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The Guitar in Turkey: Erkan Our andthe Istanbul GuitarscapeKevin
Dawe & Sinan Cem EroluPublished online: 19 Apr 2013.
To cite this article: Kevin Dawe & Sinan Cem Erolu (2013)
The Guitar in Turkey:Erkan Our and the Istanbul Guitarscape,
Ethnomusicology Forum, 22:1, 49-70,
DOI:10.1080/17411912.2013.774157
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The Guitar in Turkey: Erkan Ogur andthe Istanbul
GuitarscapeKevin Dawe & Sinan Cem Eroglu
The authors ethnographic research on the guitar in Turkey has
begun to reveal the
instruments multi-faceted role within Turkish music, culture and
society. We discuss the
emergence and development of unique playing styles alongside
several customisations of
the instrument, focusing on the work of Erkan Ogur who is known
as the inventor of the
fretless classical guitar. As well as Ogurs ongoing
contribution, several other Turkish
guitarists continue to expand and deepen the role of the guitar
within the Turkish
soundscape. This has been accompanied by a growth of local
interest in the guitar, guitar
making, pedagogy and retail, all of which are bound up with
wider historical, cultural
and technological changes and developments, and issues and
tensions, within Turkish
society.
Keywords: Turkey; Istanbul Guitar; Fretless Guitar; Guitar
Making; Music Retail;
Guitar Technique; Erkan Ogur
Introduction
In their recent guitarplayer.com blog video, Bilal Karaman
(soloing on fretless solid-
body electric guitar) and Ahmet Bilgic (accompanying on
nylon-strung acoustic
guitar) are so moved by the Call to Prayer or ezan that they
decide to play along
Kevin Dawe is Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of
Leeds, UK. His publications include the single-
authored books The New Guitarscape (Ashgate, 2010) and Music and
Musicians in Crete (Scarecrow, 2007), and
the co-edited collection Guitar Cultures (Berg, 2001). His
current writing projects include a co-edited
volume on ecomusicology and a co-authored book on musical
instruments, politics and natural
resource use. Correspondence to: Kevin Dawe, School of Music,
University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK.
Email: [email protected]
Sinan Cem Eroglu is a multi-instrumentalist, concert and
recording artist, record producer, composer and
arranger from Istanbul, Turkey. He plays kaval, guitar, fretless
guitar and kopuz (three-stringed baglama). As a
fretless guitarist, he has given lecture-recitals at Codarts
Rotterdam World Music Academy in the Netherlands.
Sinan has released two albums. His PhD continues at Istanbul
Technical University on the Musicology and
Music Theory Programme, where he is also a teaching assistant.
Correspondence to: State Conservatory of
Music, Istanbul Technical University, Macka Campus 34357, Macka,
Istanbul. Email: [email protected]
# 2013 Taylor & Francis
Ethnomusicology Forum, 2013
Vol. 22, No. 1, 4970,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17411912.2013.774157
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with it.1 The muezzin (the one who calls to prayer) is clearly
audible through therooms open window. The two Turkish guitarists
would seem to be respectfully
acknowledging the influence of a wide range of sonic phenomena
upon their musical
sensibilities, demonstrating their openness to a wide range of
local cultural
phenomena. Of course, musicwhich is considered haram or
unlawful, forbidden
in Islamic thoughtdoes not normally feature in discussion of the
ezan, even if the
modal basis of Karamans improvisationmakamdoes.2
Karaman and Bilgic can be considered representatives of a large
body of artists who
have embraced the guitar in Turkey and continue to use it in
diverse but locally-
responsive ways. Despite the increasingly international profile
of some of Turkeys
guitariststhe example above is taken from guitarplayer.com,
which also features
videos and blogs by musicians as well known and as varied in
their playing styles as
John McLaughlin and Andy Timmonsthe absence of a substantial
academic study
and overview of the guitar in Turkey was of great surprise to
the authors. However,
the overwhelming evidencesome of it subjected to critical
examination in this
articledoes indeed suggest that the guitar has become a
significant musical vehicle
and means of cultural expression for instrumentalists within the
Republic. Yet the
extent of the guitars popularity was a further surprise, at
least to the author-as-
outsider (Dawe), despite the growing profile of Turkeys
guitarists and given the fact
that there are many other different types of musical instrument
played throughout
the country, including those known to be crucial to the
construction of the Republics
complex musical identity (particularly the long-necked, plucked
lute, the saz, which
comes in a range of sizes, including the ubiquitous baglama).
Indeed, when writing of
metal musicians in Istanbul, Pierre Hecker refers to their
refusal to accept social and
dominant cultural codes with open resistance to religious
conservatism and Islamism
(Hecker 2012). In our minds then was the question: If metal
music with its use of the
guitar can fuel tensions within Turkish society, is it the same
for all guitars and
guitar-based music? Fortunately, Pierre Hecker reports that in
his experience this is
not the case (Hecker, email, 21 December 2012). Moreover, such a
view is shared and
confirmed by wide-ranging guitarist and author-as-insider, Sinan
Cem Eroglu.
However, we must also note Irene Markoff s recollection of the
moment when
Preston Reed, the American acoustic steel guitarist, jammed
impromptu with
phenomenally popular Alevi musician Arif Sag during a live
satellite broadcast on
Turkish national television in 1997 (Markoff 2001). According to
Markoff:
this broadcast reached 100 million viewers and drew a flood of
calls. In an e-mailthat he sent to a number of people after his
return from Turkey, Reed described theexperience as having taken on
a cosmic transformational quality as he applied hisWestern chord
voicings, syncopated rhythms, and simple harmonic progressions
1www.guitarplayer.com/video.aspx?bctid=1787043576001§ion=Artists
(accessed 21 December 2012); see
also Introducing Bilal Karaman.
www.guitarmoderne.com/tag/bilal-karaman (accessed 21 December
2012).2Makam (plural: makamlar) are melodic modes used in urban art
music and in some rural folk-music
traditions. See Deniz Atalays Turkish Makam for Fretless Guitar.
http://www.unfretted.com/loader.php?LINK
=/classes/makam (accessed 21 December 2012).
