Lecture by Prof. Ozan Baysal
Department of Musicology
Istanbul Technical University
Abstract:
Over the past fifteen years, my research on Turkish makam music has been shaped by analytical approaches (beyond scale-based models) to time, structure, and expressive meaning. This talk offers a retrospective reflection on this trajectory, focusing on interrelated strands: cyclical time and prolongational perspectives, text-music interactions, and the application of transformational theory to makam analysis leading to virtual network representations.
The first part revisits the Cyclical Analysis Model and the Time–Makam Analysis Model, both of which approach makam as a temporal process unfolding through interactions between phrase-level rhythm and time (usûl), as well as melodic motions shaped by PerdeÇeşni prolongations and their respective characteristic progressions. Building on this perspective and related musical analyses, I will discuss my further studies on text-music relations in Turkish traditional music, particularly word-painting in Mevlevi ritual repertoire, where semantic, poetic, and musical structures form tightly interwoven analytical layers.
The second part of the talk traces how these conceptual concerns gradually transitioned into the PerdeÇeşni Transformation Model and led to a digital and network-based framework. Drawing on this line of research, I will introduce MakamNetz, an online application designed to model harmonic and modal relations in makam music and to support compositional exploration, analytical learning, and research.
By reflecting on makam analysis as an evolving analytical practice, this talk aims to open a space for dialogue between traditional music theory, contemporary analytical thought, and digital methodologies.
Bio:
Ozan Baysal is a faculty member in the Department of Musicology at Istanbul Technical University. His research spans the history of music theory, makam analysis, and analytical approaches to popular music, with a focus on musical time, structure, and expressive meaning. He has published on conceptual continuities between Ancient Greek and Roman music-theoretical sources and Turkish makam traditions, and has developed analytical models for makam music, including the Cyclical Analysis Model, the Time-Makam Analysis Model and the PerdeÇeşni Transformation Model.
Since 2015, he has led a project-based research laboratory at ITU’s Turkish Music State Conservatory, which he founded through competitive research funding and developed into a sustained research hub where undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students collaborate. He is also a co-founder of MakamNetz, a virtual network platform for makam analysis, learning, and exploration.
Actively engaged in teaching, he offers a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses in music history, theory, and analysis, covering Classical, Contemporary and Popular music. Alongside his academic work, he is active as a composer and sound artist, contributing music to albums, animation, and dance-theatre productions.
Part of the Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy Colloquium Series, this event is sponsored by The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music Department of Ethnomusicology