Muslim Societies in the Age of Mass Consumption

Edited by
Johanna Pink
CHAPTER NINE
MARKETING THE ALEVI MUSICAL
REVIVAL
AYHAN EROL
Dening the Alevis
There probably is no best way to dene the Alevis since they are large and
diverse communities. To some it is important to stress Alevism as a tradition
within Islam. Others more easily conceive of Alevism as a conglomeration
of groups that do not necessarily dene themselves as religious but as the
basis for the formulation of various alternative lifestyles.
1
In other words,
some people describe Alevism as the original, true essence of Islam or the
most authentic expression of Turkish Anatolian Islam, while others dene
it as a heterodox sect within Islam or a mixture of the best elements of
Islam, Christianity, Manichaeism, Shamanism, and 20
th
century Humanism.
Basically Alevi is an umbrella termfor a large number of different heterodox
communities, whose beliefs and ritual practices differ signicantly. Thus,
both insider
2
and outsider
3
perspectives stress the heterodox or syncretic
feature of Alevism as a tradition within Islam.
1
Karin Vorhoff, Academic and Journalistic Publications on the Alevi and Bektashi of
Turkey, in Alevi Identity, ed. Elizabeth zdalga Tord Olson and Catharine Raundvere (Is-
tanbul: Swedish Research Institute, 1998), 23.
2
Ahmet Y. Ocak, Alevi ve Bekta si

Inanlarnn

Islam ncesi Temelleri (Istanbul: Ileti sim Yay,
2003), 55; Reha amuro glu, Alevi Revivalism in Turkey, in Alevi Identity, ed. Tord Olson,
Elizabeth zdalga, and Catharine Raundvere (Istanbul: Swedish Research Institute, 1998), 25;
Faruk Bilici, The Function of Alevi-Bektashi Theology in Modern Turkey, in Alevi Iden-
tity, ed. Elizabeth zdalga Tord Olson and Catharina Raundvere (Istanbul: Swedish Research
Institute, 1998), 53.
3
Martin Van Bruinessen, Kurds, Turks and the Alevi Revival in Turkey, Middle East Report
26, no. 3 (1996): 8; David Shankland, Anthropology and Ethnicity: The Place of Ethnogra-
phy in the New Alevi Movement, in Alevi Identity, ed. Elizabeth zdalga Tord Olson and
Catharine Raundvere (Istanbul: Swedish Research Institute., 1998), 171; Irene Melikoff, Bek-
165
166 Chapter Nine
Determining how many Alevis live in Turkey today is practically impos-
sible because they have had a long experience of needing to conceal their
identity. In the past two decades, however, there has been an unprecedented
rise in their political exposure. Although it is impossible to do more than es-
timate, it can be reasonably argued that Alevis are not a minor group. They
represent at the very least between 5 to 10 million adherents and more prob-
ably 15 to 20 million, which means they constitute between 10 to 25 percent
of the Turkish population, which is 73 million.
Anatolian Alevis are ethnically mixed communities. They have alle-
giance to the Twelve Imams, who are patrilineal descendants of the Prophet
Muhammads cousin and son-in-law Imam Ali, but they are certainly not
a part of Iranian Shi
c
i Islam.
4
Culturally, Alevism is linked to the Mus-
lim world. However, it represents an Islam that has distanced itself from
everything that represents Muslim orthodoxy, even with Shi
c
i Islam. One
of the most obvious differences between the Shi
c
i Islam of Iran and the
Shia
c
a-related Alevis of Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Turkey is their atti-
tude toward music.
5
It would be a big mistake to consider Alevis as Shia
c
a
Muslims. Alevism is a kind of religious syncretism or semi-syncretistic re-
ligious belief based on ancient Turkish beliefs that still have some elements
of animism and shamanism in them and which, at some point in their his-
tory, have integrated ideas borrowed from Shi
c
i Islam. It can be argued that
the Anatolian Alevism is a third way, rather than a development along the
path of Sunni Islam or Shi
c
i Islam.
6
In practice, however, any claim to be a
true form of Alevism will be empirically incorrect, simply because Alevism
has taken very complex forms as it has adapted to new conditions over the
centuries.
Alevi Belief and Culture
In contrast to the supercial formalism of Sunni orthodoxy, Alevi belief is
based on the mystical ability to perceive the hidden spiritual order. Accord-
ing to Alevis, the Quran should be interpreted esoterically, inwardly, and
mystically. For them, there are much deeper spiritual truths in the Quran
tashi/Kzlba s: Historical Bipartition and Its Consequences, in Alevi Identity, ed. Elizabeth
zdalga Tord Olson and Catharina Raundvere (Istanbul: Swedish Research Institute, 1998), 6.
4
Ayhan Erol, Change and Continuity in Alevi Musical Identity, in The Human World and
Musical Diversity, ed. Rosemary Statelova et al., Bulgarian Musicology Studies (Soa: Insti-
tute of Art Studies, 2008), 109.