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to the snake-like quarter-note trilling and Middle Eastern
licks. In Arif Sags view,Prestons percussive guitar technique has
actually been a part of baglamaperformance practice for centuries.
(Markoff 2001: 7912)
Our study of the guitar began to open a complex world of musical
meanings that
were impossible to separate from questions about history and
ideology, ethnicity and
identity, moral beliefs and values, and processes of
modernisation, westernisation and
Turkification. Given this emerging complexity, the main problem
for the authors was
to know where to start in a largely uncharted area. In some more
recent academic
publications on Turkish music (as already noted), the guitar
does receive some
mention, providing important clues as to how one might begin to
frame and situate
the instrument within the Turkish musical and cultural
landscape. Further scholarly
examples include comments by Martin Stokes (2010) on the use of
the flamenco
guitar within the Turkish popular genre Arabesk (in the Arabic
style), which, he
argues, provided trans-Mediterranean colourings in the songs of
Orhan Gencebey in
the 1980s, for example, in the song Batsin Bu Dunya (A Curse on
the World), where
flamenco guitar features alongside elektrosaz (the electric
version of the long-necked
lute mentioned above). Moreover, yet another erudite contributor
to the study of
Turkish music and culture, Elliot Bates, notes that in the hands
of Turkish multi-
instrumentalist Erkan Ogur the perdesiz [fretless] guitar has
practically become a new
Anatolian folk instrument (Bates 2011: 97). In these examples,
the guitar has both
musical and culturally-symbolic significance. Moreover, Sinan
Cem Eroglu also
confirms the guitars embeddedness in contemporary Turkish music
culture:
When one looks at albums chosen randomly on the shelves of music
markets, it canbe seen that guitar is used on most albums, across a
wide range of genres, butespecially in the performance of Turkish
folk music. This demonstrates that guitarhas become an important if
not principal instrument in the Turkish music scene.Spanish,
nylon-stringed, classical guitar is played on many albums. It was
not easyto establish the guitar as an instrument of Turkish
traditional music becausetraditional musicians generally are
conservative and are resistant to change. Butgood guitarists and
accompanists have broken down this idea and have skilfullyemployed
it. Erdem Sokmen (b.1957) has played on thousands of
traditionalalbums to the extent that people realized that guitar
could be used in traditionalmusic. I think its not just about the
player. It is also about the arrangement of thepiece. If the
arrangement is bad, people can say that guitar is not played well
and itdoes not fit with that particular form of music. (Eroglu,
email, 15 December 2012)
The history of the guitar in Turkey is, of course, connected to
the entry of western
pop, rock, jazz and classical music into the Turkish soundscape,
all of which
influenced the development of the Turkish music industry, the
music featured in
State-controlled media, the emergence of such genres as
Anatolian rock (in the mid-
1960s), the establishment of guitar departments in
conservatoires (the first one
founded by Ahmet Kanneci in 1975 at The Middle East Technical
University in
Ankara) and the organisation of the first Istanbul International
Jazz Festival in 1986.
We steer a route and maintain a focus through this complex
history of musical
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developments and interactions by charting the career of Erkan
Ogur later in this
article. As is well documented in Turkey, changing political and
economic contexts
have played a crucial role in determining not just matters of
the freedom of
expression, but also the ability of the majority of people to
spend money at any time
on what might be regarded as non-essential items. In other
words, guitarists at
various times have either gone underground or emigrated, and
guitars remain an
expensive item for many people in Turkey. Nonetheless, there is
a thriving guitar
scene in Turkey today, especially in Istanbul. In this article,
we begin our discussion in
the 1970s; the history of the guitar in Turkey goes back
further, but is beyond our
scope here. We keep to our timeframe with good reason: in 1976,
Erkan Ogur built
his first fretless classical guitar. His work provides a point
of entry and departure in
this preliminary study. But, as is noted later, his travels with
a guitarfor instance,
around Europe in the 1970sreflected both his academic and
musical ambitions and
aspirations, and introduced him to a wide range of musicians,
musical styles, musical
instruments, musical equipment and manufacturers that would not
have been
accessible in Turkey at the time.
Despite military coups in 1971, 1980 and 1997, and insurgencies
against the
Turkish government since the 1980s with great loss of life, the
country experienced
stronger economic growth and greater political stability from
the 1980s onwards. This
was the time when music retailers, such as Zuhal, report a
growth in sales of their
guitars (along with the teaching of classical guitar in schools
and the heavy-metal
guitar phenomenon) that carried sales into the 1990s. Martin
Stokes suggests that this
also
marked the tipping point at which guitars and saz-s became more
or less equallyavailable and affordable in cities, and coincided
with the emergence of the rock barsin Istanbul (and thus the
seeming need for all middle class Istanbul kids to buyguitars and
form bands). Before this, forming a band and finding an audience
for ittook money, effort, contacts and imagination. (Stokes, email,
20 December 2012)
Among the many musicians who have lived through various periods
of crisis
within the Republicwhen their work was in danger of censorship
and when many
of them had to leave the countrysome names remain commonplace in
any
discussion of the history of the guitar in Turkey, and in
several cases are crucially
linked to the establishment of particular musical genres and
styles (with the guitarist
featuring either as a soloist, group leader or part of a group).
