Men at Work

Architect/tanburi Firuz Akın Han and I enjoying a Sunday afternoon,
(a.k.a. "research." Photo by udi Mehmet Emin Bitmez).

As our man Heraclitus said, "Πάντα ῥεῖ" - Panta rei - Everything flows (or "is in a state of flux"). Seems true enough from here. It's been almost two weeks since my last confession... er... blog entry... and rather than stress out about my work as I "should" have done, I pretty much just relaxed instead and let whatever might happen happen. Such are the connections and luck I've made here that this has nonetheless resulted in another nine taksim recordings. Here's the updated tally:

Instruments	Musicians	Taksims	They Analyze	I'll Analyze
Ud	4	16	13	3
Kanun	4	10	3	7
Tanbur	5	21	13	8
Kemençe	5	8	1	7
Ney	4	10	5	5
Y. Tanbur	4	11	10	1
Violin	3	4	1	3
Clarinet	1	1	0	1
Voice	1	1	0	1
Totals	29*	82	46	36

(*Two persons performed on two different instruments each, so there are 29 performers even though this adds up to 31.)

Three other performers also made good on their promises to analyze previously recorded taksim-s, so in all it's been both productive and satisfyingly lazy. (Why do I suspect that this is not what my next job will be like?) Even got some playing in; mostly (Turkish) classical pieces, a couple of my own, and plenty of taksim-s at Molly's Café near the Galata Tower with lâvtacı Nico E. and kemancı Nico R. - not a bad job of it either, if I may say so, and especially since the currency of recompense was the iced mocha. I also dropped by my friend Ali Cümbüş' shop and picked up a yaylı tanbur, which I've been meaning to do since I got here - though it's probably too late to take lessons, at this point. (If I get good enough on it to do a passable taksim before this blog runs out I'll put a video of it up here.)

Meanwhile, Mom (who for all I know was Heraclitus himself in another lifetime) is going merrily with the flow as well, and may her luck be as good as mine has been!

And that, friends, is where it's at... thanks again for stopping by!

(The same scene from a different angle.)