5
Gloria L. Clarke, Mysticism and Music, Folklor/Edebiyat 21, no. 1 (2000): 66.
6
Ayhan Erol, Reconstructing Cultural Identity in Diaspora: Musical Practices of Toronto
Alevi Community, in Music from Turkey in Diaspora, ed. Ursula Hemetek and Hande Sa glam
(Wien: Institut fr Volksmusikforschung und Ethnomusikologie, 2008), 151.
Ayhan Erol: Alevi Musical Revival 167
than the strict rules and regulations that appear on the literal surface. How-
ever, many Alevis do not read the Quran or the other holy books, nor do
they base their daily beliefs and practices on them. Since Alevism is an oral
culture, there are a signicant number of unwritten Alevi teachings and leg-
ends credited to Imam Ali, Hac Bektas Veli, and other saints. Alevis believe
that to be Alevi is encapsulated in the saying Eline, diline, beline sahip ol
[Be master of your hands, tongue and loins]. Glosses on this vary, but the
most frequent is Do not take what is not yours, do not lie, and do not make
love outside marriage! The phrase is well-known within mystical Islam,
where it is called edep: the Alevi are unique in that they have made it part
of the very core of their concept of religious fulllment.
7
Throughout history Alevis have been discredited and persecuted by the
Sunni orthodoxy, and they have been marginalized since the 16
th
century.
Within this religiously marginalized and closed social structure they formed
their own rules, and thus drew apart from the direction of the central authori-
ties. In this process, the religious and social authority within the community
has been held by holy men (dede) who belong to a hereditary priestly
caste. It is the cem ritual that appears as the most signicant phenomenon in
this process. The cem ceremony ofciated by the dede is a ritual of intense
communal signicance for Alevis.
8
The cem rituals could be conceived of
as secret gatherings of the Alevi communities who cannot express them-
selves and their identity within the framework of the prevailing social order
and who want to live outside that order. The cem rituals often involve other
kinds of latent functions. Both men and women worship together at the cem;
so for the Alevi masses, the cemfunctions as a mechanismfor delivering jus-
tice, education, ordering social relations, and solving the spiritual problems
of the society. Until the 1990s, the Alevi traditionally did not allow non-
Alevis access to their rituals, nor did they provide detailed accounts of their
ceremonies, procedures, and doctrines. This is no longer the case. Since the
1990s, Alevism is no longer secretive; in the cities they now hold their rit-
uals in the Cemevis (literally the cem houses), and the diaspora community
holds rituals publicly in their culture centers.
The Alevi Musical Tradition
Having central signicance in the cem rituals, songs (deyi s and nefes) and
dances (semah) simultaneously are perceived in the rituals as an expression
7
Shankland, Anthropology and Ethnicity: The Place of Ethnography in the New Alevi Move-
ment, 19.
8
Erol, Reconstructing Cultural Identity in Diaspora: Musical Practices of Toronto Alevi
Community, 152.
168 Chapter Nine
of faith. The religious repertory is usually based on subjects that relate to
the Prophet Muhammad, Imam Ali, Imam Hseyin, and others. These songs
have followed the Turkish Su tradition since the 13
th
century. However,
the musical practices of Alevis are not restricted to the intimate domain of
religious practice: many texts are secular and romantic and sociopolitical.
The Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923 as a modern nation state.
During the foundation era, the state collected many rural songs from Ana-
tolia as a result of its desire to identify the national characteristics of the
invented culture. Thus the songs and semah tunes belonging to Alevis
like the songs of other communities with various ethnic, religious, regional,
and local originswere classied by the state as Turkish folk music. Thus,
one could argue that until 1990 Alevi music was very much determined by
the state-endorsed canons of music and the media policy of the state. Al-
though Alevi musicians began to appear in the music industry in the 1960s,
they were recognized nationally as folk musicians, not as Alevi musicians.
From the beginning until the 1960s, Alevi musicians gave the secular pol-
icy of the state strong ideological support through their poetry and music,
and thus helped to bolster national identity and ensure the support of the
masses. For example, Alevi minstrels and musicianssuch as A sk Vey-
sel, A sk Ali

Izzet, and Hasan Hseyinwere popularized through perfor-
mances at cultural centers known as Halk Evleri (People Houses). They
also appeared at festivals and concerts and on state radio programs and made
recordings for Columbia, Odeon, and RCA Victor.
9
The support of the Alevi
poet-minstrels for the musical polity of the state could be seen as a reection
of the transition of Alevis from a secular community to becoming a part of
the modern nation. However, during the period of right/left polarization in
the 1970s, the repertoire of some Alevi musicians was increasingly politi-
cized and appropriated by leftist revolutionaries because their themes spoke
to contemporary struggles. In accordance with the avowed secularism of
the state, the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT), the state-run
broadcast media, imposed some limitations on the amount of Alevi music it
played. Nonetheless some elite professional musicians associated with the
TRT did promote the Alevi religious repertoryincluding semah melodies
and deyi s and nefes tuneson air.
