Turkish Classic Music and Turkish Folk Music are unique.
We know that you have a very wide perspective of music and you are not conservative at all. You were born in Istanbul and raised and inspired also by Istanbul, what do you think of the modal music of Istanbul and the folk songs of Anatolia? Do you have them in your repertoire?
Turkish Classic Music and Turkish Folk Music are unique. Gladly, their worth is appreciated by the rest of the world gradually nowadays.
Not only oriental, but also near and middle east music are the objects of discussion for academic researches and symposiums. I do know and feel our music in a cultural context as I was born and raised in Turkey. However, I don’t have any academic study on Turkish music. I hope I dare to shoulder responsibility for this anytime soon.
Hearing and listening are very different things and listening requires some effort.
Do you think people get cold feet about listening to the classical pieces when "knowing music" and "knowing how to listen it" are intertwined?
Yes, I do! I sincerely believe that we have sort of self-distrust because classical music contains a number of traditional elements and they presumably belong to the European culture. To clarify with an example; “scherzo” in western classical music, is a short composition inspired from the dance music of Europe. Now, imagine a German gets confused with following up with the beat when dancing khoron. Naturally we have difficulties with comprehending some things in Western classical music. First things first. We need to learn it. Here is my argument: We are capable of learning a lot of things that are not genuinely from our culture. Why not music? I mean football is not either from our culture but we love it and have internalized it... Examples are countless indeed. To make a long story short, ‘not in my culture’ is not quite an excuse...
When you talk about the chords on your YouTube channel, you particularly avoid using academic terms. Instead you use simplified phrases like the ‘home chord’ for tonic, ‘coming home’ chord for dominant and ‘looking out the window’ chord for subdominant. Why do you name the chords like that? Maybe you can also assign names like ‘falling in love’, ‘happy’, ‘sad’ to the chords in the upcoming days? What do you intend to achieve with your YouTube channel?
Haha! a nice one, why not? I am not like those people who set great targets to achieve, or make strict plans from 5 years now on. My YouTube channel is not like that, either. I started to post by coincidence. As we all know, YouTube is an important tool for reaching great masses. This coincidence was suitable for my intention of encouraging others get to know and like classical music. I try to make it look a bit more professional, thanks to feedbacks and requests. I prefer not to use musical terms, not because of the music theory but because I try to teach how to listen to music. As I say in one of my videos, to hear and to listen to are two different things. The latter demands time indeed no matter what you are listening to! With a little bit of analytical thinking, one could get better out of the Turkish music, Far Asian music or western music. I have studied and hold my degrees in western music. That is why I make videos about it.
To be able to carry on with further studies in New York, you launched your own scholarship campaign over the internet, and you continued with your studies thanks to it. What do you recommend to the young people out there who are passionate to get to know the world and study abroad but also need to find sponsors for themselves?
Well good luck!!! Studying abroad is not easy. I mean it is not easy even if you have the money. Good luck again if you do not have the money... Seriously, I recommend them not to sit and wait idly until they get a lucky break. Money is only one of the barriers they will encounter. Don’t you have the money? Well, do find it. Have you failed the audition? Well, try again. There is no defeat but experience of learning. I was promised scholarships before I launched my own campaign on the internet. Needless to say, these promises were broken at the last minute. That was harsh and heart-breaking for me. I started e-mail campaigns. I sent 100 e-mails and could get responses only from 10. Every single unanswered e-mail taught me how to write a better one to get a response. I could save up to buy my ticket to New York only a week before I moved here. I managed to cover the expenses for the first term with the scholarship from Eczacıbaşı when I was in New York. I was broke again after that. Internet was only one of my attempts. If it had not worked just fine, I was going to try something out. What matters is to be determined and not to give up.
What are your future projects in life and in music?