Mey ve mey üzerine yeni arayışlar

Abstract

ÖZET Bu tez, `Mey ve Mey Üzerine Yeni Arayışlar` olarak hazırlanmıştır. Konu iki ana bölüm şeklindedir, ilk bölüm mey hakkında genel bilgileri ve başka ülkelerde kullanılan benzer çalgıları, ikinci bölüm ise bu çalgı üzerinde yapılan çalışmaları kapsamaktadır. Genel bilgilerde, tarihçe, edebiyatta ve müzikte mey kavramı, yurdumuzdaki yayılma alanı, kullanım alanı ve biçimi, yapısal özellikleri, gövde, kamış ve kıskaç yapısı ve yapılışı, ses sistemi ve piyanoya göre ses sahası ele alınarak bu çalgının benzerlerinin kullanıldığı ülkeler tespit edilmiş ve bu çalgılar tek tek açıklanmıştır. Bu araştırmalardan sonra mey üzerine yapılan yeni arayışlar sunulmuştur. Bu arayışların temeli çalgının geliştirilmesi yönündedir. Genel olarak çalgıların geliştirilme zorunluluğu ortaya konulduktan sonra mey üzerine yapılan çalışmalar sunulmuştur. - vıı

SUMMARY The subject of this thesis is `Mey and the guest for new approaches to Mey`. This theme is discussed in two chapters. The first chapter contains the general in formation about Mey while the approachs to this instru ment are examined in the second chapter. Turkish nation is one of those nations having an abundance of muscal instruments. Many of these instru ments are still in use. Only one of them, Mey, is dis cussed in this thesis. Although some studies are available on this subject they are not sufficient and this present aims at filling this gap. When studying the history of Mey it is a neces sity to go back to early times. In the Hellenistic Egypt, there was shown an instrument called Mait or Monaulos which was similar to Mey. I cannot assert that this was the origin of or had the same origin with Mey but am convinced of the necessity to reveal the simi larity between the two musical instruments. As for as I know, the oldest Turkish source of information on Mey was provided by `Maragalı Abdülkadir`. This musician (A. C. 1350-1435) used the names, `Nay~ı Balaban` and (Nayçe-i balaban` for Mey. `Nay` was derived from Old Iranian `Nada` which means pipe or reed while `-çe` is a diminutive suffix and `balaban` means either a kind of bird or powerfully built man. The musical instrument described by Abdulkadir is.just like the mey. Two cen turies later. `Evliya Çelebi` also described a similar instrument. The name has been Mey in the studies con ducted since the modern Turkish republic was founded. The word Mey is most probably a phonetic variant of nay and comes from Nay -ı balaban. In fact, some Turki commu nities are using this instrument under the name, Balaban. vı 11The turks living in Turkey adopted the name, Nay and pronounced it as Ney, then this name was changed into Mey in order to avoid confusion because there is another instrument called Ney and used in the Classical Turkish Music. Mey is the name of a reed pipe wind instrument used in the Turkish folk misic. This instrument is used generally in the Eastern part of Anatolia including the provinces: Erzurum, Bayburt, Kars, Erzincan, Hakkari, Tunceli, Artvin, Gümüşhane, Van, A'g'rı, Muş, Gaziantep, and Diyarbakır. Today there remains no Mey-player in some of these provinces. However, Mey has become known and loved also in the Western part of Anatolia with its play ing on radio and television. We can say that most of the mey-players are in Istanbul because Istanbul is the mu sic centre of the country and there is an intensive mig ration to this city. Mey has a non-strident sound and because of this it is more suitable for indoor use and frequently joined by def. Nowadays, it becomes a colour instrument accoom- pannied by `ba'g'lama`5 and under these conditions it is generally played before the tune as opening (yol gösteı - me) or improvisation (açış). Its soft and melancholic sound touches the people. It has also used by the wander ing minstrels (`aşık`). The playing fields of mey are limited by its dia tonic structure and the fact that its range utilized is one octave. It can be possible to obtain fully chromatic octave by half-covering certain fingerholes but this is not an easy task. Mey is mostly used in `Hüseyini Makamı` due to its nature. Apart from this, it can be also played by means of half-covering the fingerholes in dance-tunes and folk songs composed in such other `makams` as `Hicaz, Saba, Neva, Suzinak, Karci'g'ar, Nihavent, Segah and Rast`. IXSuch scalas are called in local dialects as `Yahyalı Ke rem, Kesik Kerem, Yanık Kerem, Maya, Tatyan, Garip and Lavik`. In playing the mey the fingerholes are stopped with the palmar surface of the terminal phalanges with left hand on the top and right hand at the bottom. The capacity to breathe through the nose, while maintaining the wind pressure in the mouth-cavit iy by contracting the cheek-muscles, is as important to the `meyzen` as to the zurnazen`. The player may shake the instrument with both hands or tremble his cheek so as to generate a vibrato. Mey has seven fingeY^holes and a posterior thumb- hole. It is a cy lindirical, wooden pipe, excited by a reed. The shape of the reed is cotrolled by a tuning- bridle. The length of the pipe (body) is generally made from plum wood with reed from an aquatic (fresh water) grass and the tuning-bridle from a soft wood. Because of its narrow sound range and difficulties in playing, transposing is not possible on Mey. Mey is generally made in three sizes: `Ana` (mother), `Orta` (middle) and `Cura` (small) but today different meys are made for each whole tone and differences in semi-tones are obtained by replacing reed or adding adapter to reed. It is thought that there has been some changes in the body and reed of the mey used in Turkey. The total number of the fingerholes on the body has been reduced from 9 to 8 in time and while formerly the reed were tighten by rope, now tunning bridle is used for this purpose. In the old meys known the length of the pipe was around 300 mm. Today, there are meys in various lengths ranning from £10 mm to 4£0 mm. The lengths of the reedare varying from 30 mm to 150 mm while its widths at the lip are varying from £0 mm to 40 mm. There is a certain ratio between lengths of body and reed of the meys. The longer or shorter the bodies, the longer or shorter the reeds. If these ratio is not recognized the tones become out of order. The reference to piano, the sound produced on mey is starting from the lowest tone, AS with the frequency of 110 and stretching up to the five whole tones higher than A4 with the frequency of 440. This fixing is made considering all sizes of mey. Today, the number of local luthiers is diminished and mey is generally made in Istanbul. Three people are currently engaged in mey making. These are Hasan fin from Tahtakale, fiydin Konuk from Edirnekapı and Ayhan Kahraman from Ümraniye. fin and Konuk are old men making mey with traditional methods but Kahraman is continuously trying to make innovations. Meys are made in every whole tone from C to C. The reeds of the mey have been made by the mey players for years and with increasing demand for reeds, some mey players have been only engaged in reed making. Among these people the one making the best reeds is Şehamettin Tekin. There are many countries in Asia where instruments similar to mey are seen. These instruments are used in the folk musics of such countries and called `balaban, yaslı balaban, balaman` in Azerbaijan, `duduk` in Armenia, balaban` in Iran, `hichiriki` in Japan and `kuan, kwan, quanzi` in China. In addition to these, we can mention about the Uzbek balaban, Karakalpak balaman and Kırgız kamış sirnay which have some similarities to mey in name or in shape. This instrument is fairly old for the Caspian Sea region but new for Japan and China. There are big XIsimilarities between these musical instruments- fill of them are composed of wooden pipe and reed. However, Kuan and hichiriki have seven fingerholes and two posterior thumbholes. All of the others have only one thumbhole just like the mey. Iranian and Azarbaijanian balaban, duduk, duduki and yasti balaban have all 9 fingerholes on the pipe in total. In these years at the threshold of the 21st cen- everthing should be modernized. In this viewpoint, works has been carried out on the mey. It can be seen that mu sical instruments have passed from many stages through their history. Where as the mey is still in its original form. I have tried to obtain a more improved instrument while preserving its original sound. The instrument which is originally diatonic has been changed into a chromatic one by creating new fingerholes. Its one octave range has been brought into nearly two octaves. In doing this, octave has been trying to obtain from the same fingerhole but it has been found that this is not possible with the existing reed and to change reed has not been preferred as a solution because this will change the original sound. Therefore the range utilized on the same pipe has been expanded. The distances between the fingerholes have been equalized for the purpose of solving intonation problem. All these innovations will bring about wider use of mey and the mey in these new form can be used in different kinds of music. XI i