In spite of these precedents, Alevi music occupied a marginal place in
commercial recordings until the Alevi musical revival in the late 1980s and
the early 1990s. It was during that period that Alevis became an integral
9
Irene Markoff, Alevi Identity and Expressive Culture, in The Garland Encyclopedia of
World Music, ed. Virginia Danielson, Scott Marcus, and Dwight F. Reynold, vol. 6 (London
and NewYork: Roudledge, 2002), 796.
Ayhan Erol: Alevi Musical Revival 169
part of consumer society, and they began to rediscover their religious and
cultural heritage.
Consuming the Alevi Musical Revival
The Alevi musical revival is a coming together, a convergence of various
circumstances and personal motivations centering on the fascination and
emulation of a tradition that has become culturally and historically distant
from its rituals. In fact, the music revival is an integral part of the Alevi
revival generally. The Alevi used to live in remote mountain villages with
closed economies. However, due to mass migration to the cities in the 1960s
and the 1980s, and the mobility of todays Turkish population, Alevis now
live in almost all provinces of the country. Thus they are now clearly very
much a part of consumer society. What I want to discuss here is whether
identiable modes of consumption have emerged from the Alevi musical
revival. Before I examine some of ways in which the Alevi musical revival
has accommodated itself to consumer culture, I would like to make a few
introductory remarks on the concept of consumer culture.
To use the term consumer culture is to emphasize that the world of con-
sumer goods and its principles of structuration are central to the understand-
ing of contemporary society. Featherstone, in this context, identies three
main types of theories of consumer culture: the rst analyses consumerism
as a stage of capitalist development; the second is more of a sociological
concern about how people delineate their class and status, and how they dis-
tinguish themselves via their consuming habits; and the third is concerned
with the creativity of consumer practices and how this leads to the aesthetic
and emotional pleasure of consumption.
10
As far as Alevi consumers are concerned, it could be argued that this study
should concentrate on the second theory, since it is concerned with how
Alevis delineate their ethnicity and status, and how they distinguish them-
selves via their consumption habits. However, the consumers habits are
not xed immutable processes like cultural identities. So, the consumers
identity must be viewed as a process of ongoing construction. The need of
urban Alevi people for cultural representation might be answered by tradi-
tional Alevi music. However, the musical tastes and choices of the Alevi
are not static. In other words, if Alevis are interested in traditional music
that does not preclude that they might also like popular music, or vice versa.
Moreover, there is a mutual t, an elective afnity, between the recent
popular products of the revivalist and the demands of the Alevi audience.
10
Mike Featherstone, Consumer Culture & Postmodernism (London: Sage, 1998), 1527.
170 Chapter Nine
This study will not overlook the importance of the third theory, which is
concerned with the emotional pleasures of consumptionthe dreams and
desires induced by particular shopping environments and the imagery of
consumption.
Some social scientists maintain that ethnicity has a strong inuence on
consumption decisions. However, they argue that any evaluation of the in-
uence of ethnicity over consumption must be framed within a wider under-
standing of the operation of other categories of social identity, such as class,
age, gender, economic status, and so on. Taking a broad approach, these
studies suggest that it is not sufcient to focus on a single aspect of identity.
They argue that the relationship between consumption and identity should
not be reduced to the level of individual lifestyle choice but related to wider
structures of social interaction, especially concerned with gender relations
and the family, with generational differences and competing constructions
of race, place and nation.
11
These approaches are, of course, based on a
dynamic identity concept that also sheds light on the relationship between
shopping and identity. Identity a mobile conguration continuously formed
and transformed in the different forms through which we are represented in
the various social systems surrounding us. Admittedly, temporary identities
can only be conjured up through differentiation from the past: today de-
rives its meaning by cutting itself off from yesterday. The never-ending
process of identication can go on, undisturbed by the vexing thought that
identity is one thing it is conspicuously unable to purvey.
12
At this stage, I will rst describe the various levels of the Alevi musical
revival that I have been able to discern and their associated modes of con-
sumption: then I will outline the complex relationships that exist between
these patterns. Listening to music is an integral and consistent part of ev-
eryday life. But before the advent of electronic media, it was only possible
to listen to music at live performances in locations such as private homes,
concert halls, opera houses, wedding halls, festival arenas, ritual settings,
and so on. These live performances, which once formed the backbone of
social interaction, still serve an important entertainment and social role. In
industrialized societies where music is important commercially, however,
people now mostly satisfy their musical needs through the mass media.
Mass-media dissemination of music introduces fundamental changes in tra-
ditional patterns of musical production, consumption, and meaning.
13
With
11
Jane Hamlett et al., Ethnicity and Consumption: South Asian Food Shopping Patterns in
Britain, 194775, Journal of Consumer Culture 8, no. 1 (2008): 93.
12
Zygmunt Bauman, Consuming Life, Journal of Consumer Culture 1, no. 1 (2001): 24.
13
Peter Manuel, Cassette Culture: Popular Music and Technology in North India (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2003), 7.
