The card holds nothing but a title: "Giderem Vana Doğru", which in the local dialect means "I go towards Van". The minstrel Musa Aslan sang it in Merzifon on 8 July 1943, and the conservatory team recorded the song as the last piece on disc 1130. Its first line was not noted down and its notation has not been published anywhere; it also has no counterpart in the TRT repertoire for Amasya.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none
  • Source person: Musa Aslan; in the list of performers a farmer, minstrel and labourer, from the Hacıbalı quarter of Merzifon, born 1298 in the Rumi calendar (1882-1883)
  • Place of collection: Merzifon; in square brackets in the catalogue, that is, information completed by Celal Volkan Kaya from the course of the journey
  • Date of collection: 8 July 1943
  • Collected by: the Ankara State Conservatory team: Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen, Rıza Yetişen
  • Genre: folk song (türkü)
  • Mode, rhythm: not recorded
  • Words and music: recorded as anonymous
  • Location in the archive: Folklore Archive, disc 1130/B-2
  • Source publication: Kaya's catalogue, no. 3694 (online text); there is no TRT link

Lyrics

Not a single line of this recording survives. Kaya notes that for some songs with words the words were never written on the card, and that for others they were written but the card could not be found; in such cases the catalogue gives only the title. "Giderem Vana Doğru" is one of the recordings reduced to a title. The words of the song can only be sought on the disc that carries Musa Aslan's voice, that is, among the material of the former conservatory archive kept at Hacettepe University.

Story

The title names a distant city, Van. Whether the song is sung by someone travelling to Van, whether it is a song of exile or of military service, or whether it is a melody that came from the Van region and settled in Merzifon cannot be said without the words; nor is there a printed source on how the song came into being. The singer's own path adds a further layer to the question. As his biography on this site relates, Musa Aslan was a minstrel born in Ardahan who settled in Merzifon in 1925; the 1943 cards, however, link him only to the Hacıbalı quarter of Merzifon. It is possible that a life reaching into the eastern provinces carried the song with it, but there is no document showing such a connection.

Musical Features

Aslan's instrument appears in the list of performers in square brackets as saz; whether he sang this song with it is not stated for this recording in particular. Nothing else about the melody has been published.

Performers and Recordings

Disc 1130, which holds the only known performance of the song, carries Musa Aslan's voice from beginning to end: on side A, two Köroğlu pieces, the deyiş opening "Hay edüben meydan başında duran", which entered the TRT repertoire as Hay Edüben Meydan Harman Başında Duran, and "Köroğludan (Ayvaz)"; on side B, Türkiye'miz Şeref Buldu and, last of all, this song. On the next disc, the same day, Gelmiş İken Bu Elleri Gezerim was recorded. The story of a life stretching from Ardahan to Merzifon: Âşık Musa Aslan; for the song repertoire of the region: The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources