The Modernization Process in Two Oriental Music Cultures: Turkish and Japanese

Author(s): Karl Signell

Source: Asian Music , 1976, Vol. 7, No. 2, Symposium on the Ethnomusicology of
Culture Change in Asia (1976), pp. 72-102
Published by: University of Texas Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/833790

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Asian Music

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 THE MODERNIZATION PROCESS
IN TWO ORIENTAL MUSIC CULTURES: TURKISH AND JAPANESE
By
Karl Signell

Is modernization the same as Europeanization?

Will all developing countries eventually ask for McDonald's
hamburger franchises and watch the same syndicated tele-
vision programs? Or, as some historians of the moderniza-
tion process have observed (Ward and Rustow 1964; Dore
1965; Nagai 1971; Jansen 1965), is the question more
complex? Aren't there factors of social attitude,
geography, government, and so forth, existing at the time
of "take-off," which lead each country down a unique path
in the modern world? And, in this sometimes anxious
struggle to become modernized, what happens to the musical
life of a people?

Under the threat of European domination, the rulers

of both Turkey and Japan undertook a conscious, large-
scale adoption of their enemy's culture; some of the
borrowings were, say, French, others were universally
modern, but all were the result of each country's special
conditions. In Turkey, the massive changes took place
primarily under the rule of Mustafa Kemal AtatUbrk in the
1920's and 1930's; in Japan, the reign of Emperor Meiji
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was
crucial. Before these periods, both societies could be
considered Oriental, especially in music. Both embraced
European music during the transition period as part of a
desired package, and both cultures today reflect the
accelerating results of that process. Yet there is
significant contrast between the two in the vitality of
the musical life, in the tolerance of the old traditional
styles, and in the taking root of the new, alien music.
By examining in detail the historical changes and the
related musical developments in these two countries, I
intend to clarify the process of musical change in
developing countries, at least in Turkey and Japan.
TURKEY

The Ottoman Empire, which endured for over four

centuries and which embraced at its zenith a territory as
large as the Roman Empire, achieved cultural heights in
architecture, literature, and music in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. However, beginning with the latter
part of the eighteenth century, the arts declined, leaving
only "exhausted old traditions" (Lewis 1968:35), reflecting
belatedly the political decline of the empire which had

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begun in the seventeenth century (Inalcik 1964:42). The
gradual dismemberment of this once-great imperial power
and the growing disenchantment of the urban elite with
the corruption and ineffectiveness of the government led
to its collapse after World War I. Throughout this period
of Ottoman decline, interest in European culture, especially
in education, government, and military affairs, seemed
increasingly to offer the strongest hope for a solution
to the Turkish crisis.

The musical life in Istanbul and other urban

centers was gradually altered as European ideas were
welcomed. Before modernization, Ottoman classical music
can be assumed to have been monophonic (with perhaps some
slight heterophony), performed primarily by solo singers
(with no more than ten musicians on the grandest occasions),
and transmitted by rote. The two main aspects of composi-
tion were makam (melodic mode) and usul (rhythmic mode)
(see Reinhard 1969 and Signell, in press).
The first important steps toward modernization of
this music occurred during the reign of Sultan Selim III
(r. 1789-1807). Selim attempted, unsuccessfully, to
reform Ottoman military training, education, and the state
itself along European lines. A well-known composer and
ne (flute) player himself, Selim introduced Europeanism
into Ottoman classical music. A makam of his invention,
Stzidilrft, sounds suspiciously like the major mode, as
opposed to Rast, which has the slightly flatted third
degree. More importantly, he commissioned the noted
Armenian composer, Baba Hamparsum Limonciyan (1768-1839),
to create a practical notation system for Ottoman classical
music. In Example 1, Hamparsum notation, a cipher system,
is shown together with the five-line notation used today
(Ezgi 1953:535). Although Selim's ney playing was cut
short by a strangler's noose in 1807, at least one of his
reforms lived on. The notation system which he commissioned
was used to preserve compositions until it was replaced by
the modified five-line system first introduced by Rauf
Yekta in the 1920's (Yekta 1921; see also Arel 1968).
Although the oral method of transmission lingers on in the
memory of the older generation, the vast majority of
performers now rely on the written score--a sure sign of
modernization and a quantum step away from traditional music
concepts.

Also during the rule of Selim, in 1797, an Italian

opera house was founded in Istanbul. I would assume that
the audience was drawn mainly from the well-established
foreign communities of that city, but it seems very likely
that the opera house and similar European musical activities

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began to influence traditional Ottoman classical music.
One of the most admired composers.of the entire history
of Turkish music is Hammami-zade Ismail Dede Efendi
(1778-1846), known as Dede Efendi. Dede's compositions
sometimes echo the period's preoccupation with the new,
exotic music from Europe. His occasional imitation of
the waltz, as seen in Example 2, his sudden, even violent,
Beethovenian modulations, and even his melodic line
occasionally, are Western-inspired.