Ayhan Erol: Alevi Musical Revival 171
the introduction of records, tapes, and compact discs, music has become a
commodity and consequently an opportunity for prot making. As a quota-
tion by Lewis highlights, music is an important way to let other people know
who we are or who we would like to be, and what group we belong to or
would like to belong to.
14
In other words the use of music can be a badge of
identitya means of showing others (and ourselves) to what cultural group
or groups we belong to and as such, music fulls a social need.
15
Mary
Douglas argues: [. . . ] to the consumers themselves, consumption is less
like a pleasure for its own sake and more like a pleasurable fulllment of
social duties.
16
Thus, it is important to note that consumption is not simply
a matter of personal preference but is, in part, socially constructed.
Modes of Consumption
Embedded in the cem, traditionally, the songs have been ontologically sep-
arated from the ceremonies together with the development of the recording
industry and the state-run mass media in the 1950s. However, the emergence
of Alevi music as a representative means of Alevi cultural identity occurred
with the beginning of commercial mass media and the development of the
music industry in the 1990s. In other words, this religiously specic and
contextually embedded musical tradition became an omnipresent product
through the production and dissemination of its recordings. Although the
most powerful agents in the process of gaining visibility for the Alevi mu-
sical revival have been the recording industry and mass media, in fact, there
exists a complex pattern of modes of consumption in relation to the Alevi
musical revival. These include buying recorded music, viewing TV and
music videos, listening to the radio, and downloading music from the in-
ternet. Add to these various non-prot and/or commercial levels of involve-
ment that cater to the revivalist market, such as of concert-going, clubbing
(Trk bars), festival promotions, sales of musical instruments and supplies,
music education, and pedagogical publications.
Transnational Alevi organizations, especially in European countries such
as Germany, France, Austria, the Netherlands, and Belgium, have increased
the awareness of belonging to a wider and supranational Alevi community.
Thus it is important to say that revivalist communities are sometimes non-
territorial, with their membership spanning local and national boundaries.
14
Avi Shankar, Lost in Music? Subjective Personal Introspection and Popular Music Con-
sumption, Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal 3, no. 1 (2000): 31.
15
Pete Nuttall, Thank You for the Music? The Role and Signicance of Music for Adoles-
cents, Young Consumers 9, no. 2 (2008): 104.
16
Mary Douglas (1982) in Featherstone, Consumer Culture & Postmodernism, 119.
172 Chapter Nine
In order to create a sense of Alevi community, recorded music (which has
become an omnipresent product, such as a cassettes, records, or CDs) helps
to bring Alevi people separated by geographical space together. Moreover,
today it becomes quite easily to access them through commercial digital
(i.e, online) music services or non-commercial le-sharing services via the
internet. However, the purchase of recorded music as a product is still an
important cultural behavior, and consumption in its most general sense is
therefore an intensely performative and creative fact.
Here we might usefully introduce the concept of cultural capital that has
been developed by Pierre Bourdieu and others. This concept points the way
in which parallel to economic capital (which is immediately calculable, ex-
changeable, and realizable) there also exist modes of power and processes
of accumulation based upon culture in which the value of the latter, the
fact that culture can be capital, is often hidden and unrecognized. Bourdieu
points to three forms of cultural capital: It can exist in the embodied state
(a style of presentation, mode of speech, beauty, etc), objectied state (cul-
tural goods such as pictures, books, machines, buildings, etc.) and in the
institutionalized state (such as educational qualications).
17
It is the objec-
tied state that is of particular interest with respect to buying the recorded
Alevi music. The consumption of music is not a passive activity. Acquiring
any form of recorded Alevi music serves as an objectied state of cultural
capital. Moreover, the semiotic relevance of this music as cultural consump-
tion goods is not only substantial in relation to outsiders, but also within the
Alevi consumers: putting the more commercial recordings of Kvck Ali
or Arzu on the CD player is quite different from having recordings by the
avant garde Adil Arslan on the music archive.
The new technologies of communication facilitate distinctively modern
senses of religious and political identity that, rooted in specic local con-
text, are also systematized on a translocal horizon opened by new forms of
communication.
18
The media industry not only perpetuates revivalist doc-
trine and practices, but it is a valuable adjunct to organizations for the for-
mation and maintenance of a tight-knit society based on a shared interest
and consumption patterns.
19
Regarding the structural conditions, it is not
surprising that the Alevi revival expressed itself very much through the ex-
17
Cited from Featherstone, Consumer Culture & Postmodernism, 106.
18
Dale F. Eickelman and Jon W. Anderson, Redening Muslim Publics, in New Media in the
Muslim World, ed. Dale F. Eickelman and Jon W. Anderson (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 2003), 5.
19
Tamara Livingston, Music Revivals: Towards a General Theory, Ethnomusicology 43, no.
1 (1999): 79.
Ayhan Erol: Alevi Musical Revival 173
tensive use of modern media.
20
Several radio stations and TV channels with
an unmistakable Alevi stance were started during the 1990s.
