Bonanza!

Eymen Gürtan: Nihavend Taksim (click here for a version with some reverb and no subtitles).

My goodness, what a week. After last week's luxuriant, work-free lollygagging with out-of-town guests Kathryn and Jaynie I was afraid it would take a mammoth effort to get myself back into the research game (especially since, as I've mentioned before, I need to hustle as much as possible before most of the performers I want to work with leave town for summer vacation), but I needn't have fretted; I bagged a record fourteen taksim recordings in the last three days - whew!

The first were two taksim-s (in the makam-s Bayati and Nihavend) by ney player Eymen Gürtan (whom see above - also see the website linked to his name for the ney-s and, especially, tespih-s he makes), then yaylı tanbur player Nuri Benli made two for me (in Rast and Uşşak) after ayin rehearsal - our sema having been postponed by a week. Then yesterday I went to the school in far Maltepe where young tanbur star Murat Aydemir teaches (and thanks go out to mutual friend Nicolas Elias for the introduction) and he laid open a treasure chest of obscure and complex makam-s: Bayati-Araban, Arazbar-Buselik, Isfahan, Muhayyer-Sünbüle, Suzinak and a modulation between Gerdaniye and Gülizar. I'm a sucker for the obscure and complex, and Murat had me at "Bayati-Araban"!

Somewhat exhausted from the early-summer heat and long bus ride, I dropped in to say hi to ud luthier friend Mustafa and it turned out he had an extra ticket to a concert right there in Kadıköy, so we met up with his wife Nurcan and ud student Serap, and although strictly speaking it was 'art music' rather than 'classical' (that is, a late-Ottoman/early-Republican mixture of classical and urban popular styles) I recorded there three more taksim-s; two on violin (Mahur and Uşşak) and one on clarinet (Hicaz), and a vocal improvisation ("gazel," in Uşşak). Got home by 1 AM, very ready for the weekend.

If I do as well as that in the next three weeks I'll be a) very lucky, b) stoked for my research, and c) much in need of a vacation - wish me such luck ... and may your projects be going so well!