The name "Yolma Havası" occurs only twice in the Ankara State Conservatory's field recordings of 1937 to 1955: in this piece, sung by the minstrel Musa Aslan in Merzifon on 8 July 1943, and two years later in Çerkeş, in a "Yolma Havası: Bugun gunler senedir" performed by three people. On the Merzifon card "Kavrama" was written in brackets beside the name, and "Garşıda gördüm seni" was entered as the first line. The place and date of the recording are written plainly on the card; they are not the cataloguer's additions.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; not registered in the TRT repertoire under the Amasya region
  • Source person: Musa Aslan (born Rumi 1298; occupation on the cards labourer, minstrel and worker; from the Hacıbalı quarter of Merzifon; instrument given in square brackets in the catalogue as saz)
  • Place of collection: Merzifon
  • Date of collection: 8 July 1943
  • Collected by: the Ankara State Conservatory team; Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen, the technician Rıza Yetişen
  • Source publication: Celal Volkan Kaya, Ankara Devlet Konservatuvarı'nın Halk Müziği Alan Araştırmaları Kataloğu, İTÜ, 2014, no. 3682
  • Location in the archive: Folklore Archive, disc 1127/B-2
  • Genre: dance tune (kavrama), with words
  • Mode, rhythm: not on the card
  • Words and music: anonymous
  • Source link: Kaya's catalogue thesis; there is no TRT page

Lyrics

What the catalogue yields is the song's first line:

Garşıda gördüm seni

In modern Turkish "Karşıda gördüm seni", "I saw you over the way". What followed never passed into print. The full text survives in two places: on the collection card in the Folklore Archive, handed over to the conservatory of Hacettepe University, and on side B of disc 1127. A photocopy of the card made in the 1970s is also at TRT.

Collections and Variants

The only other recording of the same name in the catalogue was taken at Çerkeş on 4 August 1945 from Ahmet Babuççu, Gökmen Doğdu and Ahmet Çevik; its first line is different, and whether the two pieces are melodically related is unknown. A closer echo comes from Gümüşhacıköy: there, the next day, the team recorded a piece from Kazım Aygül beginning "Parçalı: Çarşuda gördüm seni". The two lines differ by a single word; but since only one line survives of each, it cannot be said whether they are versions of the same song or separate songs opening with a shared formula.

Story

The card explains neither what "yolma" nor what "kavrama" describes in this piece. On the same day Musa Aslan sang another piece called "Kavrama Havası (Niğdeli Gelin)", so the label kavrama appears in two recordings by the same minstrel. How the song came to be composed has not entered any printed record either.

Musical Features

In the performer list, "saz" appears in square brackets in Aslan's column; nothing left unplayed in the recording is entered there. On the disc the piece follows Aşir Kirpiksiz's "Dik Delil Makamı", on side B of 1127. The card carries no note on its mode or rhythm.

Performers and Recordings

Musa Aslan's name appears in twenty recordings in the catalogue, and some of what he sang later entered the TRT repertoire; according to Kaya's comparison table, Selâm Verdik Kadem Bastık and Hay Edüben Meydan Harman Başında Duran are among them. Yolma Havası, by contrast, did not enter the repertoire, and has left no trace of being sung after that day. The minstrel's life and recordings are told on the Âşık Musa Aslan page, and the melodies of Merzifon in The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources