Voices ResourcesA website for the worldwide community around the journal Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy

Introduction

According to the view of experts who have done research on music; music existed before language. Abstract concepts, memory, symbols, associations, analogical relations necessary for conversation and speech have evolved and matured with humanity. Together with this, there is in every particle in nature, a unity of melody and rhythm which continues with great order and harmony. In the harmony and rhythm perfection of bird sounds, in the movement of atoms, electrons and galaxies and in the amplified sounds of the fluids of our body, we can observe the relation and association of music with the created world at large.

Music and music therapy history understanding of the present world, directs us to colloborate with sciences like anthropology, history, ethnotherapy, ethnomedicine, psychology, pedagogy, sociology, spirituality and parapsychology.

When we enter the subject through the scope of history, we have to venture into very ancient times.

The dancing figures in the Gobustan rocks in Azerbaijan, presents us with a reality of music and dance which dates back at least 12 to 14 thousand years. Mingyar rock drawings on the banks of river Mulche which is near the Hoten City's administrative subdivision of Cherchen belonging to the Uigur Turks, dates back 6 to 8 thousand years. When we observe the disposition of history and culture accumulation which transmits us to very ancient times through the scope of Proto-Turkish culture, the findings of German scientist Dr. Wolfram become important and these findings document the effect of Turkish culture on Chinese culture in the areas of music, dance, ceramics, theatre and taming animals in the 3rd millenium BC. According to the findings of French researcher Maurice Curan which are based on Chinese sources, published in the Lavinniac Music Encyclopedia, ancient Turkish musical enstruments and pentatonic musical performance affected Chinese culture deeply.

Researchers like Eduard Chavannes, Bela Bartok, Robert Lach, Ahmed Adnan Saygun , Ferruh Arsunar and great Turkish ethnomusicolog Mahmut Ragip Gazimihal, have made important studies in this area and have documented the effects of Turkish music culture on Chinese culture, and its Central Asia-Anatolia connection. According to these studies, the important epicenters of proto-Turkish culture are Sensi and Kansu provinces. Hakas-Tuva culture and Altai-Turkish culture send us back to the 3rd millenium BC. In the beginning of the 20th century, Soviet researchers Rudenko and Griaznov, discovered a musical instrument called 'Cheng' under the ice of Pazirik valley in Altai region. According to Rudenko the proto-Turkish culture which the instrument belongs to, dates back 3700 years.

Movement Healing and Music Therapy Tradition

Active Music Therapy

Central Asian doctors (shamans) named Kam or Baksi (Bakshi) were using music and dance to cure patients. With this dance therapy, which is still continuing in regions like Kazakhstan, Kygyzistan, Altai area, Mongolia and Siberia, spiritual energy which is evoked by arm, shoulder and head movements spreads to the whole body and the knowledge necessary to cure the patient is obtained. The Bakshi were performing the trance and the curing session with musical instrument like Kilkopuz, Dombra, Shankopuz, Asatayak and Davul. In these sessions, pentatonic musical tonalities were used. In England, at London Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Institute, due to the findings that pentatonic music creates self confidence and feelings of determination in people, this type of music is used for the education and the treatment of autistic children.

Within The Group for the Research and Promotion of Turkish Music (Tümata) activities, together with Bakshi dance, various other Sufi dances (like sema-semah) are studied and with the active music therapy understanding that is formed, these old techniques are used for curing purposes within Modern Medicine, in the areas of autism, geriatry, oncology , immunology, neurology, cardiology, depression and anxiety. There is mutual cooperation with Berlin Urban Hospital and Vienna Meidling Clinic in these areas.

Passive (Receptive) Music Therapy Tradition

Curing with makam (Turkish tonality) music and treatment with these elements, which matured and established itself along with the Bakshi-Kam curing tradition and pentatonic music form which has an important place in Turkish culture and history of music and dance, has again revitalized itself in today's medical arena. One thousand years ago in Central Asia, Farabi, Ibn-i Sina, Ebu Bekir Razi, Hasan Şuri, Hekimbaşı Gevrekzade Hafız Hasan Efendi and Haşim Bey have written works on makam music, which was developing and spreading in Horasan (Transoxiana) and Uigur Regions, and they described the relations of makams with feelings and organs of the body by classifications. While pentatonic music was continuing to develop in Turkic provinces, a different makam music based on a system of 7 notes, where one whole note was divided into 9 different sounds (komas), has contributed to our culture and art with a wealth of over 400 makams.

Ebu Bekir Razi, one of the great Muslim Turkish scholars, who lived between 834-932, in his work on the curing of melancholic patients tells us the following: "… melancholic patient must be cured through some sort of pre-occupation… melancholic patient should pursue a joyful hobby like hunting or fishing. He should get to know different kind of games. He should meet people whose character, behavior and morals he likes; and should listen to songs which are sang by beautiful voices."