Yine bir g'l nihal aldi bu g5nliimui

Sim ten gonca fem bt bedel ol guzel
Ateq-i rfhleri yakti bu g5nlimU
PUr eda pHir cefa pek kuitik pek gUzel
Once again, a young rose captured this heart of mine
Brilliant body, rose-bud mouth, priceless and
beautiful
The fire of her cheeks has burned this heart of
mine
Full of charm, full of torment, so young, so
beautiful

(transl., ilhami Gb'k9en)

Although Selim's social reforms were thwarted by
the ulema (religious leaders), the Janissaries (elite
army corps), and other powerful forces, his successor,
Mahmut II (r. 1808-1839), managed to carry out the first
significant modernization reforms. Mahmut abolished the
corrupt and ineffective Janissaries in 1826, partly to
modernize the army. The ancient oriental military band
of the Janissaries, the mehter, was replaced by the Muzika-i
Hitmayun, or Imperial Band. Giuseppe Donizetti, brother o
Gaetano, was imported from Italy to train the new ensemble
and later became known as "Donizetti Pasha." In 1882, his
grandson was invited to Istanbul by the sultan and noted,
"They were seated all in a circle. Those playing the
smaller instruments were seated on the ground, a la
turque, the others with the more cumbersome instruments
(trombones, bassoons, bass drums, etc.) were seated on
chairs. I was invited to take my place on the sofa near
the Director and the performance began with an air from
Trovatore." (see Signell 1967). The European band, of
course, itself grew directly out of the mehter model, but
was now considered superior both for political reasons
and as a symbol of modernization. The awesome sound of the
mehter was not to be heard again in Turkey until its
revival in the twentieth century.

Throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century,

the accelerating disintegration of the Ottoman Empire,

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causing more and more borrowings from Europe, some super-
ficial. A short architectural tour of Istanbul today
reveals numerous influences from European Baroque,
Rocooco, and Victorian styles, especially in the royal
palaces such as Dolmabah9e, inspired by Versailles.
Educational, constitutional, and other reforms were like-
wise superficial and confined to the elite. Certain
important changes in the musical life of the urban areas,
on the contrary, were to have profound modernizing effects.
Increasing use of notation has already been cited; also,
the nineteenth century witnessed the rise of the ar
light song form in colloquial Turkish, in place of the
esoteric murabba and k~r, both long, heavy, and in Persian
or convoluted Ottoman-Turkish. I haven't verified it yet,
but I've been told that by the end of the century, large
choruses had begun to displace the tradition of the solo
vocalist, singing the melody in unison. Today, about half
the performances of Turkish classical music are given in
the medium of large choruses.

European-style paintings made before the First

World War depict young ladies of the harem in elegant
Victorian dress, giving an afternoon musicale with cello
and piano. The last of the Ottoman sultans, Mehmet
Vahiduddin (r. 1918-22), played piano as well as kanun
(zither) and is said to have preferred European music. A
popular instrument of the Mevlevi dervishes, alongside the
oriental ney and kudtm (drum), was the sine kemani, or
viola d'amore. More significantly, the late nineteenth
and early twentieth century was the period of the rise of
the virtuoso instrumentalist, typified by Tanburl Cemil
Bey (1871-1916).

Cemil Bey was active in recording taksim-s

(improvisations), with more than 100 discs issued on 78 rpm
in this genre alone. A self-taught musician, Cemil
performed these taksim-s on a variety of instruments:
tanbur (long-necked lute), kemenqe (fiddle), yayli tanbur
(bowed tanbur), 'cello, and lavta (short-necked, fretted
lute) (Oztuna 1969). His "Ceoen Klzl" ("Chechen Girl"),
an instrumental solo ostensibly on folk themes, typical
of a trend in Turkish music which lasted until the mid-
twentieth century. While the tonal relationships are
nominally in the makam Hluseyni, suggestive of rustic scenes,
the composition could easily pass for a character piece in
the Romantic style in a minor mode; the harmonic implica-
tions and stereotyped figures of the melody are often more
European than Turkish (Example 3). This new type of
composition blends classical Turkish, folk Turkish, and
European styles. If Russian nationalism could inspire
folksong quotes in Boris Godanov and Polish.nationalism

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could be served by a Polonaise, why not Turkify Ottoman
classical music with echoes of Anatolia?

Tanbur^ Cemil Bey's son, Mes'ut Cemil (19

went even farther in the direction of Europeanizing
instrumental forms. His most famous composition,
"Nihavent Sazsemaisi," is fiendishly technical, requiring
a virtuoso performance. Unlike most of the entire
instrumental repertoire, which is almost never instrument-
specific, this piece is characteristically tanbur-like;
I have rarely heard any other instrument attempt it
seriously, certainly not in public concert. In the score
shown in Example 4, the tango rhythm is immediately
apparent--Rudolph Valentino seems to be lurking just out
of sight. Again, as in "qegen Kizi," the harmonic implica-
tions of the melody often outweigh whatever vestiges of
tranditional makam treatment are necessary to maintain its
Turkish standing. In keeping with the folkloric interest
shown by his father, Mes'ut Cemil spices up the last move-
ment of the sazsemaisi, normally in the usul yurik semai
(6/8), with a Balkan shepherd's mandira dance in 7/8.
The quietly crumbling Ottoman Empire was dealt
the final blow by the Allied occupation after the First
World War. By emerging victorious during the War for
Independence (1920-22) against a Greek invasion, the
partisans for modernization of Turkey gained a strong
trump card. Mustafa Kemal Atatuirk (1881-1938), after
wresting political control from Vahidtiddin, abruptly stepped
up the pace of modernization and Europeanization. Under
the Ottoman Empire, loyalties were tied to the Islamic
religion and the dynasty in a loose confederation of
colonies. Under the new Republic, proclaimed by Atatiirk
in 1923, modern concepts of nationhood were stressed, such
as linguistic, ethnic, and territorial definitions of
loyalty. To make a clean break with the despised, back-
ward, Oriental Ottoman past, he put into effect sweeping
changes intended to affect almost all aspects of Turkish
life. The fez for men and the veil for women were forbidden;
the new Turkish citizen was to wear European clothes and
headgear. A slightly modified Swiss code of laws was
promulgated. Arab writing was replaced by the Latin
alphabet. The Ottoman language was considered by the
Atattirkists too inelastic and tortuous, so a committee was
founded to "purify" the language, i.e., throw out all Arab
and Persian elements and substitute for them European words
or neologisms from Anatolian Turkish (see Lewis 1968).
Equally radical reforms were attempted in music.
Because of the great political power of the dervish orders
and their conservative influence on the masses, AtatUrk

