Turkish Usuls for Darbuka Players

RHY-057 What are the main Turkish usuls a darbuka player should know? #

Here’s the core set, with the number of beats in each (Wikipedia, Chromatone):

• Sofyan: 4 beats
• Semai: 3 beats
• Türk aksağı: 5 (2+3)
• Yürük semai: 6
• Devr-i hindi: 7
• Düyek: 8
• Aksak: 9 (2+2+2+3)
• Ağır aksak: 9, slower and usually notated 9/4
• Curcuna: 10 (3+2+2+3)
• Aksak semai: 10
• Devr-i kebir: 28
• Hafif: 32

RHY-058 What is sofyan? #

Sofyan is the basic 4-beat usul (4/2, 4/4 or 4/8). Spoken, it’s “dü-üm tek tek”: a two-beat low stroke followed by two light ones. On darbuka that’s D - T K (grid: quarters). Varlık Ergen also gives “düm te ke düm tek” as a filled form. Salih Bora describes sofyan as two nim sofyan (2 beats, “düm tek”) joined together. You’ll find it under light classical songs and ilahis. (Vocables from Varlık Ergen and Salih Bora.)

RHY-059 What is düyek? #

Düyek is the 8-beat usul, notated 8/8. Its stroke shape, D T - T D - T -, is essentially the Arabic maqsum, so if you know maqsum you already know düyek. Baba Yaga even lists “duyak” as the Turkish name for maqsum.

RHY-060 What is the difference between aksak and ağır aksak? #

Speed, mostly. Both are 9-beat 2+2+2+3 usuls, and ağır means “heavy/slow”: ağır aksak is the slow classical version, usually written 9/4, while aksak is the lively 9/8 you hear in songs and dance music. For dancers, that 9/8 aksak is what gets heard as karsilama.

RHY-061 How are usuls written in Turkish notation? #

Traditional usul charts put the strong (düm) strokes on an upper line and the light (tek) strokes on a lower line, above the melody (CompMusic, Universitat Pompeu Fabra). The vocables carry duration as well as sound: düm versus dü-üm (single or double length), tek versus te-ek, and tekkya for a pair of light strokes. Read the vowels and you’re reading the rhythm.

RHY-062 Why don’t I find Turkish usul stroke patterns agreeing between books? #

Because plenty of usuls exist in several recorded versions (classical versus folk, Ottoman versus modern), and the vocable spelling varies from book to book (curcuna has been written as “düüm te kaa düüm teek tek”). Some online tables, Chromatone among them, also use their own accent schemes that don’t match conservatory usage. For exact strokes, go to a trusted method book or to recordings.

RHY-102 How are the Turkish usul syllables actually spoken? #

Varlık Ergen’s usul guide spells them out like this (doubled vowels are held longer):

• Nim sofyan (2): “düm tek”
• Semai (3): “düm te ka”
• Sofyan (4): “düüm tek tek”
• Türk aksağı (5): “düüm teek tek”
• Yürük semai (6): “düm tek tek düme tek te ke”
• Düyek (8): “düm teek tek düüm teek”
• Aksak (9): “düm teke düm tek tek”
• Raks aksağı (9): “düm te ke düüm teek tek”
• Curcuna (10): “düm te ka düm tek tek”
• Aksak semai (10): “düüm te ka düüm teek tek”

Other books spell them differently, so read the vowel length as duration and you’ll cope with any of them.

RHY-103 Is düyek really the same as maqsum? How can I check? #

Yes, and you can check it yourself by turning the syllables into pulses. A Turkish textbook (EBA) gives düyek as düm (1 pulse), te-ek (2), tek (1), dü-üm (2), te-ek (2): eight pulses in all. Lay that on an 8th grid and you get D T - T D - T -, which is exactly maqsum. Varlık Ergen gives the same syllables, so two sources agree. The textbook also marks the strengths: the two long strokes (te-ek, dü-üm) are strong, the first düm and the short tek half-strong, and the final te-ek weak.

RHY-104 Is türk aksağı D - T - T confirmed by Turkish sources? #

Yes. “Düüm teek tek” is 2+2+1 pulses, and that gives you D - T - T (8ths), matching the table row. Darbuka Planet’s and Carmine Guida’s “Turkish 5” (D k T k k, counted “12 123”) is a filled version of the same thing, with the dums and teks in the same places.

RHY-105 How are bigger usuls built from smaller ones? #

Turkish theory stacks them up:

• Sofyan = 2 × nim sofyan (Salih Bora).
• Curcuna = 2 × türk aksağı, i.e. 5 + 5 (Salih Bora; also noted in Turkish textbooks).
• Aksak = sofyan + türk aksağı, i.e. 4 + 5 (Salih Bora).
• Düyek = 2 × sofyan.

This differs from the dance-drumming view. Belly-dance charts group aksak as 2+2+2+3 and curcuna/jorjina as 3+2+2+3. Neither is wrong: both describe the same cycle, one from the syllables and the other from the dance accents.

RHY-106 Why are aksak and curcuna written in so many different meters? #

It comes down to tempo and how crowded the melody is. Salih Bora lists aksak in 9/4, 9/8 and 9/16, with the 9/16 called yürük aksak (the fast one). Curcuna is properly 10/16, but it gets written in 10/8 when the melody gets crowded (Turkish textbooks). The strokes don’t change; only the note values do.

RHY-107 How do you “beat” an usul on your knees? #

The traditional method (Istanbul University handout, TDV encyclopedia) is this: düm with the right hand on the right knee, tek and its variants with the left hand on the left knee. For tâ-hek, both hands come up and strike both knees together. Do it to a metronome first, then take it to a bendir or darbuka, with düm in the centre and tek near the rim.

RHY-108 What’s the difference between “small” and “large” usuls? #

Size, roughly. The TDV encyclopedia calls usuls of 2 to 15 beats “small” and anything from 16 beats up “large”, while noting that the classification is still debated. As a darbuka player you’ll rarely go beyond the small ones. The large usuls, hafif (32) among them, belong to classical fasıl and religious music.

RHY-109 Did Ottoman musicians always say düm and tek? #

No. The TDV encyclopedia notes that earlier periods used other syllables: ten, nen, tâ for longer strokes, te, ne, ni for shorter ones. The modern düm/tek vocables are a later standardisation.