Cool and Partly Notated

Working pretty intensely these two weeks, as much with recordings as with heavy texts, and only after a day of starkly contrasting beauty and frustrations did I remember that I'm the one who has to announce my own Spring Break, so that's what I'm going to try to do this week - that is to say, nothing much. But I did get a lot done - came up with some interesting angles on what I've been gathering, wrote a few dozen pages of the dissertation (things that need to be said even before analyzing all the performances, framing...), bought and partly read a few good books on Turkish music theory (in Turkish, of course), devised a novel way of notating taksim improvisations on a structural level (see clouds in above picture), saw and recorded more concerts, met yet more fine musicians ready to help out with my work... all in all the project is coming together promisingly, I think.

So, leisure... Friday night played ud and sometimes frame drum with a group of (mostly non-Turkish, all inexplicably francophone) 'classical Turkish' musicians in Molly's café near Galata Tower (the tall, red-eyed thing in the picture) - whole lot of fun, and we even played a couple of pieces I wrote myself. Molly's off to the Ukraine next week, but I think we're going to try to make it a regular Friday night gig. I'm hoping to write something new for us during the 'break' - that's play time, for me. I'm a little torn between trying to write and play in a style approaching 'authentic Turkish' and just leaning into whatever feels good - it's all in 'legitimate makam,' but sounds a little funny to the locals (at least I've got it to the point where they've mostly stopped saying, 'oh... sounds Arab' - nothing wrong with that, of course, but I've been shooting for just 'sounds good'). I usually say, 'it's California makam' - gets a laugh and you can't really argue with it.

Meanwhile, my Mevlevi ayin-playing group has got a gig in May (if you can call it a 'gig' - we'll be playing for a 'whirling dervish' ceremony), and I've got to see if I can borrow the appropriate robe and tall woolen hat from someone. Going to play Nayi Dede Salih Efendi's Acemaşiran ayin-i şerif - good stuff.

Yep, looking forward to resuming the work, actually, but this week my aim is strictly vegetable.

Hoping you and yours are well. Oh, here's a song and video someone (someone? Why, it was Ms. Erica Ruhl, lately of Berlin) shared with me and and I just can't let go of it - maybe you'll like it, too: Oren Lavie's "Her Morning Elegance" (it'll start playing the tune immediately, but hit the stop button and scroll down to the get it with the video - it's worth it). And that reminds me... I recently came across the website of graphic artist and photographer Ms. S. Zaza, whose depictions of Istanbul are better than I'll ever be able to share with you, myself... go wander around there a bit to see what it looks like, here.

A thought goes out to my beloved aunt Norma, who last week moved along into the next thing after life, having filled this one up rather nicely. Olev ha sholem. Enjoy it now, kids!