Lyrics and music: Aşık Veysel (Şatıroğlu), (1894 – 1973). To read my previous comments about him please see these posts:
The folk singers of Turkey (tr. "aşık", "ozan"; en. "minstrel", akin to "troubadour", singing poet) are extremely devoted to their musical instruments (tr. "bağlama", "saz") – probably a universal behavior of musicians. This piece is a great example of an aşık's relation to his/her saz.
The noun/adjective "aşık" literally means "lover" or "in love", or "he who is in love". In this sense, it may seem close to the meaning of "troubadour". However, unlike troubadour's, the object of the aşık's affection is definite and also widely varied. In maturity, it usually transforms into an idealized version of the original. Aşık's love transcends any ordinary, sexually motivated love, and projects itself over many other things including nature and its manifestations such as birds, animals, plants, trees, sky, stars, the Moon, the Earth, and so on. Usually, it later becomes a love for all humanity, which, then, invariably takes on political and religious themes. In later years of aşık's life, it becomes more philosophical and metaphysical. Therefore, when Veysel is called as "Aşık Veysel" the reference is being made more to his poetic and philosophical virtues rather than to any sentimental or romantic love affairs.
In all of this, besides the beloved that is always "out there", indifferent, insensitive, and elusive, the central players are the aşık and his/her instrument. They are the comrades of each other, always together. They know each other very well. Thus, sometimes, the saz may become the object of affection, or a representation of it, especially a faithful one.
In this poem, Veysel portrays his saz as the carrier of his legacy, a way to his immortality. In many ways, he succeeded in doing this, didn't he?
By the way, I have personally witnessed this "love" of bağlama many times. In one case, an artist friend of mine was referring to his bağlama as "my daughter". The reason of his ascribing a feminine character was that the instrument was a "cura", the smallest member of the bağlama family with sounds in much higher octaves. Understandably, it wouldn't be anything but a female child.
Here are some great performances:
- Aşık Veysel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-YK5KdlYqY. A very rare video. Someone added fake bird sounds on the audio. Forgive them, please.
- Cengiz Özkan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gvUkhRNxcc. Most authentic interpreter of Veysel. In this video, Mr. Ozkan is using what is called "Veysel Saz", a bağlama with only twelve frets, supposedly as a tribute to the Twelve Imams. For this reason, Veysel's music has a distinct scale with very few notes, as in the pentatonic scale. See the notes after the poem.
- Arif Sağ: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuzzxOKioQ8. One of the fathers of the bağlama revolution in Turkey.
- Erol Parlak: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnMQLQ_pMiM. One of the next generation masters. Here is his website. Currently, a faculty member at ITU State Conservatory, Istanbul, Turkey.
NOTES:
- Although modern bağlamas are made of many tree species nowadays, in the old times there were few choices. The body was carved out of a piece of a tree trunk that had to be available locally. Also, due to the size of the body, the tree had to have a large trunk. For these reasons, one of the most commonly used was mulberry. Mostly owing to this tradition rather than any scientific reason, mulberry is still one of the preferred trees in bağlama making. By the way, mulberry is also the choice tree of many bird species!
- Here is an anecdote about Veysel, which I heard in Sivas, Turkey, Veysel's hometown. I was visiting a bağlama atelier in Sivas, in 2009 or 2010. During our conversation, the master maker told me this:
One day Veysel was giving a concert somewhere. After the performance, one of the fans approaches Veysel and asks:
- Master, I have seen others playing baglama, too. Yet, quite differently. They jump here and there on the fingerboard (neck, fret-board), they play on a large area. You, on the other hand, have your hand at the same place all the time. How is this?
Veysel's answer contains humor, lesson, and a Socratic irony:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- My son, they are still looking for this place that I found.
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