This recording has no name, only a label stating its genre: it was written on the card as "Oyun Havası", dance tune. Kaya's recording list, which covers the conservatory's collections from 1937 to 1952, contains some twenty pieces known by these two words alone, with no further qualification; in this series, stretching from the first example taken in Elazığ in 1937 to the one taken in Hakkâri in 1952, the only recording from Amasya is the tune that Osman Atmaca played in Gümüşhacıköy on 9 July 1943. The TRT repertoire never took this tune in, and its notation has not found its way into any publication.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none
  • Place and date of collection: Gümüşhacıköy (written explicitly on the card), 9 July 1943
  • Player: Osman Atmaca; farmer, year of birth on the card Rumi 1329, from the village of Derbentopruğu in the Saraycık subdistrict of Gümüşhacıköy; instrument used in the recording: kaval
  • Collected by: Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen and the recording technician Rıza Yetişen (Ankara State Conservatory)
  • Published source: Celal Volkan Kaya, Ankara Devlet Konservatuvarı'nın Halk Müziği Alan Araştırmaları Kataloğu, İTÜ, 2014; recording list no. 3721
  • Location in the archive: Folklore Archive, disc 1136/B-3 (the archive is at the State Conservatory of Hacettepe University)
  • Genre: dance tune, instrumental
  • Mode, rhythm: unknown
  • Music: anonymous
  • Source link: no TRT counterpart; Kaya's thesis

Lyrics

The catalogue's first-line column stays empty for this recording, because the tune the kaval plays has no words. The only witness that could say which dance it accompanied is the sound itself: the recording standing third on side B of disc 1136. No printed notation of it is known.

Story

Because the name of the dance did not reach the card, there is nothing to tell us at which wedding in Gümüşhacıköy, with how many people or with which figures it was danced; no printed local tradition fills the gap either. A nameless recording is not peculiar to Gümüşhacıköy: dance tunes recorded in İskilip in 1939, in Muş in 1944, in Edirne in 1947 and in Doğubayazıt in 1950 also went onto the cards under the same general heading.

Musical Features

The tune was played on the kaval. In the catalogue's appendix on instruments, the length and the inner and outer width of Atmaca's kaval are given, and its structure is shown in a hand-drawn sketch. In the sketch, "etek delik" (lower hole) is noted twice at one end of the kaval and "arka perde" (back hole) is written on the other half; figures such as 9 and 10 are placed between the holes, with the abbreviation "mm" underneath. The drawing does not state explicitly whether these figures give the distances between the holes. The scale and rhythm of the dance tune were not entered on the card; only the disc can show which holes of this kaval the melody moved through.

Performers and Recordings

Atmaca's six recordings were taken onto disc in this order: Davarı Suya İndirme, Bozuh, "Yavré", Gelin Ağlatma, this dance tune and Gırnata Havası. Of the four recordings on side B of the disc, this dance tune is the third. After this the turn passes, on disc 1137, to Atmaca's fellow villager Nuri Uysal; the folk song Bülbül that Uysal sang is also described on a separate page. No one who played this tune in Gümüşhacıköy after Atmaca is mentioned in the sources at hand. A general view of the province's melodies, together with the other tunes collected in the district, is in The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources