Portrait of the artist as a middle-aged Mevlevi lutenist.Well, hello again. Let me first send out and solicit some good healing vibes for my mother, Pat Ederer, who appeared to have suffered a minor stroke this week, though tests seem to indicate the presence of two very small brain tumors as the cause. She's apparently in fairly good condition (and definitely in a positive mind-set); the stroke-like aspect was small, happened in the right hemisphere, which generally portends physical, rather than cognitive, damage - her left arm and hand have lost some fine motor abilities, but we hope it's temporary - and most importantly, it hasn't been followed by a larger "stroke." She's at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara right now, "under observation," getting more MRI scans, etc., hopefully to return home very soon and gear up for treatment. I'm glad that my brother Greg is with my folks now, so thanks go out to him (though it has caused him to cancel his visit here, planned for June 3-13), and to my dad who's holding up his end, as well. Santa Barbara is blessed with fine doctors, and mom has good insurance and a strong positive attitude, and at this point the prognosis is very good. All my love, mom! Now, given that she doesn't want me to fly home early...
...hereabouts, the crunch-time cometh - many İstanbulite musicians will be leaving town in the next three weeks for the end of summer (and I'm scheduled to leave August 27th) and my wish list, recording-wise, is as long as my already-did list, which took seven months to cover. I do have some appointments but I'm skeptical. So I spent a little time doing something I've done a few times here already, to wit: took inventory of all I've done so far and asked myself, "OK, if I were to have to write my dissertation using only what I have now, what would it look like?" And, "What's the most important thing currently missing?" So leaving aside hundreds of pages of notes, transcribed interviews, theory texts, etc., the video recordings I've got so far look like this:
| Instruments | Musicians | Taksims | They Analyzed | I'll Analyze |
| Ud | 4 | 12 | 9 | 3 |
| Kanun | 3 | 8 | 3 | 5 |
| Tanbur | 4 | 18 | 10 | 8 |
| Kemençe | 5 | 8 | 1 | 7 |
| Ney | 4 | 10 | 5 | 5 |
| Y. Tanbur | 3 | 9 | 8 | 1 |
| Violin | 3 | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| Clarinet | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Voice | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Totals | 28 | 71 | 37 | 34 |
...and the main question I have is whether to spend the next three weeks trying to get more new players into the first four columns, or to try to track down already-recorded players to help me move some of the "I'll analyze" column into the "they analyzed" column.
This is a major issue because my original methodology required that all of the analysis be done by the performers themselves, in order that the study be their interpretation of what they're doing and not an interpretive imposition on my part. But no matter how hard/smart I hustle I think there are going to be quite a few taksims whose performers won't have interpreted them, and I would prefer not to simply throw those recordings out. On the other hand, there are a dozen important players I'd still like to record fresh - all but two of whom have already said "yes" - but what with their schedules (concerts, foreign tours, giving exams, getting ready for vacation - and the myriad daily issues that have kept me from meeting with them already)... well, it's looking like an uphill battle, one way or another.
Still, looking over what-all I have done so far keeps me from a whirling panic.
Which reminds me - we did finally perform our Mevlevi sema last Thursday (dressed as in the above picture), playing Hüseyin Fahreddin Dede's Acemaşiran Ayîn-i Şerifi with two whirling dervishes and their semazen in a three hundred year old Sufi tekke. Got some medium good video of it, too. Thanks go out to my friends at the Nasuhi Mehmet Efendi Dergâhı for welcoming me so warmly into the group (Nasuhi Mehmet Efendi Dergâhı arkadaşlarımın beni çok hoşça içine aldığınız için teşekkür ederim)!
Also got to hang out a bit with Jeremy Haladyna last week, with whom I studied composition and orchestration back in the day. He was here for a few days as a guest conductor for a concert at the conservatory at Istanbul Technical University (invited by lecturer and fellow UCSB composition alumnus Michael Ellison), and gave a little presentation of some of his fantastic electronic pieces, after which we walked our little legs off seeing the wonders old Constantinople.
Finally, let me recommend the Santral İstanbul Energy Museum, where I spent Sunday afternoon - part modern art museum, part exploratorium in a beautifully fixed up old power plant at the very end of the Golden Horn - I want to move in and start throwing parties right away. Free shuttle from Taksim (in front of the AKM) every 20 minutes; 7 lira for most people, 3 for students to get in. Bar, restaurant, picnic area out front. Go see some art somewhere, anyway!
OK - again, big love for my mom. Take care, yourselves.