There are, therefore,
several musicians who must be mentioned at this point in what
amounts to a long
but by no means exhaustive list. (The reader might also wish to
sample some of these
artists work on YouTube at this point.) In writing the first
substantial article on the
guitar in Turkey, we must mention the following musicians and
their attachment to
various genres: Erkin Koray (b.1941; Anatolian rock), Kamil
Ozler (b.?; jazz), Neset
Ruacan (b.1948; jazz), Erkan Ogur (b.1954; Anatolian folk music,
classical, jazz,
blues), Onder Focan (b.1955; jazz), Asim Can Gunduz (also known
as Awesome
John, b.1955; blues and rock), Ahmet Kanneci (b.1957; classical
guitar), Bekir
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Kucukay (b.1958; classical guitar), Hasan Cihat Orter (b.1958;
Anatolian folk music,
classical, jazz, rock), Akin Eldes (b.1962; blues and rock), Cem
Nasuhoglu (b.1962;
jazz), Hakan Utangac (b.1965), Tarkan Gozubuyuk (b.1970)
(guitarist and bass
guitarist, respectively, of heavy-metal band
Mezarkabul/Pentagram) and Yavuz Cetin
(19702001; blues, rock, psychedelic rock).3 Younger musicians,
such as Cem Tuncer,
Cenk Erdogan, Sarp Maden, Ozgur Abbak, Deniz Atalay, Cem Koksal,
Cem Duruoz,
Ozgur Cali and Metin Turkcan, Tolgahan Cogulu, Sevket Akinci and
the group
Mutant (Eylul Bicer, Jose Blasco, Deniz Gungoren, Giray Gurkal,
Cansun Kucukturk,
Bakis Ustun) and Erdem Helvacioglu (see Cleveland 2007) help to
maintain and re-
affirm the guitars established high profile in the media and in
concert within the
Republic, and, furthermore, such guitarists have established
their own niche within
an international context. Pierre Hecker also reminds us that the
guitar has been an
important component of contemporary Turkish protest music (see,
for example, the
bands Bulutsuzluk Ozlemi and Bandista) (Hecker, email, 21
December 2012).
It is also clear that the influence of a great many guitarists
from outside Turkey
including such contemporary luminaries as North Americans Joe
Satriani and Pat
Metheny, and Spaniard Paco de Lucaprovide inspiration alongside
those guitarists
(as mentioned above) from within Turkey. In many cases, there is
a relatively
unadulterated adoption of the style of such guitar luminaries,
without recourse to or
incorporation of Turkish musical concepts and ideas. This is
common throughout
the world, of course. However, as noted in Dawe (2010),
guitarists of many cultures
are also keen to take their own local music to the guitar (from
Brazil to Madagascar
to India). The focus here is on those Turkish musicians who have
recast the guitar in
the light of ideas, concepts, sensibilities, sounds and
techniques found in Turkish art
and regional Anatolian folk-music. Moreover, we propose that
this is more than a
passing fad with guitar a la Turka, where the instrument might
provide for a mere
pastiche of local music. We propose that the guitar has become
firmly embedded in
Turkish musical culture, to the extent that it has become one
instrument among
many that is used in the musical expression of Turkish ethnicity
and identity (at least
sonically and in the hands of the musicians who play it).
Perhaps this is most clearly
seen in the work of Erkan Ogur, whose provenance lies in eastern
Turkey where his
home city of Elazig continues to function as an important
cultural landmark on the
political map of Turkey. Such deeply-rooted cultural
sensibilities involving a strong
sense of place directly inform not only his musical style, but
also his approach to the
guitar as shall be revealed later.
3This shortlist, combined with the other guitarists mentioned
elsewhere in this article, will give the reader a
reasonably comprehensive entree into the world of the Turkish
guitar (with, at the time of writing, performances
by most of the guitarists mentioned available on YouTube). See
also the collection of videos on the blog: http://
istanbulmusic.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/best-turkish-guitarists.html
(accessed 21 December 2013). Discussion of
the (electric) bass guitar in Turkey is beyond the scope of this
article, but three names provide a starting point:
Alp Ersonmez (see the Quartet Muartet and his work with Tarkan,
Sarp Maden, Telvin (Erkan Ogur) and Ilhan
Ersahins Istanbul Sessions); Ismail Soyberk (well-known studio
musician and Akin Eldes Group); and Nurhat
Sensesli (studio musician).
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It is proposed that the guitar has been crucial to the
establishment and
development of contemporary musical instrument retail within the
Republic,
involving both import and export and the movement of musical
instruments into,
through and out of Turkey into neighbouring countries (e.g.,
Azerbaijan). This has
been a particular achievement of retailers such as Zuhal who
report links with other
and, generally, smaller musical retailers throughout Turkey and
across its borders. A
number of Turkish luthiers have now turned their attention to
the guitar, following in
the footsteps of Ekrem Ozkarpat, who is said by some to have
been the first
professional guitar maker in Istanbul (but, in fact, he was
originally apprenticed to
fellow Istanbul guitar maker Murat Sezen).4 Ozkarpat has made
guitars for Erkan
Ogur, Cenk Erdogan, Sinan Cem Eroglu and Tolgahan Cogulu, among
others. Thus a
complex web of musical, historical, social and cultural
relations started to reveal itself
as we began to enquire more deeply into the guitar phenomenon in
Istanbul.
Foundations of the Research Project
In a special Turkey-focused issue of the online journal Music
and Anthropology,
Martin Stokes (2006) argues that new directions in Turkish music
study will benefit
greatly from a critical and systematic consideration of everyday
popular culture,
which has long been neglected. On reading this, it struck us
that we might try to
contribute to this critical and systematic study through our
research on the guitar;
after all, studies based on or around the guitar have revealed
much about popular
culture elsewhere in the worldwith popular culture conceived of
as a broad area of
study involving ethnography, performance studies, cultural
history, the media and
music industryso why not Turkey? Moreover, the notion of
everyday popular
culture, as experienced in our field-site of Istanbul, is also
taken here to mean the totality
of the experiences bombarding the senses. For example, as one
traverses the city,
especially through the long, winding and steep road that runs
through the Tunel district,the sight and sounds of musical
instruments, including guitars, are striking. In this
location, one also hears the sounds of a wide range of musical
genres and styles booming
out of music shops (mainly Turkish popular and regional
Anatolian genres and styles).
Some Turkish musicians move among these genres, as well as other
more globally
mobile musical forms, such as rock, blues and jazz, seemingly
with ease and with
virtuosic facility. Erkan Ogur is one such musician. Our
research also shows the extra-
ordinary influence that his guitar playing has had on a younger
generation of guitar
players in Turkey, including the author-as-local-musician, Sinan
Cem Eroglu (Figure 1).
In order to provide a preliminary explanation for the role and
significance of the
guitar in Turkey, various methods of research were considered by
the authors. The
claim here is that top-down models of globally mobile popular
culture forms are
readily complemented by bottom-up collaborations among
ethnomusicologists and
4See www.gitaratolyesi.com/ekip.html;
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSO3n3r_AFI. Online guitar makers in-
clude: www.kirliguitars.com/Pages/default.aspx;
www.sinanrifat.com/; muratsezenguitars.com (all websites
accessed 21 January 2013).
