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Miras-ı Saz

Lesson 14 / 19 · New makams

Segâh

A makam with Segah (B koma flat) as its tonic and Neva (D) as its dominant; resting on a comma-inflected pitch makes it distinctive to Turkish music.

  1. Read the makam page

    Its scale, tonic and dominant pitches, structure and seyir.

  2. Listen to the scale

    Ascending and descending scale: keep the tonic in your ear.

  3. Test your ear

    Five questions: which makam does the scale being played belong to? Get at least four right.

  4. Play and get scored

    Turn on the microphone and slowly play or sing the scale from tonic to tonic. We measure how many commas each pitch deviates; 70% or more passes.

  5. Play a piece in this makam

    Play a piece from the sheet music archive and follow the score.

Lesson notes

Structure

It is formed by the Segah trichord (S T) on Segah and the Rast tetrachord (T K S) on Neva; it uses the pitches of the Rast scale, and Eviç stands out in the upper register.

Melodic progression (seyir)

It follows an ascending melodic path (seyir): the melody moves around Neva and comes to rest on Segah.

In the dictionary

A makam with karar Segah (B koma flat), distinctive to Turkish music for coming to rest on a comma-pitch. Neva is mostly given as its güçlü. Dictionary entry

Example pieces from the archive (33 in total)

The Segâh makam page: scale, seyir and all its pieces

Related concepts

  • Segah: The main pitch 8 commas (a büyük mücenneb) above Dügah; written in Western notation as B koma flat (1 comma below B). It is the characteristic pitch of the Rast and Uşşak tetrachords; the makams Segah and Hüzzam come to rest on this pitch.