21
In addition,
today there are so many websites dedicated to the Alevi identity and com-
munity. The recorded music at the same time serves as the content focus for
another medium. In other words the recorded Alevi music or live perfor-
mances of Alevi musicians are also offered for public consumption on radio
or television.
Unlike the recordings, live musical performances of concerts, festivals
and competitions bring Alevi people together physically. These events are
crucial to the Alevis because they meet each other face-to-face to share
repertoire and playing techniques, to discuss the strengths and weaknesses
of artists within the tradition, to actively learn and experience the revival-
ist ethos and aesthetic code at work, and to socialize with other insiders.
Moreover, these kinds of musical events provide a range of shared symbols
that communicate a sense of an Alevi community to participants. It is there-
fore possible to say that listening to recorded music or going to a concert
enables Alevis who are not able to take part in the actual rituals to continue
to identify with their cultural heritage. Basically, it is also possible to say
that the concerts, which bring Alevi people together physically, are indeed
a ritual. When we review the conceptual content of the term ritual, in
fact, we can see that the concept of rituals is often erroneously interpreted
as only behavior of religious or mystical signicance. Religious rituals are
of course an important type of ritual, but its denition is not restricted to
religious ceremonies.
The term ritual refers to a type of expressive, symbolic activity con-
structed of multiple behaviors that occur in a xed, episodic sequence, and
that tend to be repeated over time. Ritual behavior is dramatically scripted
and acted out and is performed with formality, seriousness, and inner in-
tensity.
22
Concerts, aside from being an important mode of consumption
within the Alevi musical revival, are a form of ritual for both performers
and their audiences. Small sees symphony orchestra concerts as celebrating
the power-holding class in our society.
23
In a similar fashion, rock con-
certs celebrate youth. Its not purely youth as a demographic group thats
20
Vorhoff, Academic and Journalistic Publications on the Alevi and Bektashi of Turkey, 34.
21
M. Hakan Yavuz, Media Identities for Alevis and Kurds in Turkey, in New Media in the
Muslim World, ed. Dale F. Eickelman and Jon W. Anderson (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 2003), 184.
22
David Luna and Susan Forquer, An Integrative Framework for Cross-Cultural Consumer
Behavior, International Marketing Review 18, no. 1 (2001): 51.
23
Christopher Small, Social Character of Music: Performance as Ritual, in Lost in Music:
Culture, Style and Musical Events, ed. Avron L. White (London: Routledge, 1987), 8.
174 Chapter Nine
being celebrated, but rather the idea of youth.
24
In a similar way, the con-
certs performed by Alevi musicians celebrate Alevi ethnicity. Therefore it is
important to see concerts performed by Alevi musicians, especially promi-
nent revivalists, in the context of a growing awareness of Alevism that unites
the Alevis.
The Alevi musical revival must be seen as not just activity by some promi-
nent Alevi musicians but as a contextual aggregate that enjoys widespread
support and participation at the local level of music making. A Trk bar,
a place where live music is essential, is a good example to consider this is-
sue. It is clearly a revivalist phenomenon that can be conned to particular
spaces or tied to particular performances. It is also clearly a meeting point
for the production and consumption of Turkish folk music, especially Alevi
music. The term Trk refers to any piece of Turkish folk music, it also
indicates its anonymity. Trk bars are a kind of pub, a space constructed
around Turkish folk music, including Alevi tunes. Trk bars, one of the
most important aspects of the revival, began to emerge in the 1990s. Al-
though not all of the consumers at these venues are Alevis, the vast majority
of the regular visitors are young Alevis.
I conducted a case study of Trk bars in the city of Izmir in Turkey
in 2005. One thing that struck me was the ethnicity of both musicians
and the owners of the Trk bars: many of them were Alevis, just like
the vast majority of the customers. For many of the young Alevis I in-
terviewed, Trk bars provide an acceptable place to socializeand spend
time and moneyas opposed to pavyon (casino), kahvehane (cafe), or bi-
rahane (pub). Musicians performing in Trk bars were rst introduced to
Alevi music in the mid-1990s, when an innovative Alevi repertory suddenly
re-entered the music industry. This early repertoire of the revival not only
stimulated the interest of the urban Alevi communities who interpreted it as
legitimizing their identitiy, but it also stimulated the emergence of amateur-
turned-professional Alevi musicians. In other words, Trk bars created a
new market. Moreover, there is a symbiotic relationship between the reper-
tory performed by the young musicians in such places and the recordings
released by prominent Alevi musicians. This promotes and increases the ex-
change and distribution of music commodities and products. In other words
these live performance venues also serve as the socio-economic hub of the
revival, providing a space where musicians and new musical styles and the
revivalist repertory can interact and where the revival is made more visible,
physical, and real.
24
Roy Shuker, Understanding Popular Music (London: Routledge, 2001), 205.
