Two zurna players are named in the record of this "Kürt Halayı", and no drummer. For this wordless dance tune, put on disc by the conservatory team in Amasya in July 1943, the catalogue can give as its location only "Amasya province"; even the day of the month could not be read from the card. One of the players, Mustafa Kılıç, came from the village of Aşağıabdal in central Amasya. The home of his partner Veli Döngel was left blank on the card. The halay is not in the Amasya section of the TRT repertoire, and its notation has never been printed.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; not registered under the Amasya region in the TRT repertoire
  • Source persons: Mustafa Kılıç (zurna; born Rumi 1328, i.e. 1912-1913; central Amasya, village of Aşağıabdal; occupation not given on the card) and Veli Döngel (zurna; born Rumi 1317, i.e. 1901-1902; farmer; home not given on the card)
  • Place and date of collection: Amasya province (settlement unknown), July 1943; day unknown
  • Collected by: Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen and the technician Rıza Yetişen (Ankara State Conservatory)
  • Genre: dance tune (halay), without words
  • Mode, rhythm: not recorded
  • Words and music: anonymous
  • Location in the archive: Folklore Archive of the former Ankara State Conservatory, disc 1112/A-2
  • Source publication and link: Kaya's catalogue, no. 3615; full text of the thesis. There is no TRT link

Lyrics

The catalogue gives no line for this recording beyond its name; the halay was recorded as an instrumental tune. The sound is on side A of disc 1112 of the Folklore Archive; the archive is now at the State Conservatory of Hacettepe University, and in the years Kaya was preparing his catalogue it had not been opened to researchers.

Regional Attribution

The halay takes its name from the Kurdish dance tradition and makes no reference to Amasya at all; its attribution to the region is disputed for that reason. The catalogue, our only document, says that the recording was made in Amasya province with a zurna player from Amasya, and no more. The card has not a single line on how often the halay was played in the region, from whom it was learned or why it was given this name. The other piece played by the same pair is called "Turhal Halayı", and among the tunes Veli Döngel played with Cuma Nacak, "Tokat Oyun Havası" stands beside "Amasya Üç Ayak ve Yeldirmesi". The presence in the players' repertoire of tunes bearing the names of other places gives the impression that such names indicate where a tune came from or its style, yet the cards do not explain this. The halay of the same name that Osman Keleş and Hüseyin Duran played in Merzifon, on the other hand, is written on its card with three sections, ağırlama, yanlama and yeldirme; no section name appears for this recording, and whether the two come from the same melody cannot be told without listening to the discs.

Story

Even the recording itself cannot be placed with certainty. As Kaya explains, when it could not be established in which settlement of a province a recording was made, the catalogue uses a general name such as "Aydın province" or "Bursa province"; here "Amasya province" marks a session that cannot be assigned to any one of the team's days between 4 and 6 July, spent in Amasya, in Zigala and in Amasya again. Nor is there any printed account of how the halay came about, or at which weddings and in what order it was danced in the region.

Musical Features

Its mode, metre and sections were not written down. In the catalogue's list of performers both players are entered with the zurna, and since that list shows only the instruments used in the recording, the halay must have been played on two zurnas. Three dance tunes follow one another on side A of the disc: first Cuma Nacak and Veli Döngel's "Bildiş ve Yeldirme", then this halay, then Nacak and Döngel's "Tokat Oyun Havası". "Turhal Halayı" is third on side B of the same disc.

Performers and Recordings

The halay has reached us through no recording other than this 1943 disc. "Bildiş ve Yeldirme", which stands just before it on the disc side, entered the TRT repertoire as Bildiş Oyun Havası, and Amasya Üç Ayak ve Yeldirmesi, played by Veli Döngel with Cuma Nacak, has a page of its own. The dance tunes, folk songs and long songs of Amasya are discussed together in The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources