Santur's visibility in Turkey; An ethnomusicological analysis of orientation towards an instrument

Abstract

The santur and santuri's existed in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey between the 16th and 20th centuries and gradually faded out in the 20th century. From the 2000s, santur have increasingly become visible through various genres and scenes. This presence within centuries comprised of several significant phenomena; having a critical place within Ottoman court music circles both as performative and pedegogic aspects, being at the first official conservatory (Dârü'l-Elhân) in the Ottoman Empire and its successor Istanbul Conservatory in Turkey, or taking as part of ensembles at crucial historical events. Covering those issues, this research mainly focuses on the 2000's and aims to investigate the extent of santur's reappearance, which inquires the aspects of visibility such as the evaluation of the orientation towards the instrument through its performers and the audiences. At the beginning of the fieldwork, it was noticed that among the majority of musicians, timbre was quite effective on the preference of santur, thus the roles and perception of timbre were also investigated. During the historical background analysis, it is observed that the change in the demand at the institutional level is one of the reasons that triggered santur's fade out through the 20th century, thus the relation between music and the construction of nation-state identity is examined. In parallel with the investigation of these two issues/periods in their own social and cultural contexts, an ethnomusicological perspective that centers the instrument and examines the relationship of its organological structure to these phenomena has been adopted. Regarding santur's reappearance, ethnography is used to inquire about the aspects of musical instrument preferences or related parameters. The study involves several fieldwork techniques such as participant observation, in-depth interviews, mapping, collecting and analyzing audio/visual materials, and informal interviews. For the historical background chapter, in addition to the literature study, an archival research has been added; through Cumhuriyet (oldest Turkish daily newspaper) digital archive, all the news that covers santur and santur players between 1930-2020 has been analyzed and incorporated into the related parts. Some of the collected data was quite parallel to the facts within other sources, yet some others reveal crucial facts regarding the social and political reasons of santur's disappearance. This study proposes an organological approach that centers around thinking through the roles of musical instruments in a particular place and time. In addition, being aware of the subjectivity of taste/preference and the incomprehensibility of the concept of popularity, the study argues that through ethnography, it is possible to understand the context of organological identity constructed around an instrument and related aspects of the legitimacies. It is expected that the investigation of the phenomena that constitute the individual and institutional preferences of a musical instrument, by focusing on musical instruments and timbre, will contribute to our understanding of the complex relationship between instruments, performers and listeners.