Ayhan Erol: Alevi Musical Revival 175
The ba glama also has a signicant place in both Turkish musical life and
in the modes of consumption of the Alevi musical revival. The ba glama, the
general name of the long-necked lute, also called saz, was originally referred
to as the kopuz in the 14
th
-century book of Dede Korkut, and was found in
various forms throughout the Turkic world. In its various lengths and sizes,
ranging from Meydan and Divan, through Tanbura and Ba glama to Cura,
the Ba glama family forms the core of the Turkish folk music ensembles
invented by the state in the 1940s. It is therefore recognized as an icon
of Turkish folk music. However, this cannot be compared to the importance
of ba glama in the Alevi belief and culture. For the Alevis, the ba glama has
become a powerful symbol of their group identity and their creed. It is also
a material representing Imam Ali and the tenets of his faith: the resonator is
said to represent his body, the neck his sword Zlkar, the 12 strings (and
sometimes frets) the 12 Shi
c
i imams, and the lower course of strings, the
Prophet Muhammad.
25
One of the most important examples of the Alevi
mystical rhetoric surrounding the playing of the ba glama is that some view
this musical instrument as a Telli Kuran (the stringed Qur
c
an).
Until the end of the 1980s, the ba glama was looked down upon as a rural
music. Since then, it has largely become a legitimate instrument in Turk-
ish musical life through the Alevi musical revival. There is no ofcial data
about how many ba glamas are manufactured in Turkey. According to some
estimates, between 1 million and 2 million ba glamas are produced there ev-
ery year. However, it could be reasonably argued that 1.5 million ba glamas
are manufactured in Turkey a year, since many of the ba glama players and
makers I interviewed in Izmir quoted that number.
Although it is important to buy a ba glama from a master craftsman, it is
now a widely popular and cheap instrument that is mass-produced in the big
cities of Turkey. Prices in 2008 ranged from less than 50 TL (25 euros) to
around 500 TL (250 euros). It goes without saying that the explosion in sales
of the ba glama in the last two decades demonstrates that in terms of the re-
vival the most important form of consumption is the purchase of a ba glama.
However non-Alevis also buy ba glamas and take classes in the ba glama, be-
cause those who are interested in folk music consider the ba glama the most
logical and representative instrument of Turkish folk music. At this point,
the most important question must probably be about learning the ba glama.
In all Turkish cities today, the cemevis provide free training in a number of
skillsin particular, playing the ba glama and teaching semah (ritual dance).
The cemevis, offering classes in semah and ba glama, stress the contribution
they make to maintaining the music and dance of the Alevis, providing Alevi
25
Markoff, Alevi Identity and Expressive Culture, 798.
176 Chapter Nine
society with able players and representing Alevi culture.
26
These courses are
mostly attended by younger Alevis, ranging from children of primary school
age to young adults in their late 20s. The ba glama and semah courses pro-
vided by the Alevi associationssuch as the cemevi, dernek (association),
vakf (foundation) and kltr merkezi (cultural center)are generally non-
commercial activities of the Alevi musical revival, even though the ba glama
teachers and semah trainers are paid by the associations. However the ped-
agogical components of the revival are not restricted to non-prot organiza-
tions. The role of private ba glama education is crucial in terms of modes
of consumption in the context of the Alevi musical revival. Although the
educational system of the ba glama began to shift from the apprenticeship
model to a formal system of education through private associations in the
1960s and the State Conservatories of Turkish Music in the 1970s, a high
degree of enthusiasm for learning the ba glama is based on the climate of the
revival. Many of the private teaching centers in large cities, known as der-
shane, are run by prominent Alevi ba glama players. Young musicians and
amateurs are educated in the dershane run by revivalist musicians. They are
based on a semi-formal system of education. Notation is an essential part
of the curriculum in all the dershane. Thus, the Alevi musical revival has a
strong pedagogical component that passes on the tradition in a modernized
manner.
In addition to these traits, Martin Stokess outsider observations on the
owners might be useful here: Extra income is earned from the dershane, but
the considerations that lead musicians to open a dershane may vary and may
embody several strategies. These include enabling the owner to participate
in wider social networks, providing employment for musician friends and
instrument makers, and supplying the owner with a source of material, along
with technical, and moral support for their other professional activities as
musicians.
27
Such relationships comprise a formal and informal economy
of the revival. It is obvious that the attempts to create a cohesive sense
of identity through modes of consumption that can be associated with the
Alevi music revival have succeeded. To see how this is done, it is necessary
to shift the focus from the ways in which the Alevi music is consumed to
the ways in which it is performed and marketed.
26
Erol, Reconstructing Cultural Identity in Diaspora: Musical Practices of Toronto Alevi
Community, 156.
27
Martin Stokes, Arabesk Debate: Music and Musicians in Modern Turkey (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1992), 43.
Ayhan Erol: Alevi Musical Revival 177
Marketing the Alevi Musical Revival
Marketing may be dened as a set of human activities directed at facilitat-
ing and consummating exchanges. Jamal argues that marketing plays an
important role in facilitating the co-existence of a variety of modes of con-
sumption and of a sense of being in the contemporary marketplace.