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members of musical communities (Titon 2012 [2003]: 84). It must
be stated that in
developing our collaboration, the insideroutsider dialectic
provided for a critical
stage in the launch of our project.5 It was a useful conceptual
tool and structural
framework that enabled us to think through and be more aware of
the processes
involved in moving in and standing back from our sources and
informants. But this
framework began to quickly fall away (or, at least, we became
less conscious of its
value) as views merged and a consensus was achieved from the
evidence collected by
two researchers with a common goal and shared enthusiasm: one a
professional
musician and academic, the other an academic and fan of the
Turkish guitar, but
both guitar players.
At every twist and turn of this research, the outsider was able
to discuss his
findings with a highly informed and articulate insider,
involving a process of acute
dialogical editing (see Feld 1990 [1982]) and constant
on-the-spot translation into
English.6 As the work progressed, the outsider was able to
question and probe the
views of the insider, sometimes challenging his point of view on
particular subjects
and not taking his interpretation as the only valid one.
Nevertheless, this was more
than a notional encounter with the natives point of view (Bloch
1998; Geertz 1976),
Figure 1 Sinan Cem Erolu (left) with Erkan Our, 2008.Source:
Photograph by Sinan Cem Erolu.
5Despite the doubts cast regarding the usefulness of the
insideroutsider (dialectical) model during this research
project, we note Ergun and Erdemirs solid account of the theory
(Ergun and Erdemir 2010: 17).6This might be seen as a corruption of
the basic ethnographic enterprise, which might claim to see the
world as
the insider does through an outsiders eyes, with the local
language a fundamental aspect of, if not central, to
establishing that worldview. But we would argue that we still
had all the benefits of a local linguistic
consciousness (after Bakhtin 1981) in the field, and access to
vital and constant testing of accuracy and detail in
translation (see Clifford 1997).
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acknowledging and respectful of his and others beliefs,
religious or otherwise
(Engelke 2002). And, moreover, this ethnographic study employs a
range of data
collection techniques and observational strategies, providing
for the kind of thick-
descriptive, context-sensitive reportage (Geertz 1973, 1983)
that hopefully makes for
substantial and convincing evidence, as well as a faithful
representation and
evaluation of locals beliefs and values. In fact, we were both
eager to acknowledge
that the subjects of our research might actually know something
about the human
condition that is personally valid for the anthropologist (Ewing
1994: 571), even if it
was, in this case, what may be seen as a shared enthusiasm for
making music and
talking about the guitar with two guitar
enthusiast-ethnomusicologists.
Into the Field: Istanbul and its Guitarscape
Istanbul is a city that bridges two continents. As such, it
provides for an intriguing
place to study a world-travelling instrument such as the guitar,
given its birth in a
European context and its more recent appropriation into Turkey
(and thus across
into Asia). Present-day Istanbul still has the Fortress Europe
(Rumeli Hisari), built by
Mehmet the Conqueror in 1452 prior to his attack on
Constantinople, which stands
on the western shore of the Bosphorus, whilst the Fortress of
Asia (Anadolu Hisari),
built in the late fourteenth century by Beyazit 1, stands on the
eastern shore.
Ironically, perhaps even tragically, Fortress Europe as we know
it today and as
conceived of in Brussels is now defensive (or, at least highly
cautious) about Turkey
entering the European Union, for a host of reasons too complex
to go into here,
despite Turkeys dogged pursuit of full membership. It is too
facile an idea to conceive
of the guitaramong many other phenomena in contemporary Turkeyas
a further
musical bridge between European and Asian worlds in Turkey, its
value as a medium
for cultural expression in Turkey being well established. Its
difference seems to
matter more to purists and ethnomusicologists than most of the
musicians we spoke
to. Yet we do not believe it to be completely an un-contentious
instrument, especially
when linked to certain musical genres (such as metal).
In focusing on Istanbul, a bustling megacity (or alpha city) of
an estimated 13
million people in the Greater Istanbul Municipality (see Aksoy
and Enlil 2011: 181),
one is immediately thrust into an intensely dynamic and
hyper-complex social and
cultural milieu where a seemingly endless stream of contemporary
connections are to
be made between music, history, culture and society. There are,
of course, key
indicators of nation-building at work, of the effects of mass
immigration (relevant to
all the musicians interviewed herein), and the effects of the
powerhouse that is the
Turkish music industry, consisting of recording studios, radio
and satellite television.
Related to the development of immensely popular musical genres
such as Arabesk,
multi-track audio production technologies have also become
central tools in the
production and modernisation of arranged folk and Anatolian
ethnic music in
Turkey (see Bates 2011). Moreover, the appropriation and ongoing
development of
new instruments, including some mentioned here, add further to
the tools of
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production and modernisation available to realise the changing
aspirations of many
Turkish musicians.
Tunel is the district of Istanbul where one finds the guitar
most in evidence, along
with many other aspects of Turkish popular culture, both musical
and otherwise,
incoming and outgoing (from McDonalds to Starbucks, specialist
kebab houses to
restaurants specialising in regional Anatolian cooking). It is
clear to see that musical
instrument retailing dominates one end of the business landscape
of this large area of
Istanbul, based around a long descending road to the
Genoese-built Galata Tower
into Beyoglu, the heart of modern European Istanbul. Here the
outsider-as-author
was overwhelmed by the seemingly endless displays of musical
instruments in shop
windows, with the great variety of musical instruments simply
stunning in their
variety. Dawe was struck by the guitar-shaped baglama-like
instrument as featured in
Figure 2a. It is actually a solid-body instrument unlike the
commonplace baglama to
its left, but it does have electronic pick-ups like an electric
guitar and is thus
amplified like an elektrosaz (see Stokes 1992a).
Amidst the great variety of Turkish musical instruments and
musical instrument
hybrids was the large and wide-ranging selection of acoustic and
electric guitars.
