Both musical and social identities of Sadettin Kaynak had direct projections on the course of popularization, and this has been the main reason to affiliate this process of popularization with him. Kaynak, during the last quarter of the Ottoman Empire and the first quarter of the Republic of Turkey, was one of the most important composers of Turkish music. He was prominent during the transformation from traditional to popular style, with his music education, music knowledge, his taste of music which are apparent in his performances and compositions. His use of maqams and usuls, the freedom he brought to melodic structure, form, lyrics and rhythmic structure, his employment of folk music material in his melodic structure, his notion of instruments competing with the vocal element (aranağme-arasaz), his new form called “fantasy” and his style of performance were also significant and they reflect how Turkish music changed and how it was popularized. Sadettin Kaynak gave concerts in his tuxedo in many European cities including Paris and Berlin. He was a soloist and gazelhan as well as a reputable composer and a performer who tried to maintain a vivid contact with the social structure of the era throughout his artistic life. He said: “I want to make music for the taste of the public and I want to popularize my music whenever possible”, and the media of the time, that is the record industry, radio, cinema and music halls, gave him the chance to realize his intention. Apart from his identity as a musician, he was also a religious official and a hafiz who studied religion in the Faculty of Theology. He served as the imam of Sultan Selim and Sultanahmet Mosques with his robe and turban on and sang ezan on religious records produced by the Columbia Company. With respect to his origins, Sadettin Kaynak, a religious official and imam, was of great importance and meaning as a composer of Turkish music with his music he started to compose in the cultural environment of Turkey in the first quarter of the 20th century with this identity. Sadettin Kaynak, considering the socio-economic and political conditions of his time, who had been a great intellectual and artist of the Republic, achieved something very difficult, with these two contradictory identities indeed supporting each other. He became famous and popular especially for his film scores, which he began in the 1930s. After the prohibition of singing songs from Arabian movies of Egyptian origin in Arabic, Kaynak became a composer of new songs composed according to the subject matter of Arabic songs or “adapted” songs which were made by writing Turkish lyrics to the original ones. Out of his 669 compositions, Kaynak composed 218 pieces for 14 Turkish films and another 47 pieces for Egyptian films. These pieces were performed by the most famous and popular artists of the period not only for the films but also for the records. Moreover, these works of Kaynak were performed in the popular nightlife clubs of the period, “gazinos”. Consequently, by means of all these factors, Kaynak had an important role in the popularization of Turkish music. The object of this thesis is to show Sadettin Kaynak’s personal, social and musical identities and also, the process of change that Turkish music experienced, in parallel to his life between the years 1895-1961, from not only a musical perspective but also by considering economic, political and ideological occurrences in the society. In this study, we will explain how music was popularized and was used to spread western culture, its values and modernization to layers of society within the modernization project after the Republic of Turkey was founded. Sadettin Kaynak will be analyzed with his different identities and particularly, popularization of Turkish music will be analyzed with his identity as a composer of film scores by inductive and deductive reasoning, that is from the period to Kaynak and from Kaynak to the period. In order to realize this study, three methods were employed: Analysis of audio- visual sources as well as the literature review, scanning of period newspapers and magazines between 1929 and 1961 and music analysis. These methods were applied within “industry of culture” and “culture of masses” notions and theoretical approaches about criticism of culture.Sadettin Kaynak, Türk müziğinin en sancılı dönemi Osmanlı’nın son ve Cumhuriyetin ilk çeyreğinde müzik eğitimi, icrası ve bestelerindeki müzik anlayışı, gerek melodik yapıya ve forma, gerekse söz yapısına ve ritmik yapıya getirdiği serbestlik, melodik yapıda halk müziğinden faydalanması, söz unsuru ile yarışan bir saz anlayışı, “fantezi” adlı yeni formu ile geleneğin popüler tarza dönüşmesinde Türk müziğinin en önemli bestekarlarındandır. O’nun film müziği besteciliği bu dönüşümü sağlayan en büyük etkenlerdendir. Cumhuriyet politikaları doğrultusunda geleneksel müziği unutturmak amaçlı başlatılan yasaklama süreci, halkın radyolarda Arap müziği yayınlarını aramaya başlamasına, ardından II. Dünya Savaşı ile kapanan Avrupa pazarlarının yerini Mısır filmlerinin almasına sebep olmuştur. 1938’de filmlerin şarkılarının Arapça söylenmesi yasaklanınca; şarkılar konularına göre yazılan yeni şarkılarla ya da üzerlerine Türkçe sözler yazılarak seslendirilmeye başlanmıştır. Böylelikle “Adaptasyon” adı verilen şarkı türü ortaya çıkmıştır. Bu anlayışın en önemli ismi de Sadettin Kaynak olmuştur. Kaynak, tespit edilen 669 eserinin 218 tanesini, 61 film için bestelemiştir. Bu besteler dönemin ses sanatçıları tarafından plaklara da okunmuş, eğlence mekanları icralarının da vazgeçilmezi olmuştur. Tüm bu unsurlar Türk müziğinin halka ulaşıp popülerleşmesini sağlamıştır. Bu çalışmanın amacı, gerek tümdengelim yöntemiyle yaşadığı dönemin genel özelliklerinden Sadettin Kaynak’a, gerekse tümevarım yöntemiyle Sadettin Kaynak’ın sosyal, müzikal kimliklerinden yaşanılan döneme ulaşılarak, O’nun film müziği besteciliği paralelinde Türk müziğinin popülerleşmesini incelemektir. Tarihsel araştırma, gazete / süreli yayın taraması ve müzikal analiz yöntemlerinin kullanıldığı çalışmada bu yöntemler popüler kültür / kitle kültürü teorileri bağlamında değerlendirilmiştir. Anahtar Kelimeler: Türk müziği, Sadettin Kaynak, film müziği, popülerleşme
