Acı badem dalları ("Bitter almond branches"), a song set in 2/4 and marked in the kırık hava (metred song) column, appears in only one of the published lists of Amasya melodies. That list is Haluk Yücel's 2018 article, which surveys 89 folk songs of the province and its districts by form, metre and scale. From whom, where and when it was collected, and in which makam it is sung, the article's tables do not say.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; not registered under the Amasya region in the TRT repertoire
  • Region: Amasya (no district given)
  • Genre: kırık hava
  • Metre: 2/4
  • Makam: not given for individual works
  • Source person, collector, place and date of collection: not in the source
  • Words and music: listed as anonymous
  • Source publication: Haluk Yücel, Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi 22 (2018), Table 5 (p. 379) and Table 6 (p. 382)
  • Location in the archive: unknown; the article does not show which recording the melody was taken from
  • Link: there is no TRT link; full text of the article

Lyrics

Nothing beyond the three words of the title appears in any publication. Yücel also examined the words of the songs, counting their subjects and their most frequent words; but because the counts went into aggregate tables, it cannot be read which subject this song falls under or which words its lyrics contain. Neither words nor score has surfaced in a published source.

Story

In whose voice the song speaks, and what event it was sung about, are unknown; no account of its making has been published either.

Musical Features

Directly before it in the table is "Amasya'da üzüm var" in 4/4, and after it "Ne sorarsın derdim bana", again in 2/4. Acı badem dalları belongs to the two-beat group, which in Yücel's count comes second after 4/4: 17 of the 89 songs are in 2/4. The table of makams gives only totals (Uşşak 19, Hicaz 17, Hüseynî 14, Kürdî 13); the scale of this song is not marked there separately.

Performers and Recordings

Yücel writes that some of the songs he examined are in the TRT repertoire, some on albums and some long sung among the people, and that he worked through a review of the literature and by consulting specialists in Turkish folk music. Since Acı badem dalları is not in TRT's Amasya section, which of the other routes it rests on is not clear; neither an album title nor a singer's name is mentioned. So no documented performance or disc recording can be pointed to. The wider picture of Amasya's recorded melodies is set out in The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources