Tradition and Revival : How do Musical Styles of Karachays Living in Turkey Change?

János Sipos, Tradition and revival : how do musical styles of Karachays living in Turkey change? It is not indifferent for the ethnomusicology to study how musical styles of different people change, and how new forms take shape on the base of earlier styles. We can study these phenomena among Karachays, whose first generation escaped from the Russian occupation and migrated from the Caucasus Mountains to Turkey. They had a living traditional culture, but the second generation was occupied with the mere existence and adaptation to the hard circumstances. Though they did not forgot their language, dissociated themselves from the songs of the ancestors. Now the third and fourth generation is searching for the traces of the old culture and songs to strengthen their identity in the Anatolian melting pot with a very strong assimilating power. Without written tradition, they unearth the old melodies from two sources. One is knowledge of the grandmothers and grandfathers who while looking after grandchildren sing and hum, teaching them melodies skipping over a generation. The other source comes from the Caucasus, where with the loosening of the Soviet pressure nations become more self conscious, which induced new musical processes. Since the 90’s CDs flow from Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia to the Karachays living in Turkey. Young people learn these songs with great enthusiasm, accepting them expressing their identity, though in many instances these melodies have nothing to do with traditional Karachay musical culture. In the present paper I examine this learning and re-learning process, touching how new musical forms take shape while several element of older styles continue to live after seemingly dying out. I examine too if it is possible to connect specific musical forms to individual people, and whether they can express and/or symbolize national character and feelings. In connection with the musical universalias I direct attention to the necessity of continuing the comparative work on larger areas

Finnugor nyelv versus török-mongol népzene

Sipos János, Finnugor nyelv versus török-mongol népzene A népzenekutatás során fel merül a kérdés: hogyan függ össze a nyelv és a kultúra? Vagy még specifikusabban: hogyan függ össze a nyelv és a népzene? Azonos nyelvcsaládba tartozó népek kultúrája és ezen belül zenéje rokonítható-e? Mielőtt igennel felelnénk, gondoljunk csak az indoeurópai nyelvcsaládba tartozó norvégokra és a kurdokra – vajon köztük is szoros genetikai, kulturális vagy éppen zenei kapcsolatot feltételeznénk? A kérdés különösen érdekes a magyarok számára, hiszen nyelvünk a finnugor nyelvcsaládba tartozik, míg népzenénk legfontosabb rétegei az északi-törökség és a mongolok zenéjével mutattak rokonságot. A felvetett kérdéssel szorosan összefügg annak a vizsgálata is, hogy vannak-e biztosan finnugor illetve biztosan törökös rétegek a magyar népzenében? A kérdések továbbgondolásához felidézem neves népzenekutatóink mostanában ritkán idézett és időnként félreérett véleményét és felhasználom 24 éve folyó ázsiai kutatásom tapasztalatait is. Finno-Ugrian language versus Turkic-Mongolian folk music Do the language and the folk music of a people hang together? Do the culture and inside the culture the folk music of people belonging to the same phylum is necessary akin? Before saying yes, as an example let us think the Norwegians and the Kurds booth speaking Indo-European languages. Do we suppose them to be in genetic, cultural or musical relation? These questions are especially interesting in the case of the Hungarians, because at the time of the land-taking our language was Ugrian (with some Ugrian-Turkish speaking population) while the most important layers of our folk music shows is related to the folk music of Northern-Turkic and Mongolian people. All these have lots to do with another problem: are there layers in the old Hungarian folk music which are definitely of Turkic or of (Finno)-Ugrian origin? To think over these questions I recall the opinion of our most prominent scholars and also use the lessons of my Asian researches in the last twenty four years