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Miras-ı Saz

Lesson 6 / 19 · First makams

Uşşak

A makam much loved in both folk and art music, with Dügah (A) as its tonic and Neva (D) as its dominant.

  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 joining the Uşşak tetrachord (K S T) on Dügah with the Buselik pentachord (T B T T) on Neva.

Melodic progression (seyir)

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

In the dictionary

A common makam whose karar is Dügah (A) and whose güçlü is Neva (D). Its scale is made of the Uşşak tetrachord plus a Buselik pentachord built on Neva; it begins its seyir around the karar. Dictionary entry

Example pieces from the archive (53 in total)

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

Related concepts

  • Uşşak tetrachord: A tetrachord made of a büyük mücenneb, a küçük mücenneb and a tanini (K S T: 8 + 5 + 9 commas); built on Dügah it gives the pitches Dügah–Segah–Çargah–Neva.