The deyiş opens with a question: the whole world has fallen into sorrow, and the singer looks for its remedy. Âşık Musa Aslan sang the line "Âlem dertli olmuş, nedir çareler" for the conservatory team on 8 July 1943, and it is all that is known of the deyiş today. It is on disc side 1128/B-2 among the Ankara State Conservatory's Merzifon recordings; the cataloguer gives the place of recording in square brackets, that is, as a presumption, as Merzifon, while reading the date from the card as certain. TRT never took it into its repertoire; its notation and full text remain unpublished.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; not registered under the Amasya region in the TRT repertoire
  • Region: Merzifon (presumed place of recording in the catalogue)
  • Source person: Âşık Musa Aslan
  • Collected by: the Ankara State Conservatory team of Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen and Rıza Yetişen
  • Date of collection: 8 July 1943
  • Location in the archive: Folklore Archive, disc 1128/B-2; no. 3686 in Kaya's catalogue
  • Genre: deyiş
  • Mode, rhythm: unknown
  • Words and music: recorded as anonymous
  • Source link: in place of a TRT link, Kaya's catalogue of the Ankara State Conservatory

Lyrics

The first line in the catalogue, as spelled on the collection card:

Alem dertli olmuş nedir çareler

The line is plainly put: the world, that is, all people, are in sorrow, and the singer asks what the remedy might be. How the question is answered in the rest of the deyiş, whether it is tied to a spiritual master, to the saints or to the beloved, is unknown. Neither the rest of the words nor the notation has been published to date. The sound recording is among Musa Aslan's 1943 discs in the Folklore Archive of the State Conservatory of Hacettepe University; according to Celal Volkan Kaya, writing in 2014, the archive was closed to use at that time.

Story

The card says nothing about whose deyiş this is or how it came about; there is no authorship note here like the "[Aşık Musa'dan]" or "(Kurbanîden)" found on other recordings of the same session. No published story of the piece was found either.

Musical Features

There is no published information on the mode, rhythm or range of the melody. The studies that analyse those of Musa Aslan's songs whose notation has been published do not cover this recording, because the piece never entered the TRT repertoire.

Performers and Recordings

The only recording is Musa Aslan's 1943 disc. In the order of the discs it is immediately preceded by "Emine", sung by Yakup Sancak, and followed by another piece from Musa Aslan, "Ale Gözlerine (Kurbanîden)". Of the same day's recordings, "Selâm Verdik ve Cevabı" entered TRT as Selam Verdik Kadem Bastık. The minstrel's life is told on the Âşık Musa Aslan page, and Amasya's songs in The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources