| Arabesque music |
| Stylistic origins |
Byzantine music, Turkish music, Pop music, Arabic music, Middle Eastern music |
| Cultural origins |
1970s Turkey |
| Typical instruments |
Electric bağlama, Bass guitar, Drum kit, Keyboard, Synthesizer, Turntablism, Drum machine, Sequencer, Sampler, Personal computer, Zurna, other traditional Middle Eastern instruments |
| Mainstream popularity |
Continuous in Turkey, and Middle East in general |
| Subgenres |
| Turkish music - Traditional pop music - Turkish RnB - Middle Eastern music |
| Other topics |
| Byzantine music, Turkish music, Middle Eastern music |
Arabesque or Arabesk (Turkish: Arabesk) is a term created by Turkish musicologists for an Arabic style of music created in Turkey. The genre was particularly popular in Turkey in the decades from the 1960s through the 1990s. As with Arabic music itself, its aesthetics have evolved over the decades. Although melodies and rhythms are predominantly byzantine and Arabic influenced, it also draws ideas from other aspects of Middle Eastern music including Bağlama music and Ottoman forms of oriental music. It continues to be played within Turkey in its purer form today, but its popularity has waned with younger people in more recent times; and it has tended to merge into, and be subsumed by, other genres such as latter-day Western dance music and Turkish pop music.
[edit] Description and history
A very small percentage of Arabesk is exclusively instrumental. For the great majority of it, a singer lies at the center of the music. Male singers dominated the genre in its early years, but female singers probably predominated during its peak years of popularity. Simultaneously with the influx of female singers, the sound grew more dancey and upbeat.[1] Orhan Gencebay is generally considered the founder of the genre (though he disagrees with the usage of the term). Other well known older singers are Müslüm Gürses and Ferdi Tayfur. One of the most prolific and commercially successful is İbrahim Tatlıses, who broke all sales records in Turkey in 1978 and continues to turn out popular music to this day. He has maintained popularity in the Arabesk scene in recent years through remixing his tracks into dance friendly club tracks. The pure Arabesk album "Acıların Kadını" by the singer Bergen was the bestselling album in Turkey in 1986 and may be fairly labelled one of the classic albums of the genre. Bergen had several other hit Arabesk albums during the 1980s. Other singers include Gülben Ergen, Ebru Gündeş, Seda Sayan, Sibel Can. The singers Muazzez Ersoy and Bülent Ersoy designate themselves as modern exponents of Ottoman classical music but much of their work can be labelled as Arabesk with softer beats, since the strings and vocal melodies sound Arabic—or arabesque.[citation needed]
Also Ajda Pekkan's "Sen Mutlu Ol" (1981) and "Sevdim Seni" (1982) albums were effects of "pop-turns-arabesque" concept in early 80's. Also, Ajda Pekkan's "Sarıl Bana", smash hit of 1993 from "Ajda '93" album, was a famous Arabesque-pop song.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "Turkish Music and Artists: Arabesque". Yildirim, Ali. Tarkan DeLuxe, 2006. http://tarkandeluxe.blogspot.com/2004/05/turkish-music-and-artists.html#arab. Retrieved March 21, 2006.
[edit] External links
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