar festival outside the Blue Mosque:
Iftar Festival, Muezzin Call-Blue Mosque from Jason Williams on Vimeo.
Even though I had told myself to take a day or two to adjust, the second day there I went in search of the instrument shops near the Galata tower that I had researched and read about before. It was an amazing, winding street, going down the hill from the Galata tower, lined with 30 to 40 different music shops. There were baglamas, kabak kemanes, Turkish rababs, classical kemences, kemence karadeniz, ouds, kanuns, violins, tamburs, neys, darbukas, cumbus, and other instruments as well. I was like a kid in a candy shop, and I tried to soak up everything I could from the shop owners about the price and quality of these instruments. The highlight was the kabak kemane made at the Conservatory of Music at the University of Istanbul. It was very nice, but he wanted 650 Lira for it. Even if I talked him down, it was too expensive for me, and it would be hard to sell for a profit back home.
The first live music I heard was on the way back that day, the group busking off of Istiklal Caddesi:
Zaragune from Jason Williams on Vimeo.
The next day I saw what I think was gypsy music being played as an advertisement outside of a restaurant:
A Very Good Advertisement-Istanbul from Jason Williams on Vimeo.
And the music at the Iftar festival outside of the Blue Mosque
And when Yesim took me to the mall, there was a trio playing old Ottoman classical music, with tambur, classical kemence and the singer playing the tef.
On a walk back home to my hotel one night, I saw a little shop, owned by a man, Oktay Bulgu, who was making traditional Turkish instruments as well as artwork he displayed on the walls. He was a very interesting guy, and he told me a little about the difference between the forms of Turkish, Arabic and western music. He talked about maqams, the uniqueness of the Turkish scale and song structures found in the music. It was great to meet him, and see the work he was doing. He had a nice Turkish rebab that he had made, but he was definitely after the tourist dollar, charging way too much for the instruments and the lessons he offered. I decided not to buy an instrument from him or take a lesson, and hold out hope that I could find something similar but cheaper down the road. Whether that was the best move, I'll never know- maybe I'll have to go back! But as I was leaving, he told me to look him up on youtube- I didn't have a chance to do that until now. This is a clip of him at his shop on national Turkish TV-which has outstanding musical programs by the way.
Over the next couple days, after asking around some more, I found out that there might be another spate of music shops in Istanbul. I set out twice looking for this area, and found it the second time. There were about 5 different shops here, a couple of the bigger ones selling western instruments, and if there were any traditional instruments, they were cheaply made. But I found two smaller shops that were selling traditional instruments, and had the chance to talk with the owner of one. He basically had all the instruments I was looking for, but only one very high quality one- he showed me a very nice kabak kemane, letting me play it and get a feel for this instrument. Whether handmade or not, I look back now and realize how lucky I was to be able to aquaint myself with all these instruments over the first week being there. I probably should have bought one or two instruments from there as well, but I had a mind to find handmade instruments from the people actually making them- no music shops or middlemen. Perhaps naively, I expected these people to be outside the big city; but I had expected cheaper prices as well, so I waited. It also occurred to me at this point that it would be possible to contact all these people via email and have instruments shipped back home if I wanted to. So I collected all their contact info if in the future I go this route.
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