Given the scope of this article, it is only possible to mention
a small selection of
instruments available, but these included top-end electric
guitars from Gibson and
Fender, as well as metal guitars from BC Rich and Ibanez, and
acoustic steel-strung
Figure 2 (a) Balama and guitar-saz (centre, left and right) in
Tunel, 2010. (b) Fenderand Gibson guitars in Tunel, 2011.Source:
Photographs by Kevin Dawe.
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and classical acoustic guitars from the more expensive hand-made
guitars to the least
expensive copies. Istanbul-based music retailer, Zuhal, note
their difficulty in selling
high-end guitars in Turkey and the predominance of what they
define as cheap
Chinese-made guitars.7 Indeed, they are able to sell up to
32,000 cheap to mid-range
classical guitars per year in the Republic (the classical guitar
is taught in schools), and
they also report strong sales of guitars used in metal music.
Ali imseker, Zuhals
manager, glowing with pride, claimed that his company was the
largest (with 70
employees) and longest-running music retailer in Tunel and that
both his company
and guitars are now crucial to the business of music retail in
the country (Interview
with Ali Simseker, 7 September 2011). However, they now also
face competition from
international companies such as Yamaha who have established
dealerships in Turkey.
Zuhal admit that they are keen to encourage guitar companies
(such as Fender and
Ibanez) to manufacture in Turkey in order to cut down their own
import costs.
The guitarists whose work we discuss briefly here operate
within, and can be seen
to respond to, the distinctive, intense and concentrated
cultural milieu that is the
guitar quarter of Tunel. (To the author-as-outsider, it did seem
that every guitar
player knew of, or was actually a friend of, every other guitar
player in the city, as if
the guitar fraternity in Istanbul was one big family.) In
addition, the evidence that the
guitar was firmly established as an instrument of both popular
culture and the
academy in Turkey, at the hub of a guitar network that
encompassed but reached
beyond Istanbul, began to multiply as we searched both offline
and online. A sample
of such evidence includes: the establishment of classical guitar
departments in both
Ankara at the Middle East Technical University and also Istanbul
Technical University
(as noted elsewhere);8 leading teachers as heads of music
departments;9 guitar
societies and Internet communities;10 guitar festivals;11 the
occasional publication of
Gitar dergisi (Guitar Digest) magazine; and the appearance of
such programmes as
Istanbul-based tv8s Disko KraliGitar Gecesi (Disco KingGuitar
Night).
Yet even if musicians are conscious of and support the
well-established local esprit
de corps, professional guitarists remain eclectic and
cosmopolitan musicians,
entrepreneurs and opportunists highly skilled in a range of
musical fields, from
Turkish classical music to jazz, guitar playing to film scoring
and arranging, and they
are prepared to travel widely to secure work. Cenk Erdogan
(b.1979), for instance,
studied composition and arranging as a scholarship student
(first class honours) at
Bilgi University in Istanbul. Cenk has since given lectures at
Berklee College of Music
7www.zuhalmuzik.com (accessed 21 January 2013).8See
http://www.gitar.metu.edu.tr/ (accessed 21 January 2013). The site
includes the following information:
METU Classical Guitar Society (Klasik Gitar Toplulugu) is
Turkeys first guitar society [] The society has
raised some talented artists (such as Ahmet Kanneci, Cem Duruoz,
Orhan Anafarta, Emre Sabuncuoglu, and
Gutay YIldIran) and organizes voluntary classical guitar
lessons, continuous music activities, and the annual
International Classical Guitar Festival (which is also the
longest running classical guitar festival in Turkey).9See, for
example, http://muzik.yasar.edu.tr/en/kursad-terci/ (accessed 21
January 2013).10See, for example, gitardernegi.com;
www.facebook.com/perdesizgitar;
www.facebook.com/ClassicalGuitarAs-
sociationOfTurkey (accessed 21 January 2013).11See, for example,
http://antalyagitarfestivali.com/ (accessed 21 January 2013).
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and has studied the yeyli tanbur (a long-necked upright bowed
lute) with a master of
Turkish art music.12 He has his own recording studio, is in
demand as a producer,
arranger, songwriter and session musician, and regularly
accompanies Turkish pop
stars on their tours of the Republic. A national award winner
for his film scores (he
won the Yesilcam Soundtrack of the Year award in 2009), he has
also performed with
international jazz/world music luminaries, such as Kai Eckhardt
and Trilok Gurtu.
Cenk Erdogan uses both fretted and fretless electric and
acoustic guitars, and is
regarded locally as an expert in terms of how to record and
compose for them. His
playing style and technique are built from a unique blend of
knowledge of local
Turkish music with international jazz styles and Spanish
flamenco. He uses a variety
of tunings on his guitars and also occasionally employs the use
of the E-Bow, an
electronic bow, in performance (as seen in Figure 3c) as well as
looping techniques.13
A rich history of experimentation with musical instruments in
terms of the ways
in which they have been used in various genres and ensembles is
in evidence at the
State Conservatory of Music, Istanbul Technical University. For
Kevin Dawe, this facet
of the Conservatorys work was evidenced during his attendance at
the Cuneyd Orhon
Kemence Sempozyumu at the State Conservatory in December 2010,
where the life
and work of Cuneyd Orhon was celebrated and his and other
musicians experiments
with the klasik kemence (three-string, pear-shaped bowed lute)
were revealed.14 It is at
this conference that Dawe met Sinan Cem Eroglu and Tolgahan
Cogulu (b.1978).