28
As far
as the music industry is concerned, it has centered on the marketing of genre
styles and stars, which have come to function in a similar manner to brand
names, serving to order demand and stabilize sales patterns.
29
Although
the inevitable partnership between Alevi musicians, in particular prominent
revivalists, and the culture industry has transformed their repertoire and ulti-
mately the musicians into a popular culture phenomenon, it would certainly
be incorrect to see themas nothing more than a pale imitation of popular mu-
sic stars. In any case, none of the Alevi musicians calls himself a popular
music artist, and the audience never perceives them as pop singers, despite
their use of conventional norms of popular music in their performances. Yet
this does not decrease the importance of prominent Alevi musicians in terms
of the Alevi and non-Alevi audiences. Thus it would certainly be more cor-
rect to refer to them as the leader revivalists or the core revivalists, because
of their signicance role within the revival.
As Livingston has argued, one of the most important features of music
revivals is the central role played by a few individuals known as the core
revivalists.
30
Although core revivalists almost always come from the ranks
of the middle classas scholars, professional or amateur musicians, dilet-
tantes, and those involved with the music industryin the case of the Alevi
musical revival, core revivalists are professional Alevi musicians. Those
who have benetted the most from the revival, in fact, are the Alevi musi-
cians themselves. From the perspective of contemporary marketing strate-
gies the philosophy of marketing needs to be owned by everyone within
the organization. Concern and responsibility for marketing must permeate
all areas of the enterprise. It is therefore possible to say that as the core
producers musicians have responsibility for marketing. The public success
and longevity of musical revivals certainly depends in part on the strength
and vitality of the revival industries. The authenticity debates are viewed
by the industry as getting in the way of marketability. Owing to the cre-
ativity involved in the construction of an authenticity discourse and prac-
tice by the core revivalists, this section concentrates on the strategies of the
28
Ahmad Jamal, Marketing in a Multicultural World: The Interplay of Marketing, Ethnicity
and Consumption, European Journal of Marketing 17, no. 1112 (2003): 1609.
29
Shuker, Understanding Popular Music, 45.
30
Livingston, Music Revivals: Towards a General Theory, 70.
178 Chapter Nine
core revivalists that focus on not only identifying customer needs but also
satisfying them (short-term) and anticipating them in the future (long-term
retention).
Alevi musicians often performed Turkish folk musici.e., songs of dif-
ferent ethnicitiesin order to maximize their popularity and respectability
in the eyes of the Turkish people. As far as Im concerned, this is one of
the most important marketing strategies of Alevi musicians. The musicians
associated with the Alevi musical tradition in Turkey negotiate their profes-
sional identities in terms of the authenticity of Turkish folk music. Thus,
they participate in the construction of the folk music myth as long as it suits
their commercial interests, but have recourse to a variety of strategies to ne-
gotiate their musical identities in their community. Based on their marketing
plan Alevi musicians try to determine who their audiences are, and to decide
whether their audiences can be segmented either vertically or horizontally.
On one hand, they dene their performances as folk music to make sense of
their experience in the music industry and to attract to a wider audience, on
the other hand they construct categories within folk music by considering
themselves as the representatives of real Alevi music.
Marketing the Alevi musical revival is essentially about marshalling the
resources of Alevi musical culture so that they meet the changing needs of
the customer. The revivalists searching for the roots of Alevi music dug
up old recordings and tried to revive pieces of music that may not have
been played for decades. The eld recordings collected from Anatolia al-
lowed the revivalists to determine authentic performance styles. They be-
came known for their musical involvement based on playing the ba glama
and singing traditional Alevi tunes. However, while the early revivalists
were very intolerant of any change introduced by young musicians, they
have always pursued innovations. The balance between individual innova-
tion and adherence to the stylistic norms of tradition were reconstructed by
the revivalists themselves. As an innovator, Ali Ekber iek (19352006)
was perhaps one of the best-known Alevi musicians and masters of the di-
van ba glama. It might be argued that his famous song Haydar, a complex
and dramatic creation composed for voice and ba glama in 1965, largely of
his own inspiration, was the rst piece from the Alevi musical revival to
achieve mass popularity.
The re-emergence of Alevi music based on ba glama playing in the mu-
sic industry, around the 1980s, was closely associated with three or four
ba glama players; Arif Sa g, Musa Ero glu, Yavuz Top, and Muhlis Akarsu.
Thus, the origins of the movement in the mid-1980s should be credited to
a series of commercial cassettes, labeled muhabbet, released by these re-
vivalists. They employed traditional instrumentation in their muhabbet re-
Ayhan Erol: Alevi Musical Revival 179
leases, which consisted only of ba glamas, and retained a certain classicism
in their use of the ba glama and their improvised avor and avoidance of
Western harmony and instruments. The repertory, including religious songs
and an innovative style they popularized, can be seen in a commercialized
and free continuation of their limited performances on TRT. Through their
activities, including live performances, they succeeded in transforming the
practice of traditional Alevi music on the ba glama from an isolated activ-
ity of a few individuals into a popular form of zikir (ar. dhikr, remem-
brance) in cultured urban Alevi society.
