Melancholic Modalities: Affect, Islam, and Turkish Classical Musicians

by Denise Gill

Overview

Today, teachers and performers of Turkish classical music intentionally cultivate melancholies, despite these affects being typically dismissed as remnants of the Ottoman Empire. Melancholic Modalities is the first in-depth historical and ethnographic study of the practices socialized by musicians who enthusiastically teach and perform a present-day genre substantially rooted in the musics of the Ottoman court and elite Mevlevi Sufi lodges. Author Denise Gill analyzes how melancholic music-making emerges as pleasurable, spiritually redeeming, and healing for both the listener and performer. Focusing on the diverse practices of musicians who deploy and circulate melancholy in sound, Gill interrogates the constitutive elements of these musicians' modalities in the context of emergent neoliberalism, secularism, political Islamism, Sufi devotionals, and the politics of psychological health in Turkey today. In an essential contribution to the study of ethnomusicology and psychology, Gill develops rhizomatic analyses to allow for musicians' multiple interpretations to be heard. Melancholic Modalities uncovers how emotion and musical meaning are connected, and how melancholy is articulated in the world of Turkish classical musicians. With her innovative concept of "bi-aurality," Gill's book forges new possibilities for the historical and ethnographic analyses of musics and ideologies of listening for music scholars.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190678937
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/01/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	10 MB

About the Author

Denise Elif Gill is an ethnomusicologist specializing in the musics of Turkey and former Ottoman territories. Her research engages music-making and affective practice, Islam, health, gender/sexuality, sound studies, and post-humanism. Her work has been funded by Fulbright and by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS).

Table of Contents

Table of Contents List of Figures List of Examples Acknowledgements Conventions Preface Introduction Melancholic Modalities Rhizome One: "Turkish Classical Music" Rhizome Two: Repertoires of Melancholies Rhizome Three: The Practice of Affect Rhizome Four: The Islamic Roots of Musicians' Melancholic Routes Following the Rhizomes of Melancholic Modalities Chapter One - The Melancholic State of Turkish Classical Music Reforms as Roots Cultural Policies and the Politics of Naming Ottoman Music and the Turkish Nation-State "Shaping Ears and Hearts": Emergent Media Practices Institutional Changes for Practices of Musical Transmission Neoliberalism, Islamic Movements, and the Privileges of Privatization Death of a Genre Chapter Two - Separation, the Sound of the Rhizomatic Ney, and Sacred Embodiment Sufism as Separation Hu as Sound Hu as Instrument Technique Hu as Sacred Embodiment Hu as Istanbul From Life to Death and Sound to Silence Chapter Three - Melancholic Genealogies: Rhizomatic Listening and Bi-Aurality in Practice Learning Melancholy, Learning Love Understanding Mesk Learning from a Master Learning with Notation Becoming Your Lineage Bi-Aurality and the Problem of Assumed Listening Geographies Genealogy, Orientalism, and Orientations Listening Like a Ney Case Studies: Listening Rhizomatically to Me?k Lineages Learning Music as the Practice of Melancholy Chapter Four -- Boundaries of Embodiment in Sounded Melancholy Rendering Melancholy Musical Embodying Gender, Melancholy, and the Boundaries Between The Body's Boundary: Melancholic Musicking and Tears Sema and Sama' Conclusion: Living with the Boundary Chapter Five -- Melancholic Musicking, Healing, and Reparation Melancholy as Illness Musical Modes as Music Therapy Melancholy and Health between "East" and "West" Iconic Melancholic Musicians: Neyzen Tevfik Melancholic Musicking: "There is No Medicine" Musicking as Food for the (Melancholic) Soul Suffering as Remedy: What to Take Away from Melancholic Musicking Conclusion -- Affect in Ethnomusicology and Beyond Bringing the Rhizomes of Turkish Classical Musicians to Bear beyond the Academy Bibliography Discography

Editorial Reviews

"Denise Elif Gill's brilliant book, Melancholic Modalities, defines, describes, and ruminates upon an aesthetic sensibility of pain and melancholy of those Turkish musicians whose repertoire harks back to Ottoman courts and medieval Sufi lodges. A common Turkish blessing, 'May God increase your pain,' becomes a focus for the creation of 'melancholic' music whose ultimate goal is transcendental suffering."— Judith Becker, Professor Emerita of Ethnomusicology at the University of Michigan

"Melancholic Modalities is a beautifully crafted, meticulously researched exploration of melancholic affective practices of contemporary Turkish musicians. It is a powerful epistemological and theoretical contribution to the study of affect, selfhood, subjectivity, and collective identity formation through a practice-oriented approach. With deep theorization of her rich ethnographic evidence and by traversing the boundaries of diverse disiplinary lenses, Gill evocatively decenters troubling and long standing bifurcations of Islamic/secular, and West/Non-West. This book sets a new standard for interdisciplinary ethnography." — Gul Ozyegin, author of New Desires, New Selves: Sex, Love and Piety among Turkish Youth

"In this groundbreaking and multifaceted book,... one of the central contributions of Melancholic Modalities is the multiple ways it can serve as a model for analyzing complex and diverse modalities of listening." — Michael O'Toole, Ethnomusicology 67.3

From the Publisher