Both of these musicians are employed by the State Conservatory,
where Tolgahan
teaches classical guitar. Sinan and Tolgahan recently joined
forces to form The
Microtonal Guitar Duo.15 Tolgahan has developed and plays the
adjustable
microtonal guitar, as made to his specifications by luthier
Ekrem Ozkarpat in
2008 (Figure 4). Probably the most instantly-accessible
introduction to Tolgahans
microtonal guitar and how to play it can be found in the videos
that he has uploaded
onto YouTube.16 In his book The Adaption of Baglama Techniques
into Classical
Guitar Performance Cogulu (2011) aims to overcome not just the
ways in which
guitarists appropriate the playing techniques and styles of
certain Turkish instru-
mentshe includes a range of techniques, studies and arrangements
to facilitate this
but also extends the use of the guitar in the composition and
performance of
Turkish classical music, which is expanding its sonic horizons
like its western
counterpart. This is particularly true in terms of the guitar,
the music composed for it
and the widespread use of extended guitar techniques (see the
more globally-based
12For historical and contemporary overviews and perspectives on
Turkish music, involving surveys broad
enough to provide background for both the yeyli tanbur and the
electric guitar, see Bates (2011), OConnell
(2005), Picken (1975) and Stokes (1992a, b). See also a recent
article by Bates that focuses on the power of the
saz within Turkish culture and society (Bates 2012).13See E-Bow,
www.ebow.com/home.php (accessed 21 January 2013).; looping pedals
allow the live and
simultaneous recording, playback and multi-layering of parts by
a single instrumentalist or vocalist.14The conference site was
still active at the time of writing:
www.kemencesempozyumu.itu.edu.tr/en/ (accessed
21 January 2013).15http://uk.myspace.com/microtonalguitarduo;
see also: www.tolgahancogulu.com/ (accessed 21 January 2013).16See
Microtonal Guitar Part 1.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYK_PF9WTRE (accessed 21 January
2013).
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discussion of this process in Dawe 2010). In this way, Tolgahan
is further securing the
role of the guitar as an instrument of Turkish music whilst
further extending its range
within the world of contemporary classical music.
It is interesting to note the contrast between the work of such
guitarists as Erkan
Ogur and Tolgahan Cogulu. Ogur is strongly rooted in the folk
music of Anatolian
and baglama/saz technique, whereas Cogulu uses the guitar to
think polyphonically
and harmonically about Turkish folk music (a fact drawn to Dawes
attention by both
Sinan and Martin Stokes). The work of Cenk Erdogan evidences
further an approach
Figure 3 (a) Cenk Erdoan in his studio playing the yeyli tanbur.
(b) Cenk Erdoans six-string and eight-string (nylon-strung)
fretless Spanish classical guitars made by Ekrem
Ozkarpat. (c) Cenk Erdoan in his studio playing on the fretless
neck of his double-necked electric guitar (made by Ekrem Ozkarpat)
whilst using an E-Bow (hand-held
electronic bow) in his right hand.
Source: Photographs by Kevin Dawe, 201011.
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to the incorporation of the guitar into the Turkish soundscape
by an individualistic
stylist and interpreter. Such contrasts show the unique
contributions made by a
number of guitarists across the generations. However, it is to
the work of Erkan Ogur
Figure 4 (a) Tolgahan Coulu playing his microtonal guitar. (b)
The movable frets of themicrotonal guitar, which are adjustable in
every position and under each of the guitars
eight strings.
Source: Photographs by Kevin Dawe, 2010.
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that we now turn, having set the scene for a closer examination
of his career, music
and relationship to the guitar within the wider Turkish
musicalhistorical context.
A senior and well-established musician within Turkey, Erkan Ogur
may be
regarded as one of the key contributors to the establishment of
the Turkish
guitarscape, with many of the guitar players mentioned above
acknowledging his
influence. By consensus and supported by the range of evidence
presented here,
Erkan Ogur would seem to be the best case study for this
article-length introduction
to the guitar in Turkey. As he is also a close friend and
colleague of Sinan Cem Eroglu,
Sinans thoughts on his own experiences of working and conversing
with Erkan Ogur
over many years are intertwined with our overview of Erkans
work.
Erkan Ogurs work has been well documented, especially in Turkey
where he is a
regular and celebrated guest on television and radio, and in
Eliot Bates wide-ranging
overview, The Music of Turkey, he receives some attention as a
celebrated artist who
has found new ways of articulating the core musical aspects of
Anatolian music
(Bates 2011: 96). What is crucial here, in furthering the
established research dialectic,
is to include discussion of Sinans relationship with Erkan, his
interpretation of
Erkans work, and the influence Sinan has had on Erkan. It should
become clear why
the ethnomusicologist-as-outsider decided to work closely with
the guitarist-as-
insider, given Sinans invaluable and, for an outsider, largely
unattainable knowledge
of Erkans life and music.
The Making of a Turkish Guitarist
Erkan Ogur is not just a guitarist but a multi-instrumentalist,
vocalist, concert artist,
recording artist and film music composer.17 His compositions
combine a range of
techniques and styles, including the microtonal scales and
melodies of Turkish
makam music, jazz harmony and free improvisation. He has played
with many
different artists, including Djivan Gasparyan, Philip Catherine,
Sylvain Luc, Paco
Pena, Joe Levano, Bulent Ortacgil, Ismail Demircioglu, Mikail
Aslan, Derya Turkan
and his Anatolian Jazz Project, Telvin. In evaluating his
contribution to the
establishment of the guitar in Turkeythe Turkish guitar style,
as we may call it
it is claimed that he invented the classical fretless guitar in
1976,18 popularised the use
of the E-Bow as a feature of Turkish guitar performance, created
new types of
arrangements for Anatolian folk songs, and developed a new
improvisation style for
the fretless guitar. He plays fretless and fretted classical
guitar and a variety of electric
guitars in fretted and unfretted form. Crucial here is the
relationship between Erkans
guitar style and his knowledge of and virtuosity upon
instruments played in Turkish
art music and Anatolian regional musics. This includes the kopuz
(a fretted long-neck
17http://erkanogur.gen.tr/ (accessed 21 January 2013). Erkan
Ogurs soundtrack for the 2004 movie YazI Tura by
Ugur Yucel won two awards: the 2004 Golden Orange for Best Music
at the Antalya Golden Orange FilmFestival, and the 2005 award for
Best Music at the Ankara International Film Festival.18See, for
example, the interview with Erkan Ogur:
www.rootsworld.com/interview/ogur.html. For more
information on the history of the fretless guitar inside and
outside Turkey: www.unfretted.net/loader.php?LINK
=history (accessed 21 January 2013)
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lute with movable frets), to which he made alterations in terms
of the conventions of
playing style and construction, and the six-stringed baglama
called the Ogur Sazi,
designed by Erkan and built by Sinans father, Kemal
Eroglu.19
Sinan cannot remember the first time he met Erkan as they have
known each other
since he was a little boy. Kemal, Sinans father, is a luthier
who has built instruments
to Erkans design since the 1980s (Figure 5). As a little child,
Sinan recalls that Erkan
became a family friend and, moreover, he remembers Erkans
appearance being the
epitome of a rock guitar player, including his puffy hair.
