İncesaz: The world does not know classical Ottoman music

It seems as though every time a new member joins İncesaz, the group comes out with a new album. In 1997 it was Taner Sayacıoğlu, in 2001 it was Akın Aral and Melihat Gülses, in 2003 it was Engin Gürkey and in 2007 it was Cengiz Özkan. So do your albums come out because someone new has joined the group or do people join because the albums have just come out?

Cengiz Onural: Everyone brings in their own gifts and fruitfulness, right? First off though, let’s distinguish the saz players from the singers. The soloists that have joined us do so for projects only, they are not actually joining the group. There are emotions of love that go into our work; no doubt those who join us see this before they come.

You have released six albums so far. Are you waiting for a new member for your seventh album?

C.O.: We have things to say and music to play. This is what prompts the release of albums. ... An album we recorded for Turkish Airlines [THY] called “Yollar” [Roads] will be coming out next year as our seventh album.

What do you place more importance on, the words or the actual music?

Murat Aydemir: Well, music accompanied by words is easier to understand. Of course, with instrumental music, you can say everything but the listener hears what they wish. Everyone interprets what they hear differently. Music without words has more of an open-ended sense of interpretation.

C.O.: We see music as a whole. And words are just one piece of the music. What I love the most is when words and music emerge at the same time.

You have signed off on joint projects with some very famous names. Let’s say Tarkan came to you: would you do an album with him?

M.A.: Well, famous names have come to us [laughs]. Not Tarkan, but another famous name approached us; however, we didn’t do an album together.

C.O.: Let’s just say we didn’t fit together well. Let’s say we have some things we want to express ... whomever we can express ourselves with comfortably, that’s who we work with. This is so our words and the other person’s words don’t wind up clashing.

You have made music for television series such as “Ekmek Teknesi,” “İkinci Bahar” and “Sev Kardeşim.” Now lots more TV series are being made, but you are not making music for them. Why?

C.O.: Well, the world of television series is really badly off these days. These series are not something where everyone works together trying to capture some wonderful level of synergy. The only thing they are focused on is ratings. They don’t recognize any rules. They pay no attention to what, for example, it is that İncesaz is trying to express or what our personal stance might be.

You don’t make video clips for your songs and you don’t appear on TV. Is this a stance you are specifically taking against the pollution of the market in general?

C.O.: Well, we don’t appear on entertainment programs on TV but we do engage in discussions on culture and the arts. We refuse to be ingredients for programs that are aimed simply at entertainment.

M.A.: We are able to guess what sort of reactions we will receive from our listening audiences when we produce something new. Even if they find it strange at first, they become use to it in time.

C.O.: Our concerts are absolutely sold out; we find it hard to believe. All of our albums are still selling. Our real aim is not just to see that people are enjoying a relaxing few minutes. In five minutes shared with us, we open up our hearts. You can’t really say this about other kinds of music, so we really can’t refer to those kinds of music as art. Those kinds of music satisfy themselves with lyrics like “I loved you, you were angry at me” and so on, over and over again.

There is lots of noise pollution in the city. After awhile, you get used to it and a certain section of your brain begins not to hear it. But this sort of adaptation also makes us de-sensitized. This is true not just for art, but also for politics and for ideologies.

What do you, for example, listen to? What nourishes you musically?

C.O.: We listen to a lot of wonderful music. We listen to classical and jazz all the time; music that comes from India, Latin America, Japan and all the way to Sudan. And of course, Turkish music constitutes our main artery.

Derya Türkan: For example, Byzantine music forms the basis of Greek music. When you listen to Yanni’s music, you say to yourself “Ahh, this is Greek.” But in Turkey, there was no such thing. Our music may be relatively new, but when you listen, you feel it’s Turkish.

You now have a large audience base in Turkey, but do you ever think about becoming more international? Is there a need for this?

C.O.: We played in the concert hall that the Berlin Philharmonic regularly plays in and there were 1,500 people present. It was completely full, but only around 50 members of the audience were Turkish. So could we take our music abroad? Well, we have also worked with the Hungarian Symphony Orchestra. But on a broad world scale, if you did a survey of peoples’ perceptions of what Turkish music is, the first 90 out of 100 [songs and musicians mentioned] would actually be gypsy songs and singers.

D.T.: The popular music CDs being sold in music stores as Turkish music include all sorts of gypsy festival-type music. This is actually one of the biggest reasons why we don’t play that many concerts abroad. The world has not been exposed to Ottoman music and it doesn’t really know Ottoman music. So the world really has a hard time understanding our music -- there is no real market for it. We are not jazz, we are not ethnic and we are not classical. The real reason for this is the actual filth that has been seen as Turkish music and Turkish art up until today. Had we only introduced Ottoman classical music and folk music to the world up until now, we would automatically be perceived as Turkish music these days.

So what is your group doing to change these perceptions?

D.T.: Well believe me, my aim is not to have 60 million out of a nation of 70 million love İncesaz. I don’t even want 10 million to love us. Let just one person love this group, but really love it. That’s the real point for me. A person, after all, does not work just to see his or her own artistic career proceed forward. Turkey has all sorts of cultural problems.

M.A.: Well, for my part, I would like to see a lot more fans for İncesaz. [Laughter]

C.O.: My perspective is completely the opposite of Derya’s on this matter.

Well, the musical tastes of society are pretty clear and the state stays away from this sort of business and your group does not advertise, so... what is your future?

D.T.: In every country in the world, intellectual people in their own nations support their own culture. We have no particular point of departure. We have been doing concerts and making albums for 10 years now. We are doing our jobs, making our music for people. The people who are going to get something from our music are the same people who are connected to it. The now-departed Osman Yağmurdereli used to say to us, “I am crying, every day I listen to your CDs.” Then he made a TV series and he used İncesaz’s music for this series.

C.O.: I suppose we don’t exactly carry out the tasks that fall to us. I talked about this with Mehmet Altan, Ali Saydam and Ali Eyüboğlu. They write, that’s all. And wherever they decide to illuminate something, the spotlights of the media turn to that issue. But there is a huge world out there with areas that have not been illuminated. People say to us, “Let’s put you into the spotlight.” But I wonder if that illuminated area is really the right one? An example here is that when our last album was completed we sent word to all the newspapers. We thought people might make some news out of it, but nothing happened, not one step was taken. When this is the case, we don’t really feel like doing anything for the media. It seems like what we are facing is some big sort of organization. But anyway, there are many people who listen to us.

How has the music you make changed you personally?

D.T.: It has increased our mutual dialogues. We have learned so much from one another. Our perspectives on life have changed; they are different to what they used to be. After all, if our mutual dialogues did not exist, we would not be able to make our music.

C.O.: İncesaz, for me, is real music that I can sign off on. I do not play music because I have to, but because I want to and it gives me a “backyard” wherein I can express myself however I want. There is nothing as valuable as that in life.

M.A.: The freedom to try whatever I want in İncesaz has helped me develop enormously as a person. İncesaz has pushed me to test the limits of my saz playing. I had no desire to compose my own music, but with İncesaz I have, and I have even played the lavta [a type of lute].

In Turkey, it seems that groups are formed and then fall apart. What about you?

D.T.: Well, after our concerts we break apart and then come back together two days later. [Laughter]

C.O.: Well, any organization made up of humans has a certain life span. Sooner or later they finish. But we really do love one another and we love to play music with one another. We will carry on for as long as this persists.

M.A.: Our union is like a marriage. We have experienced every possible type of turmoil possible, just like in a marriage. Now we’ve arrived at a period where we can just enjoy things.