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announced in 1925 that all "...all dervishes,...fortune-
tellers,.. .witch-doctors," and other such "primitive"
callings would henceforth be banned (quoted in Lewis
1968:411). The "evil" ways of the brotherhoods were halted,
the orders dissolved, lodges razed, books burned, etc. The
highly respected musical traditions of the Mevlevi and the
Bektashi were halted; the greatly weakened traditions went
underground and have only begun to cautiously surface
since 1950, though still officially forbidden. Also in
the mid-1920's, Turkish classical music was actually
banned from the State-monopoly radio stations. The attitude
of the ruling elite at the time towards this genre is best
expressed by the leading poet of the Atatuirk revolution:
Before the introduction of European music,
there were two kinds of music in Turkey: one
was Eastern music, which Farabi took from the
Byzantines, the other was folk music, which
was a continuation of ancient Turkish music.
Eastern music, like Western music, was
derived from that of the ancient Greeks. The
ancient Greeks, finding insufficient the full
and half tones that existed in folk music,
added quarter, eighth, and sixteenth tones
and called them quarter tones. Quarter tones
were not natural but artificial. For this
reason, they do not exist in the folk music
of any nation. Therefore, Greek music was
an artificial music based on unnatural tones.
Furthermore, there was in this music a boring
monotony due to the repetition of the same
tones, which again is something unnatural.
Opera, which originated in Europe in the
Middle Ages, eliminated these two shortcomings
of Greek music. Quarter tones were not
suitable for opera. Composers and singers
were from the people; thus, they were unable
to understand quarter tones. Under these
conditions, opera eliminated quarter tones
from Western music. Furthermore, as opera was
a representation of a succession of human
feelings, emotions, and passions, it adopted
(polyphonic) harmony and saved Western music
from monophony. These two innovations prepared
the way for the rise of a more fully developed
Western music.
Eastern music, on the other hand, remained
in its previous state. It preserved quarter
tones on the one hand, and remained foreign to
(polyphonic) harmony on the other. This morbid

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 music, after being transmitted by Farabi
to the Arabs, passed to the Persians and
Ottomans chiefly because of the esteem
in which it was held at the courts. The
Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Chalean, and
Syrian churches and Jewish synagogues also
accepted the same music from Byzantium.
In the Ottoman lands this music was the
only institution common to all Ottoman
ethnic and religious communities, and for
this reason we may properly call it the
music of the Ottoman peoples.
Today we are faced with three kinds of
music: Eastern music,.Western music, folk
music. Which one of them is ours? Eastern
music is a morbid music and non-rational.
Folk music represents our culture. Western
music is the music of our new civilization.
Thus, neither should be foreign to us.
Our national music, therefore, is to be
born from a synthesis of our folk music
and Western music. Our folk music provides
us with a rich treasure of melodies. By
collecting and arranging them on the basis
of the Western musical techniques, we shall
have both a national and a modern music.
This will be the programme of Turkism
in music. It is the task of our composers
to bring this aim to fruition. (G5kalp
1959:299-301).

I have quoted in its entirety this 1923 article by

Ziya G8kalp (1876-1924) because it so aptly expresses so
many of the fears and hopes, ideological struggles and
musical misunderstandings, historical rewritings and
yearnings for modernity and rationalism, of the Ataturk
Revolution. These questions are still lively issues today.
Atatirk himself held similar views, characterizing Turkish
classical music as "simple," "monophonic," and calling for
its rejection as "insufficient for the sophisticated soul
and feelings of the Turk." In its place he called for a
new and "modern Turkish music," combining the tunes of the
shepherds with the harmonies, scales, and forms of European
music (Gokgen 1975).
The national anthem for the new Republic, "Istikl&l
Maril ("Independence March"), was introduced in 1924.
Musically cast in a purely European mold, it no doubt
reflects Atattirk's preoccupation with universal means by
which to remind both the Turkish populace and the world that
Turkey would henceforth be part of the "civilized" world.

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Korkma sbinmez bu gafaklarda Fear not and be not dismayed
yuzen al sanca this crimson flag will
S6"nmeden yurdumun usttinde never fade
titen en son ocak It is the last hearth that's
O benim milletimin yildizdir burning for our nation,
parlayacak never fail
0 benimdir, o benim It is my nation's star that
milletimdir ancak will shine
It is my nation's star
and it is mine

The traditional classical music conservatory in

Istanbul, Dartilelhan, was closed in 1926. The Istanbul
Belediye Konservatuari which took its place the same year
taught only European classical music; it was only in 1945
that Turkish classical music was allowed into the
curriculum, and then instrumental instruction was still
excluded.