Sinans father recalls that, as
a little boy, Sinan played Erkans electric guitars as if they
were his toys and acted like
a rock guitarist himself. When Sinan first listened to Erkans
Fretless20 album, he was
immediately moved by it:
I liked the tunes and mood of the album as an 8 year-old boy. It
was only after someyears that I began to realise Erkans importance
as a musician and the innovationshe was making. I couldnt explore
his musical world too much. Every time he cameto our house he was
always in my fathers instrument making studio. (Eroglu,email, 15
September 2012)
Placing Erkan Ogurs Music
Born in Ankara in 1954, Erkan Ogur grew up in eastern Turkey in
the city and district of
Elazig, which has a strong and distinctive culture of folklore,
songs and dances influenced
by the nation-states surrounding Eastern Turkey, especially
Armenia. For instance, in
eastern Turkey, many of the regional dances are accompanied by
davul (double-headed
drum) and zurna (a type of oboe), but in Elazig, dance also
includes the use of the
clarinet, and the repertoire features unique melodic
progressions that are played out at
weddings and other celebrations (events at which Erkan performed
as a child). We argue
below that todays fretless guitar style in Turkey, as
popularised by Erkan, is a reflection
of his formative years amidst Elazigs music, musicians and
musical instruments.
There are various components to this story. When Ogur was five,
he started
playing the violin without a teacher. This situation stimulated
Erkan to explore the
frequency spectrum of the instrument, unhindered by the demands
of learning a
particular style or repertoire. He subsequently mentioned to
Sinan that this was a
significant training ground for his ear and his ability to play
and intone notes
accurately, an experience that was later to support his turn to
the fretless guitar. At
the age of six, he started to play the kopuz, performing
microtonal makam music.
Moreover, throughout his childhood, several local musicians
affected Erkans musical
approach and outlook; for example, Enver Demiebag, Fikret
Memisoglu and Hafiz
Osman Oge. Such musicians were part of the local professional
performance scene
19See the following for information on Kemal Eroglu:
http://www.kopuzsazevi.com/k_eroglu.htm (accessed 21
January 2013). Yuzume Gulen Agac. 20067. The Tree that Smiles at
Me. Goldsmiths College, UMA Films Co-
Production.20Erkan Ogur. 1994. Fretless. Feuer und Ice FUEC
714.
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and nightlife in the cities of the region, with musicians from
this area also going on to
dominate musical genres that were in themselves a mix of both
folk and urban
cultures, such as Arabesk.
Moreover, the cumbus, which resembles both the American banjo
(metal body) and
the Turkish u^di or oud (with its wooden fretless neck), is very
common in the region
around Elazig. Erkans picking technique and ornaments on the
fretless guitar reveal
the influence of traditional cumbus and oud styles. Traditional
melodies from Elazig
are a prominent feature in Erkans improvisations. On Erkans Bir
Omurluk Misafir
album, fretless guitar improvisations, ornaments and microtonal
melodies were based
on traditional Elazig makam music, which Erkan has said he
learnt by listening
to older musicians there.21 Sinan was able to identify the makam
and traditional
ornaments, as discussed with Erkan on several occasions (see the
examples in Figure 6).
When Erkan was 13, he returned to the violin, but whilst he was
at high school he
started to play the guitar after listening to Jimi Hendrix on
the radio in Elazig. After
Figure 5 Sinan Cem Erolu (left) and Erkan Our (1993) at Kemal
Erolus workshop.Source: Photograph by Kemal Erolu, with
permission.
21Erkan Ogur. 1996. Bir Omurluk Misafir [A Guest for This Life].
KALAN CD184.
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high school, he studied physics at Ankara University Faculty of
Science during 19703.
Then he moved to Germany in 1974 to study physics on a
scholarship at the Ludwig-
Maximilians University in Munich. For three years he studied
there but decided that
he would make a better musician than scientist and did not
finish his doctorate. He
started to study classical guitar by himself, and at that time
he also played electric
guitar in a local band in Munich.
Erkan Ogur and the Fretless Guitar
When he started to play regular nylon-strung Spanish classical
guitar, he played for
1012 hours a day (eventually injuring his wrist), again without
a teacher or
schooling, just with scores, including the transcriptions of
Giuliani, Bach, Villa-
Lobos, Leo Brouwer and other composers whose pieces he found in
the music library
at Munich University. Then he gained a place at the Paris
Conservatory to study with
Oscar Casseras, but realised that he had neither the desire nor
the inclination to
become a classical concert guitarist. In 1976, he made his first
fretless classical guitar
with the intention of playing Turkish makam and microtonal music
upon it. The
fretless classical guitar does not need the player to have a
high-tension muscle posture
Figure 6 (a) Airlama (a traditional melody). Note: The melody is
written in Uakmakam where 2 and 3 are actually 35 cents lower than
their notated pitch. (b)Airlama as played by Erkan Our on fretless
guitar with the addition of ornaments.
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(which is helpful if you have sprained your wrist through
over-practice), because the
tension of the strings is completely different from the normal
classical guitar. This
guitar has a very low action with the smallest possible space
between the strings and
fretboard of the instrument. This low-tension instrument has
become a standard for
all fretless players and luthiers in Turkey. If the space
between strings and fretboard
was high, the characteristic sound of fretless classical guitar
would be different. Thus
players expend very little energy in performance on the fretless
classical guitar. Erkan
designated those standards, mindful of both ergonomic and
aesthetic principles.
