Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Ney and Sanabresa Melodies


Turkish Mansur Ney


There are tunes which are made for instruments, I mean the fingering of an instrument is easy with certain melodies. Whether it is in certain keys, or uses small intervals...its works well.

The music of Sanbaresa/Aliste and Zamora, as I begin to learn about it, lends itself just easy to the Gaita Sanabresa/Aliste as well as to the Turkish Ney....I do not know why, it just does.

There are hypothesis for this: one being the old melodies of Zamora region have a small interval range (mainly in a 5th or 6th)

It is more modal in style (Medieval perhaps?) and seldom jumps intervals (fast use of arpeggios) like  "Celtic music" (I hate that term) often does...
all of which makes the fingering on the ney easier and more natural, as in Ottoman ney music.

Whether there is a historical connection between the East and Sanabresan/Alistan melodies, I do not say, but "Aksak rhythms" are also found in Ottoman Turkish music as well as in the region of Zamora. Who knows...?

Further research needs to be done into the music of Zamora/aliste/Sanabresa and its surrounding regions including northern Portugal (Tras-o- Montes) to deduce other similar characteristics.

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