Article

Collecting Folk Music in the Land of the Zemzems: Report on the Turkmen expedition of 2011

János Sipos

Published in: Ethnomusicology Ireland 5 (2017)

Pages: 151-173 | Published Online: July 2017

https://doi.org/10.64208/MZNB2220

Abstract

I have been doing research work among Turkic peoples for almost thirty years, and in 2011 I had the opportunity to collect music in the Balkan province of Turkmenistan. Since this area is largely inaccessible for researchers, this fieldwork collection has some significance. The article begins with an overview of Hungarian research among Turkic people, focusing on Turkmenistan and the history of the Turkmen people. This is followed by excerpts from my fieldwork and my initial impressions on Turkmenistan. The central focus is, on the one hand, the quite simple folksong repertoire of the women, and on the other hand, the more complex repertoire of the men, which is accompanied by a short introduction to Turkmen epic, the bakhshis and their art. I also dwell on the music and dance of the zikir and the Kushtdepti that originated from Sufi sects. The study contains several notated music examples and introduces video, sound recordings and photos from the fieldwork, which are soon to be published. In sum, this article constitutes an initial report on this particular trip.

Keywords: Turkmen, ethnomusicology, woman’s songs, Sufi, dance, bakhshis, comparative musicology

Author: János Sipos