Further steps to put European music on a sound

footing in Turkey included importing foreign musicians in
the example of Donizetti Pasha; among these were Bela Bartok
and Paul Hindemith. In 1935, Hindemith was invited to
Ankara to consult, it seems, at the Ankara State Conserva-
tory (Ankara Devlet Konservatuari) which had succeeded the
Muzika-i Himayun in 1924. Bartok was invited in 1936 to
advise on the development of folklore studies. The national
anthem is known today by some thirty million Turks, but
the visits of Hindemith and Bartok did not bear such
effective results. Folk music studies remain today at the
amateur level, supported by neither the government, the
universities, nor significant private institutions. The
State Conservatory has fared slightly better, being able
to at least staff the fine Cumhurbaqkanli'i Senfoni
Orkestrasi (Presidential Symphony Orchestra), a present-day
descendant of Donizetti's band. Today, almost half a
century after the founding of the Republic, European
symphony, opera, ballet, pop, rock, and folk genres are
established under the patronage of the educated classes in
the urban centers. Although European music never had the
broad base of the public school system in Turkey, excellent
artists such as the pianist Idil Biret and the violinist
Suna Kan have been produced from this elitist modern
culture. The leading modern composer of Turkey, Adnan
Saygun (born 1907), was sent to Paris in 1928 with hopes
that he would create the synthesis of European and Turkish
styles proposed by G*kalp, AtatUrk, and others. Saygun's
compositions such as his oratorio Yunus Emre and his
Violin Concerto typically quote Turkish folk motives in a
basically international style, apparently the desired result.
Example 6, his "Horon" for clarinet and piano (1964), relates

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to the style of the Black Sea dance by that name to the
extent that, say, the "Bulgarian Rhythms" of Bartok's
Mikrokosmos relate to village folk dances in Bulgaria.

Turkish folk music today enjoys a symbolic esteem

among the Atattirkists; the government often sends "folk-
loric" ensembles (the dancers are usually university
students) on European tours to represent the pure Turkish
spirit. In villages, the saz and the zurna are played
largely in the traditional style, but neo-folk styles
emanating from the ubiquitous radio are having an effect
on even the proverbial shepherd.

Turkish (Ottoman) classical music has suffered from

benign neglect and even hostility from the ideological
purists since the founding of the Republic. In the half
century which has elapsed, Turkish classical music has
never been admitted into the State Conservatory; it has
been excluded from performances in the prestigious state
performance halls in Ankara. Classical musicians now find
their patronage mainly in the radio stations and at the
Istanbul Conservatory (Istanbul Belediye Konservatuari).
There is a small output of records of classical Turkish
music in Istanbul and occasional public performances in
addition to the regular Conservatory concert season. A
few strong performers can be heard, both vocal and instru-
mental, but the truly outstanding instrumentalists, such
as Yagar (tanbur), Sayin (ney), Orhon (kemenge), and Kosal
(kanun), do not seem to have any disciples to carry on
their high-standards of musicianship. Half-hearted
attempts are made from time to time to give Turkish classical
music a more modern image. Arel and other composers have
attempted a polyphonic treatment, without appreciable
success. In 1972, Sayin caused a minor sensation by
unobtrusively quoting the themes from Beethoven's Ninth
Symphony and violin concerto in the midst of a long ney
taksim in the makam Rast. A few popularly written method
books for various Turkish instruments have also appeared
on the market, further indicators of modernizing of this
traditional music.

It is difficult to predict the future of Turkish

classical music. On one hand, many intelligent musicians
tell me that the genre was dying and had, at most, ten years
life left. On the other hand, latest news from Turkey has
it that the Ministry of Culture has decided at last to
found a State Conservatory of Turkish Music, to include
classical styles. (Ungo5r 1975). Perhaps these two develop-
ments portend the same future; as in Iran, a dying art is
given a new, official life and is transformed into "neo-
traditional" music.

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 Paradoxically, the symbol of Ottoman power, the
mehter band, performs regularly today at the Military
Museum in Istanbul and is often sent out of the country
on tour by the government. The band apparently represents
the heroic, victorious Turks of the distant past (say,
pre-sixteenth century) and not the despised Ottomans of
recent centuries. Revived in 1952 after 126 years of
inactivity, the new mehter has replaced the long Asian
boru with European valve trumpets and much of the
repertoire is recently composed (see Signell 1967).

As of the early 1970's then, the musical mix in

Turkish culture is anti-classical, pro-European, and
ideologically in favor of folk.

European classical music is governmentally

sanctioned and supported as the price for being accepted
in the international community of nations. It is detested
by the masses and tolerated by the educated, urban elite.
A handful of European-trained musicians and composers have
attained some international recognition.

Turkish folk music, especially the self-conscious

neo-folk style with notation, large choruses and orchestras
of sazes, is enthusiastically enjoyed by every social
faction and is officially approved and encouraged by the
government as representing the only true Turkish music of
the past, unsullied by Arab or Persian connotations of
laziness or old-fashioned orientalism.

Turkish classical music lingers on today in a

state of siege, with ideological rocks being rained on
its head and the artistic sustenance slowly giving out.
Defensive because of its archaic texts, Oriental techniques,
and historical liabilities, Turkish classical music is
still searching desperately for a niche in modern Turkey.

The popular varieties of Turkish music, not dis-

cussed in this paper for reasons of space, can briefly be
described as leading a rambunctiously eclectic life. The
music of the night-clubs, the record industry and the radio
stations runs the gamut from light classical Turkish to
European pop to Arabic to American rock to gypsy, with a
uniquely Turkish flavor in most of them. Scorned by the
intelligentsia and frowned upon by the government, Turkish
popular music blithely forges ahead with the most energy
and the least self-consciousness of all contemporary genres.
The clearly ideological factors in this musical
equation would seem to be due to a number of social and
historical developments. First, the crisis of national

