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Classical Turkish music works in real staff notation with AEÜ accidentals. Read the score, hear it with kanun sound, adjust the tempo.
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About this workThe story of the piece
The story linked to this piece, as told in the sources. The reliability of the source is shown above it; the sources are listed at the end of the page.
With Kitab al-Adwar and al-Risala al-Sharafiyya he classified the makams systematically for the first time; he was also an oud player and composer. Founder of the edvar tradition.
Place in music: 17-interval tone system, notation with abjad letters
Life
Safi al-Din al-Urmawi was born in Urmia and grew up in Baghdad. He worked as a calligrapher in the library of al-Musta'sim, the last Abbasid caliph, and played the oud at the caliph's gatherings. When Hulagu took Baghdad in 1258, he won his trust; in the service of the Juvayni family he became head of the chancery (Divan-i Insha) and educated the family's children. In his works Kitab al-Adwar and al-Risala al-Sharafiyya he divided the octave into seventeen intervals and wrote notation with abjad letters; he is regarded as the founder of the edvar tradition. He invented two instruments called nuzha and mughni. At the end of his life he was imprisoned for debt and died there.[1, 2]
Tone system: He divided the octave into seventeen intervals; nearly all theorists of the following centuries followed this system.
Works: Kitâbü'l-Edvâr (1236; 84 compound modes (terkip), 12 well-known cycles (devir), i.e. makams, and usuls shown as circles) and er-Risâletü'ş-Şerefiyye, in which he expanded it.
Notation: He represented the pitches with abjad letters; the examples at the end of Kitâbü'l-Edvâr are written in this letter notation.
Instruments: He is credited with inventing the nüzhe and the muğnî, stringed instruments resembling the kanun.
Influence: His system dominated theory from the 14th century to the mid-16th; Abdülkādir-i Merâgī, Mübârek Şah and Lutfullah Semerkandî wrote commentaries on Kitâbü'l-Edvâr.
Memories
Memories attributed to him and told in the sources. The reliability of the source is shown above each one; the sources are listed at the end of the page.
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The level is estimated automatically from the score: range, notes per second, tempo, short and dotted values, the length and asymmetry (aksak) of the usul, the variety of perdes and the length of the piece are scored together. It is a guide, not a substitute for a teacher's judgement.
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