"Dımbıla Gız" was written on the slip with the note "Oyun Havası", dance tune, in parentheses, but this dance tune is not instrumental: the catalogue also gives a first line, "Gız sana yapdırdım sırmadan saçdan(?)". The singer is Zekeriya Demiray of Amasya, whose occupation appears in the performers' list as head of a village office. The recording was made on 6 July 1943, the day the collecting team returned from Zigala to Amasya, and went onto side B of record 1115 as its third piece. There is no Amasya piece of this name in the TRT repertoire; its words and notation have not been published either.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; it is not registered to Amasya in the TRT repertoire
  • Region: central Amasya (estimated place of recording in the catalogue)
  • Source performer: Zekeriya Demiray; birth year on the slip Rumi 1323 (about 1907), head of a village office, from central Amasya
  • Collected by: Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen and the technician Rıza Yetişen (Ankara State Conservatory)
  • Date of collection: 6 July 1943
  • Archive location: former Ankara State Conservatory Folklore Archive (now at the Hacettepe University State Conservatory), record 1115/B-3; no. 3633 in Kaya's catalogue
  • Genre: dance song with words
  • Mode, metre: unknown
  • Words and music: recorded as anonymous
  • Source link: in place of a TRT link, the Ankara State Conservatory's collection catalogue
  • Overview article: The Melody of the Yeşilırmak

Lyrics

Gız sana yapdırdım sırmadan saçdan(?)

The line addresses a girl and tells her that something was made for her of gold thread, "sırma"; what was made, that is, the last word of the line, is uncertain, as the cataloguer's question mark shows. If the reading "saçdan" is right, an ornament or a hair band of gold thread may be meant; but this goes no further than a guess. Published sources hold neither the other lines nor a notation; Demiray's voice survives only on the archived record.

Story

The meaning of the word "dımbıla", and the gatherings in Amasya at which the dance was performed, are explained neither on the slip nor in published sources. Nor has any tradition about the dance's origin been handed down in writing.

Musical Features

Scale and metre are unknown. No instrument is written beside Demiray's name, but that is not enough to show that he sang the dance song unaccompanied.

Performers and Recordings

Zekeriya Demiray recorded on two separate days of the 1943 journey. On 4 July he sang "Irmakların Gümbürtüsü", beginning "Üç güzel oturmuş karaya bakmaz", and "Kaleden Atılır", beginning "Kaleden atılır kandilli fişek"; on 6 July, this dance song, Bayatı (Atüstü Bayatı), which begins "Memegana", "Kür Gırağı" and a "Segah". This record is the only known recording of "Dımbıla Gız".

Bibliography

Online sources