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identity is still a Turkish problem, a legacy of the
Ottoman past. Atattirk's attempts to create a Turkish
identity sometimes seem a bit artificial to the non-Turk,
but the problem becomes clearer when we remember that
Turkey has no natural boundaries, has a multi-ethnic mix
and was continuously threatened by the West since the
sixteenth century (see Ward and Rustow 1964:438). More-
over, the "take-off" period of modernization was fairly
late, approximately 1908-28 (ibid.; 435). Other factors
which might account for the uncertainty, defensiveness,
and slow modernization would be illiteracy, estimated to
be at least 50 percent, and religious opposition to
modernization. In short, these factors have combined to
influence Turkey's musical development in such a way as
to debilitate Turkish classical music in the name of
modernization and to hold back European classical music
due to cultural resistance of the masses. The combination
of these two factors has worked to prevent a successful
"Third Stream" synthesis of musics of East and West in
Turkey so far.
JAPAN

Whereas Turkey was at the corssroads of two

continents and in the path of European expansion for
centuries, Japan was an island country with the natural
boundaries of the sea, remote from aggressive neighbors.
Whereas Turkey was multi-ethnic, polyglot, and multi-
religious, Japan has always been culturally and racially
homogenous. Turkey, for these reasons faces the crisis
of national identity in the past century, but Japan has
never had reasons to seriously question who the Japanese
are for a thousand years.

For a period of two and a half centuries, (ca.

1600-1868), Japan deliberately closed the doors to almost
all foreign influences. Yet, because of a combination of
uniquely Japanese factors, the country was modernized
in a remarkably short time. We don't need many reminders
that the land of Sony, Honda, Toyota, high-quality rolled
steel, and the world's largest super-tankers ranks among
the highest in the world in all indices of modernization:
GNP per capita, literacy rate, industrialization, urbaniza-
tion, mass media, life expectancy, etc. How or in what way
did these factors affect the development of Japanese music,
and how did Japan get from Kabuki to Ozawa, and what
accounts for the contrast with Turkey? The history of Japan
and the story of its rapid modernization has been more than
adequately covered by publications in English; even
Japanese music has a small but sizable literature now in
English (especially, for the purposes of this paper, Malm

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1963, 1971 and 1975). So I will sketch in the Japanese
developments of the last century or so with broader
strokes than was the case with Turkey.

Admiral Perry's "black ships" did signal the sudden

opening of Japan to European and American influences as
early as 1853. But the process of modernization, in the
true sense of the word, was already advanced at that time.
In the mid-nineteenth century, the Tokugawa government
had become highly centralized and effective (Ward and
Rustow 1964:441). The merchant class, though considered
socially inferior, was rich and successful (ibid.:444).
Craftsmanship was of such a high order as to amaze the
post-Perry foreigners. Literacy was hardly universal yet
at this early date, but it has been estimated that a
phenomenal (for that day) 40 to 50 percent of Japanese
males were receiving some formal education by the end of
the Tokugawa era (Dore 1965, 1967). And the Japanese,
long accustomed to borrowing from China, attached no
stigma to learning from foreigners (Ward and Rustow:442).

The reign of Emperor Meiji (1868-1912) termed the

Meiji Revolution, produced many dramatic changes in
Japanese life, both superficially and substantially. An
constitution was promulgated, the military was rapidly
and effectively modernized, the economy "took off,"
universities were remodelled along French lines, and the
public school system was founded after the Dutch.
Where the Turks were forced to start their revolu-
tion from the top down, the Japanese were able to effect
changes with broad impact immediately on almost the entire
populace, through the medium of public schools. A new
music was, from the very beginning, part of the revolu-
tionary process. A music supervisor of the Boston public
schools, Luther Whiting Mason, arrived in 1880 to bring
advice on "modern" music to the elementary school
curriculum in Japan. The initial Japanese decision was to
blend the best elements of East and West, but the new
fervor for reformation swept away most of the Japanese
traditions for the time being (Malm 1971:267). The
principal result was that Japanese children, in a universal
system of education, became accustomed to European or
American songs set to Japanese texts, as seen in Example 7,
"Ch8-ch6," reproduced from a Ministry of Education school
songbook published the year after Mason's arrival
(Monbushe 1881):

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ChachO, ch8ch8, Butterfly, butterfly,
Na no ha ni tomare; Light upon the cabbage leaf;
Na no ha ni aitara, If you're tired of cabbage leaves,
Sakura ni tomare; Light upon the cherry tree;
Sakura no hana no, Cherry flowers only bloom,
sakayuru mi yo ni; For just 3 nights and 3 days;
Tomareyo asobe, Butterfly, butterfly,
Asobeyo tomare. Stop and play, play and stop.

Not only this type of music education, but this exact song
has hardly changed in almost a century, as demonstrated by
Example 8, recorded recently in Tokyo (Koizumi 1970:162).

The Japanese koto (zither) and kokyi (bowed lute)

were displaced in the classroom by the piano and organ, but
some school songbooks did include tunes in Japanese scales
and even samisen-(lute)like accompaniment, as shown in
Example 9, taken from a mid-Meiji publication (Izawa 1892:
48):

Nagarete no yo nimo One hears about the

nadakaku kikoekeri; famous flowing waters;
Oi o yashi nau As we grow older, think
taki no hibiki wa. of the waterfall's echo.

The title of Example 9, Y8r8 no Taki, "Old Folks' Waterfall,"

and the import of the words are obviously closer at this
time (mid-Meiji) to heartfelt Japanese ethical sentiment
than the earlier song. Ethical training has always been
an essential component of Japanese education.

Mason's group of students became the Tokyo Music

School in 1890 and eventually evolved into the present Tokyo
Geijitsu Daigaku or Tokyo College of the Arts ("Geidai").
The latter serves as the Juilliard of Japan today, but
traditional Japanese music and instruments have been
restored to the curriculum as well.