In 1980, having come back to Istanbul, he finished his
undergraduate music
studies at the State Music Conservatory at Istanbul Technical
University. There he
studied oud and Turkish chamber music. (Now a visiting professor
at the State
Conservatory, Erkan has his own office there.) After military
service on coming back
to Turkey, he worked as an oud teacher. At this time, his
fretless guitar and kopuz fills
were soon in demand by producers of popular music and can be
heard on Sezen
Aksus CDs, for example. During this period he also produced and
packaged his own
album Perdesiz Gitarda ArayIslar (1983), which features
Anatolian regional melodies
alongside Bachianas Brasileiras No 5 by Heitor Villa-Lobos and
Charles Minguss
Goodbye Pork Pie Hat (Figure 7).
We mentioned previously that his original fretless playing
style, when experiment-
ing with makam, came from the cumbus. But after he learned to
play oud, this
radically affected some aspects of his fretless playing style.
For example, on the album
Gulun Kokusu Vardi (The Smell of the Rose) and his duo album
with Armenianmusician Djivan Gasparyan, Fuad (Movement of Life),
there are many fretless
classical guitar solos that sound like oud taksim-s
(improvisations), especially when
Figure 7 Erkan Ours 1983 album Perdesiz Gitarda ArayIlar
(Fretless Guitar Pursuits).Reproduced with permission.
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one looks closely at the type of ornaments used.22 Realising and
playing the historical
genres, styles and ornaments of Turkish music on fretless guitar
is the most
distinctive feature of Erkan Ogurs work. In this context, Erkan
has examined the
recordings of Tanburi Cemil Bey, Yorgo Bacanos and Udi Hrant
Kenkulian. In Sinans
opinion, he imitated and practised Tanburi Cemil Beys tanbur and
oud playing and
Figure 8 Erkan Ours trademark Steinberger double-neck electric
solid body guitar.Source: Photograph by Kevin Dawe.
22Erkan Ogur. 1998. Gulun Kokusu Vardi, KALAN CD086; Erkan Ogur
and Djivan Gasparyan. 2001. Fuad,KALAN CD231.
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picking styles. Tanburi Cemil Bey developed a rich and agile
picking technique on the
tanbur (long-necked lute with movable frets), which Erkan has
been said to emulate.
On the fretless classical guitar, Erkan generally plays with a
right-hand plucking
technique. He uses apoyando (resting) and tirando (touching)
techniques adapted
from the Spanish classical guitar technique. When he plays with
those techniques, he
uses oud ornaments and melodies because the fretless guitar does
in fact sound like a
cross between classical guitar and oud through the very timbres
and textures created
by the interaction of wood, strings and fingers. Also all chords
can be played easily on
fretless guitar with these finger techniques. When Erkan plays
with a plectrum, he
uses tanbur ornaments and melodies. In this case, the wrist of
the hand holding the
plectrum needs to be near the bridge where the tension of the
strings becomes harder
to trigger and sustain. Both these techniques were taken on to
the fretless guitar by
Erkan, and he uses them to realise makam-based music.
Erkan Ogur has also designed various fretless/fretted guitars,
or, at least, has made
what can be considered to be innovative changes to standard
forms, including a
double-neck classical guitar (fretless/fretted), a double-neck
solid body electric guitar
(fretless/fretted) and an eight-stringed fretless solid body
electric guitar.23 He has
different fretless/fretted guitars for jazz, rock, and Turkish
folk and classical music.
Erkan has also tried out the use of new materials, especially
for the fretless guitars and
necks. His Steinberger guitar has a carbon fibre neck, which
provides the instrument
with strong sustain, also enabled by specially-selected EMG
pick-ups (Figure 8).
Erkans choice of amplification and effects processors must have
also been deemed
crucial for the production of his instantly-recognisable sound.
He uses a Peavey
amplifier, a Mesa Boogie preamp, Boss CS-3 Sustain/Compressor
pedals and a
volume pedal with the Steinberger guitar. Therefore, his tone
can be described as
compressed and further enhanced with use of distortion and
sustain.
Conclusions
Our research on the guitar in Turkey has begun to reveal its
multi-faceted role within
the Turkish soundscape. The guitar in Turkey has to some extent
also become the
Turkish guitar, with the emergence and development of several
unique facets of
playing style and customisation. But the guitar is still
recognisably a guitar with
modifications made to suit local musical practices, aspirations
and sensibilities. The
musical directions and, indeed, destinations of many Turkish
musicians across the
world are the routes that many of them travel with a guitar in
hand. Moreover, some
of them find new work opportunities as guitarists abroad (e.g.,
Mesut Ozgen and
Emre Sabuncuoglu are now university-based teachers of classical
guitar in
California), whilst some guitarists, still based in Turkey, tour
the world (Sinan
Cem Eroglu with Aynur), perform in metal bands (Metin Turkcan)
or fly across the
23See Eroglu (2011) for a discussion of Erkan Ogurs experiments
with other instruments.
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Atlantic Ocean for recording sessions with jazz maestros based
in North America
(Cenk Erdogan).
The ways in which the guitar has become plugged into the
Republics political
economy are noted above, as are the ways in which it has been
appropriated and
accustomised into the local musical context and Turkish
expressive arts through
various musical, social and cultural processes. In this, the
role of new media and
technologies cannot be underestimated in terms of generating
links and national
interest. It is clear that musicians bring a sophisticated local
musical aesthetic to
bear upon their performances on the guitar. The evidence
suggests that this is set to
continue with a likely increase in the niche that Turkish
guitarists, makers and retailers
have already established within the international guitar
community. It is through deep
immersive fieldwork, in this case the lifetime of one young
researcher and the tentative
steps into the Turkish guitar scene by a senior researcher, that
we establish some
baseline data and evidence for the role of key individuals in
the establishment of
Turkish guitar culture. It is clear that Erkan Ogur has been a
driving force behind the
establishment of this instrumental culture and that he has made
a broader contribution
to Turkish musical life beyond the guitar. In an exchange of
research interests,
information and friendship as established between Erkans student
and colleague and
an English ethnomusicologist, we have tried to set the scene for
further research into
the guitar in Turkey as both an instrument of popular culture
and the academy.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the following for their input,
comments and wise
counsel at various stage of this project: Erkan Ogur, Tolgahan
Cogulu, Cenk Erdogan,
Pierre Hecker, Ekrem Ozkarpat, Ali Simseker, John OConnell and
Martin Stokes.
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