‘Rule, System, and Technique’

Many folk musicians claim that the value of their music lies in the fact that it is free from abstract and arbitrary rules. For Gokalp, ‘Turkish music consists of melodies, unfettered by rule, system, and technique (kaidesiz, usulsuz, fensiz), of sincere songs which express the heart of the Turk’.1 At the same time, rules, systems, and techniques are not only implicitly recognized, but explicitly taught. A way of talking about music as though it were systematic has been created under the social and historical circumstances described in the last chapter. The relationship of this language to what it purports to describe is complex, but provides an important key to the arabesk debate.

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