Since the Emperor Meiji was the focal point of

modernization in the first stage of the process (a paradox
of sorts), the gagaku imperial court orchestra was revived
from its previously moribund state in order to better
glorify the Emperor. But now, in addition to performing
the ancient repertoire reaching back to the seventh century,
the court musicians were also expected to learn European
instruments so that they could play waltzes, quadrilles,
and marches. On the Emperor's birthday in 1876, the
gagaku musicians' first attempt at competing musically
with the West included the following program:

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 Kimi ga Yo (National Anthem)
Grand March, daiby8shi
Grand National March
"Beautiful Flower:
Quick March, hayaby8shi
Mitami ware

Harich-Schneider 1973:536-7)

An English bandmaster, John Fenton, had been

training the Japanese in these endeavors since 1869 and
the national anthem of this program was his musical
creation, though the poem dated from the tenth century.
Fenton's setting of the poem was infelicitous, to say the
least; his successor, the German Franz Eckert assisted a
court musician named Hiromori Hayashi (1831-96) in working
out a suitable melody in the gagaku mode of ichikotsu in
1879, which is the version now used. Eckert harmonized
the pentatonic melody and it was performed then and now in
two versions, one monophonic, for traditional gagaku
ensemble, the other harmonized and orchestrated, for band
or orchestra (the gagaku version is heard on the record
accompanying Harich-Schneider 1973). Kimi ga Yo is given
in Example 10.

Kimi ga yo wa Ten thousand years of

Chiyo ni yachiyo ni happy rule be thine:
Sazare ishi no Rule on, my lord,
Iwao to nari te till what are pebbles now
Koke no musu make. By ages united
to mighty rocks shall grow
Whose venerable sides
the moss doth line.

Aside from the schools and the imperial court,

European influences made themselves felt in a new popular
tradition called gunka, or militaristic songs (appropriate
for the era). While the musical value of these songs was,
in general, at or below that of the children's songs, their
social purpose and musically Westernizing effect was
powerful. Some successful songbooks of the day avoided
the complexities of five-line notation in favor of the easy
Chev' system, as seen in the 1896 song of Example 11
(Torii 1896). Nippont*, "Japanese Sword."
The bamboo flute shakuhachi had been a solo instru-
ment originally associated with Zen Buddhist prayer.
During the early Meiji Reformation, shakuhachi masters
managed to survive both Westernization and modernization by
adapting. The bamboo flute played more in chamber ensembles
of traditional Japanese music, sankyoku and jiuta, and turned

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to the secular world of teaching and concertizing (Malm
1963:158), a way of life which continues to the present.
Its honkyoku repertoire, formerly transmitted by oral
tradition, was modernized by notating it in a combination
of Cheve system and shakuhachi solfege syllables, seen in
Example 12, Taki Otoshi, "Waterfall" (Kawase 1966).

Japan's modernizing "take-off" period is estimated

to have been passed in 1890 (Ward and Rustow:435) and the
military victories over China in 1895 and Russia in 1905
confirmed the new status (it seems that wars are useful
for that purpose). In music, Japanese composers were
beginning to show some sophistication in blending
oriental and European techniques. A popular song of that
period, well-known to almost every Japanese alive, is
K8j& no Tsuki, "Moon over the Ruined Castle," composed
by Taki Rentar8 (1879-1903). Published in 1901, the song
employs the hemitonic pentatonic in scale of popular
Tokugawa music, but the melodic movement is unmistakeably
dictated by the harmonic requirements of the minor mode,
as seen in Example 13.

By the time of the Second World War, Japan's

extraordinary advantages in adapting to modernization
paid off to the extent that defeat in that war was in some
ways turned to advantage. The resilient Japanese were
able to enter the post-war world with new factories, new
institutions, and new attitudes. For a country which
first made contact with the outside world and began
"developing" little more than a century ago, Japan has
cultivated a prolific garden of musical variety. In the
European idiom, quantity and quality of performance
ability is striking. It is not out of the ordinary for
Japanese music students at Juilliard to walk off with
first prizes. Seiji Ozawa currently holds down the conductor-
ship of two major symphony orchestras simultaneously and a
number of Japanese musicians are competing on the profes-
sional jazz scene in America. Tokyo is the home of more
first-rate orchestras than New York. Walking down the
quiet lanes of Tokyo before dinner time one hears the
sounds of children practicing their music lessons--on the
violin or piano, not the koto or samisen.

At the same time, Japanese composers have so

completely assimilated the European-American-International
idiom that they can write confidently in that style and
have their works performed abroad. Typical of such
assimilation is a piece such as there is nothing identifiably
Japanese about Microcosmos by Mayuzumi that I can detect.
Composed in 1957, it is scored for clavioline, guitar,
musical saw, vibraphone, xylophone, bongos, congas and piano.

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 Co-existing peacefully alongside the European is
the separate but equal world of traditional Japanese music.
I have the distinct impression that there is very little
overlap in audiences between the two worlds, nor is there
any animosity. The luxurious new state concert hall, the
Kokuritsu GekijO, plays host to bunraku puppet dramas one
week and Aida the next. There seems to be a renaissance
of a sort of the traditional arts in post-industrial
Japan; the concert-goer on any given day in Tokyo will
have difficulty choosing from among the numerous offerings
of kabuki, n8, bunraku, koto, samisen, biwa, shakuhachi,
jiuta, kouta, and rakugo performances.

