The question mark in the tune's name belongs to the cataloguer: Celal Volkan Kaya read the first word of the title on the copy of the collection slip kept at TRT as "Bıçak", knife, but could not be sure of the reading. The piece was played by two musicians from Kızıleğrek village in the Türnük district of Merzifon, the zurna player Osman Keleş and the drummer Hüseyin Duran. Because neither the place nor the date can be read clearly on the slip, the catalogue gives them in square brackets as an estimate: Merzifon, 8 July 1943. It is an instrumental dance tune; it does not appear in the TRT repertoire and its notation has not been printed.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; it is not registered to Amasya in the TRT repertoire
  • Region: Merzifon (estimated place of recording)
  • Source performers: Osman Keleş, zurna; birth year on the slip Rumi 1330 (about 1914). Hüseyin Duran, davul; Rumi 1331 (about 1915). Both from Kızıleğrek village, Türnük district, Merzifon
  • Collected by: Ankara State Conservatory (Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen, Rıza Yetişen)
  • Date of collection: probably 8 July 1943
  • Archive location: former Ankara State Conservatory Folklore Archive (now at the Hacettepe University State Conservatory), record 1120/A-3; no. 3654 in Kaya's catalogue
  • Genre: dance tune, instrumental (zurna and davul)
  • Mode, metre: unknown
  • Music: anonymous
  • Source link: there is no TRT link; the data are in the Ankara State Conservatory catalogue
  • Overview article: The Melody of the Yeşilırmak

Lyrics

Instead of words there is the zurna; the slip gives no first line, and no notation has been printed. Among the 1943 records, it stands third on side A of no. 1120.

Story

How the dance was performed in Merzifon, whether it was danced with knives in hand or whether the name refers to something else, is unknown. In Kaya's catalogue the word "bıçak" occurs as the name of a dance only once more: "Hop Dillala (Bıçak Oyunu)", recorded in 1939 in Hüyük, in Konya province. There is not enough information to connect the two recordings. No published account of the origin or the dancing of the Merzifon tune has been found either.

Musical Features

There is no published information on its scale, metre or sections. What we know is that it was played on zurna and davul; in the duo's recordings the names of sections were sometimes written into the title ("Kürt Halayı (Ağırlama – Yanlama – Yeldirme)", "Güreş (Dönmesi – Kapışması)"), whereas this tune carries no such detail.

Performers and Recordings

The names of Osman Keleş and Hüseyin Duran appear together on nine recordings in the catalogue: "Çerkes Halayı", "Gelin Ağlatma", this tune, "Yol Havası (Karşılama)", "Yol Havası (Yürütme)", "Saz(?) Halayı", "Güreş", "Kürt Halayı" and "Üç Ayak". They were not gathered on a single series of records but scattered over the spaces left free on records 1113 to 1127. "Bıçak(?) Oyun Havası" too falls among songs sung by Rasim Olgun and Hüseyin Onkar on 7 July. This scattering must be why the cataloguer gives the place and date of all the duo's recordings in square brackets. Just before it on the same record side, Hüseyin Onkar's Ben de Çıktım Fodullu'nun Üstüne was later taken into the TRT repertoire.

Bibliography

Online sources