Peoples & Musics
People
Population: ca. 36 to 46 million
Mainly resides in: Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria
Main Religion: Sunni Islam, Alevi Islam, Shia Islam, Yarsanism, Yazidism
Language: Kurdish (Iranian language)
- The Kurdish people are believed to have emerged sometime between the 10th and 16th century in Northwestern Iran, who have established small principalities and kingdoms, and later found themselves sandwiched between the Ottoman and Safavid Empires of the Turkish and Persian people.
- Today, the Kurdish people reside mainly in four countries in the Middle East. Whilst their relationship with their host countries is not always amicable, due not only to political reasons but also their diverse beliefs in Islamic sects or non-Islamic ancient religions, their culture has been actively maintained in diaspora, such as in Armenia during the Soviet times in mid-20th century, and more recently in Germany.
Music
Kurdish traditional music in Turkey, Iraq and Syria is based on the dengbêj, the epic storytelling sung in a cappella melodies rooted in lamentations, an important part of Kurdish life. Late in the twentieth century, arrangements were made for dengbêj music to be accompanied by musical instruments. Contemporary Kurdish singers, who often accompany themselves on the bağlama, are very much influenced by dengbêj singing. Besides this, the govend dance, accompanied by the oboe zurna and the drums dovul, is also very popular.
Among the Kurdish people of Iran, who follow Yarsanism, a syncretic religion particular to the Kurdish people, have their distinct musical tradition surrounding the tembur, a four-stringed lute that resembles various types of dutar in the region. It draws on melodies with small intervals that belies ancient origins. The tembur is regarded as sacred among the Yarsani believers, and is the main instrument used for its religious rituals.
People
Population: ca. 52.5 million
Mainly resides in: Iran
Main Religion: Shia Islam
Language: Persian (Iranian language)
- The Persian people are the main ethnic group in Iran. They are known to have resided continuously in today’s Iran since the 9th century BC, and has built some of the most important empires in world history, including the Achaemenid Empire from the 5th to 3rd century BC and Safavid Empire of the 16th to 18th century.
- Persian culture is one of the most important cultures in the world. Its literature is not only hugely popular within Iran, but also has huge influence over the literature of the whole Islamic world. The works of poets such as Hafez and Khayyam have influenced Western culture since the 18th century and continue to this day with the popularity of poets such as Rumi. Besides, Persian cinema and carpets are also two of their most well-known cultural exports.
Music
The foundation of Persian traditional music is the classical music based on the dastgah system, which strings together free-rhythm singing of classical Persian poetry celebrating mystical love according to the Islamic mystical practice of Sufism, as well as rhythmic instrumental interludes. The dastgah system provides a rich foundation of melodic templates, based on tunings specific to Iranian music, on which the singing and instrumental music are based. The musical system is very similar to the Azeri mugham, yet the Iranian performance conveys a state of heightened emotion while maintaining refined composure. The main instruments are the plucked lutes setar, tar, the dulcimer santur, the bowed fiddle kemanche, the end-blown flute ney (a variant of the Turkish ney) and the goblet drum tombak, a distant cousin of the Middle Eastern darbuka. The qanun has re-entered Persian music in the 20th century, having disappeared since the 17th century.
Besides the classical tradition, there are also many regional musical traditions in Iran, among which one of the most well-known is the art of the profession epic poetry singers bakhshi, from Khorasan in northeastern Iran, where singers of Persian, Kurdish or Azeri origins perform from a common repertoire, with most of them being able to sing in all these languages.. The bakhshis accompany themselves on the two-stringed plucked lute dutar, which is especially similar to the Turkmen dutar.
People
Population: ca. 50-60 million
Mainly resides in: Turkey, Northern Cyprus
Main Religion: Sunni Islam
Language: Turkish (Turkic language)
- The Turkish people of today’s Turkey, also known as Anatolian Turks, are the descendants of a Turkic tribe called the Oghuz Turks, who migrated from Central Asia and reached Anatolia as a Muslim people in the 11th century. In the 15th century, they established the Ottoman Empire, which ruled over large parts of the Middle East, North Africa and Southern Europe at its largest extent, and was one of the world’s most important empires until it became the Republic of Turkey in 1922.
- Turkish traditional culture is very diverse, consisting of the cosmopolitan, classical culture of the Ottoman courts, that is related to other courtly culture in the Islamic world, as well as rural culture in the Anatolian heartland that has been promoted as a “pure” Turkish culture. While the dance of the Whirling Dervishes can be counted towards the former, the singing of traditional epic stories such as the Book of Dede Korkut, about the history of the Oghuz Turks, belongs to the latter.
Music
One of the most emblematic Turkish traditional music is the türkü, folksongs collected across Turkey throughout the decades that followed the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923. These folksongs come from various regional traditions and are generally of unknown authorship, testifying to their rootedness in the population. Another popular tradition is that of the folk bard ashik, epic storytellers and singers of didactic, moral songs, and share similar traits with the Azeri ashiq, the Turkmen bagshy and the bakhshi from Iran or from Khorezm in Uzbekistan. Both the türkü and ashik performances are predominantly accompanied by the bağlama. Other regions such as the Black Sea coast, the Aegean Region, and the Sivas region in central Turkey and others also have their distinct musical traditions.
On the other hand, the classical music of the former Ottoman Empire (of which Turkey is its centre), is related to other classical music traditions in the regions, such as the Uzbek shashmaqom, the Uyghur muqam, the Iranian dastgah and the Azeri mugham. Its musical system is called the makam, from which suites of free-rhythm improvisation and rhythmic compositions called fasl are fashioned. They were written and performed not only by Turkish musicians but also Armenians, Greeks, Sephardic Jews and Romanis (also know as Gypsies) who resided in Istanbul at the time. Instruments used include the plucked lute Ottoman tanbur (a distant cousin of the Uzbek tanbur and the Uyghur tembur) and the oud, the end-blown flute ney, the zither kanun and the bowed fiddle kemençe , among others. This music is closely related to the music for the rituals of the Mevlevi Sufi Order, most famous for the dance of the whirling dervishes.