A strong indicator of musical assimilation is the

extent to which creative and original use is made of
synthesizing the old and the new. Perhaps the most
impressive example I can think of in this regard is the
performance a month ago at the Smithsonian Institution in
Washington, D.C. of the Nippon Ongaku Sh~dan, Ensemble
Nipponia in English. Led by Miki Minoru (born 1930), the
group played with superb musicianship and technical skill
both traditional Japanese music and avant-garde compositions.
Further proof of the degree of successful blending of
styles is found in: Takemitsu's November Steps for biwa,
shakuhachi, and orchestra; Mayuzumi's TenpyOraku for
gagaku orchestra; and Okamura's jazz shakuhachi.

The popular music scene, briefly put, is bursting

with trompe l'oreille imitations of Elvis Presley, Stevie
Wonder, Charlie Parker, Elton John, Johnny Cash, etc., etc.
But the equally popular traditional Japanese kay8kyoku
thrives, as do a hundred other kinds of Japanese,
foreign, and blended styles.

The state of the musical arts of all persuasions,

then, is a very healthy one, with a few exceptions.
European music has been completely assimilated to the
degree that Japanese can compete with Europeans in this
area. Traditional music flourishes, though its appeal to
the younger generation is at present limited. Folk music,
which I have omitted from this discussion, is quietly
declining in the villages, to be replaced by professional
matsuri musicians (a natural result of the modernization
process).
CONCLUSIONS

Musically speaking, modernization and Europeaniza-

tion are not the same. Trumpets and violins, Amaryllis
and the Beatles, are European; the use of notation, school

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music, paid public performances, radio and television,
are examples of modernization. The use.of harmony and
melody in the Turkish national anthem, Istiklal Maril,
is European but the concept of an anthem relating to
nationalism is modernizing.

Although McDonald's has got a strong foothold in

Japan, as has the television drama Columbo, Mexican tacos
never caught on. After the first flush of reforms and
Westernization, both Japan and Turkey learned to pick and
choose which foreign models to adopt and then, with time,
how to adopt food, clothing, department stores, or music
to Turkish or Japanese tastes.

Because Japan had such favorable conditions for a

rapid development and such confidence in self-identity
always, the traditional arts fared much better than they
have in Turkey. A strong ideology needed to push through
a slow revolution in Turkey caused traditional music to
be sacrificed. But it seems to me that once the historical,
economic, and religious problems in Turkey have a chance
to work themselves out, the climate for both Turkish and
European music will be more hospitable.

The development of both "foreign" and home-grown

musics in these two countries can certainly be expected
to follow parallel lines in many respects, but this brief
investigation of Turkish and Japanese musical processes
in modern times suggests to me that each country will also
follow uniquely nationally distinct paths.

REFERENCES CITED

Aks{it, Sadun Kemali

1967 500 yillik Turk musikisi antolojisi.
Istanbul: Ttirkiye.
Arel, H.S.

1968 Ileri
T.Hrk TUirk Musikisi
musikisi Konservatuari.
nazariyat dersleri. Istan
Dore, R.P.
1965 Education in Tokugawa Japan. Berkeley:
University of California Press.

1967 Aspects of Social Change in Modern Japan,

ed. Princeton.

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Ezgi, Suphi
1953 Nazari ve ameli Turk musikisi. Vol. 5.
Istanbul: Hisnfitabiat

Gbkalp, Ziya
1959 Turkish nationalism & Western civilization.
London: George Allen & Unwin.

Gok9en, Ilhami
1975 "Kemalism and music." Unpublished paper
read at Middletown, Connecticut annual
meeting of Society for Ethnomusicology.
Harich-Schneider, Eta
1973 A History of Japanese music [with records].
London: Oxford.

Inalcik, Halil
1964 "The Nature of traditional society: Turkey,"
in Ward & Rustow (see below).

izawa, Shtji
1892 Sh*gaku Sh8ka II. Tokyo: Dai Nihon Tosho.
Jansen, Marius, ed.
1965 Changing Japanese attitudes towards
modernization. Princeton.

Kawase, Teiji, ed.

1966 Taki otoshi [shakuhachi score]. Tokyo:
ChikyQsha.
Koizumi, Fumio, ed.
1969 Warabe uta no kenkyif. Tokyo: Warabeuta no
KenkyO Kangy8kai. Vol. 2:162.
Lewis, Bernard
1968 The Emergence of modern Turkey. 2nd edition.
New York: Oxford.

Malm, William P.
1963 Japanese music and musical instruments.
Tokyo: Tuttle.

1971 "The Modern music of Meiji Japan," in

Tradition & Modernization in Japanese
Culture, Donald H. Shively, ed. Princeton.

1975 "Chinese music in nineteenth century Japan,"

in Asian Music VI - 1,2.

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Monbusho (n.a.)
1881 Shigaku Shoka Shi. Tokyo: Monbush8.
Nagai, Micho
1971 "Westernization and Japanization: The
Early Meiji transformation of education,"
in Tradition and Modernization... D.
Shively, ed. (see above)

Oztuna, Yllmaz
1969 Tuirk
M.E.B.
musikisi ansiklopedi (I). Istanbul:

Reinhard, Kurt and Ursula

1969 Les Traditions musicales: IV: Turquie.
Buchet/Chastel.

Sansom, Sir George

1949 The Western World & Japan. New York:
Knopf.

1952 A Short cultural history of Japan, 2nd

edition. New York.

Saygun, Adnan
1964 Horon [musical score for clarinet & piano].
New York: Southern.

Signell, Karl
1967 "Mozart and the mehter," in The Consort
XXIV.

1974 "Esthetics of improvisation in Turkish art

music," in Asian Music V-2.

(in press) Makam: Modal practice in Turkish art music.

Seattle: Asian Music Publications.

SOzer, Vural
1964 Tuirk mUzisyenler ansikopedisi. Istanbul:
Atlas.

