The Stylistic Features of Tanburi Cemil Bey in view of His Kemence Performances

Being one of Turkish stringed instruments, kemence has had a significant place in Classical Turkish Music since the 18th century. To determine the difficulties in its playing technique and improve its interpretation on the basis of education, it is necessary to analyse its traditional style in a comprehensive way. The analysis of old records makes it possible to get true results in order that today’s kemence interpretation can provide solutions to the difficulties encountered in stylistic and technical education. Having been the earliest performer of kemence in Anatolian record history, Tanb r Cemil Bey is thought to be adequate to start with in the analysis of traditional kemence style. Accordingly, the records of instrumental compositions interpreted by Tanb r Cemil Bey have been written on notation. Interpretation differences have been observed between the records analysed comparatively with the editions published in the same period. Having been categorised under certain ornamentation names, this data has been ranked from the most to the least. Thus, the characteristic ornamentation technique has been observed in Tanb r Cemil Bey’s performance of kemence. Furthermore, it is come to such a supposition that other professional musicians like Tanb r Cemil Bey may have been influenced by one another as the technique in question has great similarities with the technique of hafez’s at that period. Through this work on Tanb r Cemil Bey’s style among traditional kemence styles, it has been aimed to demonstrate that it will play an important role for the stylistic and technical education in kemence methods which are created today and will be in future and at the same time, be beneficial in modern composition techniques.