Great Turkish scholar Farabi (870-950) classifies the effects of the tonalities to the soul as follows:

1. Rast tonality: Induces joy and feelings of peace.
2. Rehavi tonality: Induces feelings of infinitude.
3. Kuchek tonality: Induces feelings of sorrow and grief.
4. Buzurk tonality: Induces fear.
5. Isfahan tonality: Induces feelings of self confidence and aids the ability to move.
6. Neva tonality: Gives a person taste and relief.
7. Ussak tonality: Induces laughter.
8. Zirgule tonality: Induces sleep.  
9. Saba tonality: Gives a person courage and power.
10. Buselik tonality: Gives strength.
11. Huseyni tonality: Induces feelings of peace (calmness and comfort).
12. Hicaz tonality: Induces humbleness.

Great Muslim Turkish philosopher and scholar Ibn-i Sina (Avicenna, 980-1037) defines the role music plays in medicine as follows: "… One of the most effective and best paths of curing is to increase the mental and spiritual strengths of the patient. To cope better with the illness, the patient should be encouraged, should listen to good music and should come together with people whom he loves."

Ibn-i Sina states that, he had benefited greatly from the works of Farabi, and adds that he had learned music from him and applied it in his medicinal occupation. In his book 'Kitap'un Necat' and 'Kitab'un Sife' which he wrote in Arabic, 12. chapters are totally reserved for music. These chapters were translated by Baron Rodolph Dearlangar, and were named and published as 'La Musique Arap.'

In the works named 'Tadil-i Emzice' of the ancient Turkish Doctor Shuuri, there is encompassing information about curing with music. Shuuri in his work 'Tadil-I Emzice' states that at the different times of the day, different tonalities are effective.

According to him:

1. Rast and Rehavi tonality: Effective at dawn.
2. Huseyni tonality: Effective in the morning.
3. Irak tonality: Effective around mid-morning.
4. Nihavend tonality: Effective around noon.
5. Hicaz tonality: Effective between two prayer times.
6. Buselik tonality: Effective in the afternoon.
7. Ussak tonality: Effective at dusk.
8. Zengule tonality: Effective after sunset.
9. Muhalif tonalities: Effective after the last prayer in the evening.
10. Rast tonality: Effective at midnight.
11. Zirefkend tonality: Effective after midnight.

According to Shuuri, different tonalities affect the different gatherings of people:

1. Gathering of religious scholars (Ulema meclisi): Rast and Tevabii tonalities.
2. Assembly of Kings: Isfahan and Tevabii tonalities. 
3. Gathering of Dervishes: Hicaz and Tevabii tonalities.
4. Gathering of Sufis: Rehavi and Tevabii tonalities.  

Music Therapy Heal Houses – Hospitals - Asylums

Nine centuries before our time in the Nureddin Hospital in Damascus, which was built by Seljukian Sultan Nureddin Zengi, musical tonalities were used to cure patients.

In later times, curing with music was implemented in Amasya, Sivas, Kayseri, Manisa, Bursa, Istanbul (Fatih Kulliyesi) and Edirne hospitals. We find the following written in Evliya Chelebi's travel chronicles: "The late Bajezid, the benefactor; may God forgive his sins; to cure the ill, to relieve the aggrieved, to get rid of the passion of love and as a nutrition to the souls of the crazy, had arranged 10 professional singers and 10 musicians, of which 3 were only singers, 1 was a Neyzen, 1 was a violin player, 1 was a musikar (Pan flute) player, 1 was a Santur player, and 1 was an Ud player. They came 3 times a week to apply a session of music to the patients and the mad."

According to these sources, during the execution of these passive-receptive music therapy sessions, which developed with the ripened tonalities of Turkish Art Music - which has its origin in Horasan (Transoxiana) - and Horasan Anatolian music, the patients would listen either by sitting comfortably or lying down in a resting position. In this form of curing, the aim was to relieve the patient by changing their emotional states and help them rekindle their self confidence.

Today, in the technique applied by our therapists, these basic principles have been preserved. The patient lies in a comfortable position and with an accompanying relaxing rhythm and water sound; Ney, Rebab, Cheng, Ud, Dombra and Rubab are played in an improvised fashion and suitable tonalities are used. In these sessions, many positive changes and improvements have been recorded in psychological and physical illnesses ranging from autism and pediatrics to geriatrics. Dr. L. Gutjahr and Prof. V. Mechleid have recorded EEG measurements which have corroborated these traditions of at least a millennium. After experimenting on the important 10 to 15 of these 400 tonalities, we have made cassettes and CDs to be used in the sessions.

In Vienna, at the Meidling Rehabilitation Center, therapy implementations are executed by using Turkish tonalities on coma patients. Here a change in the alpha and theta waves in the brain of the patients was observed. Many patients are relieved of coma after these therapy sessions.

Dr. Mehmet Oz a famous cardiolog in United States Of America also use the Tumata Authentic Turkish Therapy tonalities in his clinic and %29 of patient turned from coma by the help of frequencies. He told the results of the Tumata music therapy in his book of Healing Inside.

Tumata is organizing concerts,seminars,festivals and conferences in all over the world for sharing their workshops. www.tumata.com is a window to open the group: Tumata.

How to cite this page

Guvenc, Rahmi Oruc (2006). Music Therapy in Turkey. Voices Resources. Retrieved January 12, 2015, from http://testvoices.uib.no/community/?q=country/monthturkey_march2006