Torii
1896 Dait8 gunka. Tokyo: Dai Nihon Tosho.
Ung6r, Etem Ruhi ed.
1975 "istanbul Ttirk musikisi devlet konservatuarl
agilirken," in Musiki Mecmuasi, no. 313
(December 1975).

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Ward, Robert E. & Rustow, Dankwart A., editors.
1964 Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey,
Princeton.

Yekta, Rauf
1921 "La Musique turque," in Lavignac, ed.,
Encyclopedie de la musique, part 1, vol. 5.
Paris: Delagrave pp: 2945-3064.

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 Ex. 1

Ag5AR.zn 5AZ(r,]SEJ4AI Etr

Ak~akem~vd -fvf-- ,;- I fzt-ff;

Ex. 2

Senui R4ST 4ARKI t Cdl Cfedi

Yi- ne bir gull ni-hal al- di bu gon- 1u- mU

Yi- ne bir gul ni- hal al- di bu gon- lii- mu

Sim ten gon- ca fern b be- del ol gu- zel

Sim ten gon- ca fem b1 be- del ol gu- zel

A- te- 8i ruh-ler- i yak- t1 bu gun- lu- mu

A- te- ni ruh- ler- i yak- t- " bu gn- u- mi

- | "1- i f - {
Pur e- da pur ce- fa pek k-i- 9uik p k gii-zel
92 IL AO

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Ex. 3

U??ak: eSen Kizl Tanburi Cemil

A.. fir
AL.Ar-I . .lrI.. .. ,P-.
1!r-I1 [ IE p -,
. .E 1P-
FE

~"f'~k" A
Jid
L .w?M BbfiNFP w

X~il~F##~t~~-- C

FE FE F 32 -lu

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 Ex. 4

NiKAVENT LAM SsMAiSi 4M~eCe~,mi

usa: skskai senas

i. MAN

SAM"Jo I I 'IA* I I i V ;

?(ekc.

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Ex. 5

ISTtKLAL MARSI
S6z: MiTzik:

Mehmet Akif Zeki Ong6r

ma ftlr 6. 7,7 4a

r-r-ree nn P

*.. l>- ' J)" 1'0 ~ I , , " , ,"z 'hl' ki - .

/f

I E .L/s,1_/ i l'l't~ #" #". na z /i- "/-/ ;'k c!_~ X,,,,#~ cawl iri, n'., ,# t.i

,w 101 f I- 1J11 ro be Ic! I III------f~

I ---j |: mI N ---~-
Ii I I MP J iJ l I i.

L0 '/, 1,,,/1 I ? .. . I . :
. v-e- sa-? 7, c . ; s ,I l? I -W ,T
LII~?L

---mm.-__ - mo r ,i < d'--L -' t- _ - '

ad ' . .1. ?1.C!" -
u w m ji - i I, I I , I I i 1
L- , - "- ._. -
1 iti... . , '1 J0 101
i'. M i.i, r-,, , e7 l, " "i,
k7m f ..- :- 1 -;- -- '

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2

HORON
Ex. 6 A. ADNAN SAYGUN
Molto vivo ( J.I=56)
B% ClarinetO

f . -

Piano ff

-A1.

7i p

it cm =Qrn
7'4 ..I IF

0 t

k4 I I

) Copyri
753-10 International Copyright Secured Printed in Italy
All Rights Reserved Including the Right of Public Performance for Profit
"WA4NINGI Any person who copies or arrangesall or part of the words or mulic of thias mulical csmposition
sholl be liable to an action foa injunction. domges and profits unader the United Storates Copyright Low."

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 Ex. 7

[aftcr MtiabA]

-- / :- 7 4 79 A

.7 . / I - - .
Ll l ow

41F 0 w r 4w W,

Ex. 8

59.7 i a 5 a 5

cha-cho
A 1.

4S-Fi $ W- ii 1 i alat i i AnA -`- 4f -it : a , , r4 -- rit - t .- -t - ft

64 '4to Irai o ttt 0t
GoEoL~t T(ns>6/Est~r atoma atti

59.7 Butterfly, Butterfly 59.7 5 5 S. 59.7 ' + S " 3

'IN 12
** - ,*trt 4l -6:. . ?t12
Srfl . ,buttely .
Stopped
Tird .1 f Os i.lo a .rope I o.

AI 1 4 i 4
ht .bpped .o. dt.ty.
From ,i... . 00 h....
It DOW. pWyKltlAy, AyIY. tr.b

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Ex. 9

rartcr IzaaJ

III
v ao 4-- --

-" -t - v ?

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Ex. 10

Ki-mi ga --- yo --- wa, Chi-yo Di-- Y chiyo ni

Sa- za- re i-shi no, I-wa-o to na- ri te

kI i

Ko-ke no mu- su ma- dto

ftr A 1~

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Ex. 11

ii

(Pq 9 M MT)
iii
3.2 1 2 3 5 5 5 6 1 2 1-

3.4556561 2.1 2 3 22,

4 s 4 a tv

El

3t 1.1.2 1 v
*5
1.1 2 4 6 6 6 5 3, 3,

2 2 2. 2 2 2 2 1 - 1,

+I - - -_-

3 5 3 5 3 6 1.3

5 . 3 5 . 3 2.3 2 7 2--
4 4 i + 3 e *a f

1 2 3 4 6 6 6 1.1.2 3-

2 2 2 . 2 222 1 - 1, 0,1
avt v k 7 ' I - -

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Ex. 12

4iT

"PI ol.- ?

4 %we
1*4

I'

046

101
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Ex. 13

$10 tsPtL Reftf 30a

IL--4 - -

- Z-~- II7 ~

102

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