Appraising traditional rhythmical structures of Turkish folk dances musics as a part of meter and “usul” concepts

Abstract

The rhythm component is an important application tool in the evaluating phase of musical works metrically. Turkish Folk Music and folk dances’ music with or without lyric which is an important subcategory of it are cultural components, which contain measure forms. In the determination phase of thousands of works which belong to Turkish Folk Music repertoire, even the metric textures which belong to these works have been determined, and these appearing measure forms have held the distinction of being musical components, which provide the determination of time values and beat numbers of musical works. But these determined measure forms have been recognized as equivalent to traditional rhythmic performing methods, and some inaccurate digestions have been made based on the “usul” system basis that is used as a traditional performing form in Classical Turkish Music and the whole repertoire has been digested based on this “usul” system. So, the difference between counting music, stroking beats or playing has not been taken into consideration.Classification as playing forms and determination of performing forms, which are already existing and, which appears by a complete improvised conception and mostly carried on by a relation between the adept and the apprentice, based on all sorts of characteristic properties, which are analyzed on academic environments will reveal beats or methods of the traditional rhythmic performing of Turkish folk dances music. This article should be perceived as a starting point, a first step or a guide for determination works, which will be done in this context.

Keywords: folk music; folk dance; rhythm; meter; meter structure; traditional performing