31
These cassettes became widely
popular amongst Alevis, particularly among amateur Alevi and non-Alevi
musicians. Consumers of different ethnic backgrounds, at the same time,
also have the opportunity to interact with one another and to shop around
and make their consumption choices as per their interactions and experi-
ences with marketers of different ethnic backgrounds.
32
The revivals partake of the discourse of modernity even as they set them-
selves in opposition to certain manifestations of modernity.
33
The most im-
portant musical orientation of the core revivalist in the late 1980s was the
polyphonization of monophonic Alevi music as a myth of modernity. Some
of the core revivalists who were ideologically bound to the idea of univer-
salism tended to determine the universalist characteristics of Alevi music.
Seeing the pursuance of local musical differences as a separation from uni-
versal ideals, they considered the polyphonization of monophonic Alevi
musical tradition as the best way to go. For instance, Yavuz Top, a core
revivalist, an instructor, has argued tribal musical elements should be sub-
ordinated to the universalism. Since the ideology of Third World socialism
involves the project of Westernization from above, it has strong parallels to
Kemalism.
34
In this respect, the universalist ideology of Enlightenment is a
common value for both the Kemalist political elite and Alevi musicians who
consider themselves as modernists and socialists or leftists. There is, there-
fore, a strong relationship between the Kemalist music reform and the poly-
phonization of monophonic Alevi melodies by the core revivalists.
35
Strik-
ing examples of this kind of instrumental polyphony are the album Western-
Eastern Divan: the Semahs for Saz and Orchestra, released in 1987, by
Adil Arslan, a ba glama player living in Germany; and the album Concerto
for Ba glama, composed by Arif Sa g in the mid-1990s. However these poly-
31
Erol, Change and Continuity in Alevi Musical Identity, 112.
32
Jamal, Marketing in a Multicultural World: The Interplay of Marketing, Ethnicity and Con-
sumption, 1599.
33
Livingston, Music Revivals: Towards a General Theory, 81.
34
amuro glu, Alevi Revivalism in Turkey, 80.
35
Erol, Change and Continuity in Alevi Musical Identity, 116.
180 Chapter Nine
phonic recordings have not attracted signicant amounts of attention, among
either Alevis or non-Alevi audience. It is possible to consider these record-
ings as a temporal avant garde attempt by the core revivalists. It is also
possible to say that these musicians became more aware of the power of the
popular music market in the 1990s. In either case it is necessary to mention
that these recordings did not appeal to audiences and did not achieve wide
sales. They have not composed such polyphonic works since the middle of
the 1990s. The bundling of monophonic Alevi melodies and some compo-
nents of Western polyphony as popular arrangements was another common
practice until the late 1980s. Yavuz Top, with his arrangement, Otme Blbl
tme and Arif Sa g with the song

Insan Olmaya Geldim provided two rich
examples of this kind of popular arrangement.
The polyphonization of monophonic Alevi melodies is based on the ra-
tionality of modernism as an ideology. However, the rationality of consumer
society is built on the irrationality of its individualized actors.
36
The core re-
vivalists noticed that their attempts came up against the irrationality of tastes
because the musical choices of the Alevis people are not just a matter of ra-
tionality. As Jamal has argued, the interdependence between consumption
and ethnicity are moments in the ongoing construction of personal and so-
cial identity.
37
Having already claimed that the Alevi musical tradition was
diluted by some popular music singers, the revivalists less than 10 years
later had to face a revivalist community that asked them to perform again in
a style that was not their rst choice from the start.
38
In the beginining of
the 1990s, the modernizing elements of Western polyphonization accepted
by the revivalists as progress were absorbed into the vocabulary of the
revived Alevi music associated with popular music styles.
According to Jamal, for some, mass marketing is a thing of the past and
one needs to respond to consumer differences with differentiation and seg-
mentation strategies. Thus a characteristic feature of a multicultural mar-
ketplace is the positioning of the marketers and consumers of different eth-
nic backgrounds into multiple and traversing cultural spheres.
39
The core
revivalists responded to consumer differences with these strategies. Alevi
musicians adapted pre-existing popular styles to the tastes and demands of
the new urban Alevis, whereas they did not also marginalize the music mar-
ket because it comprises such a small proportion of the total population and
36
Bauman, Consuming Life, 17.
37
Jamal, Marketing in a Multicultural World: The Interplay of Marketing, Ethnicity and Con-
sumption, 1602.
38
Erol, Change and Continuity in Alevi Musical Identity, 116.
39
Jamal, Marketing in a Multicultural World: The Interplay of Marketing, Ethnicity and Con-
sumption, 1599.
Ayhan Erol: Alevi Musical Revival 181
therefore was not worth investing the resources to target. Since Turkish lis-
teners often prefer indigenous music in the local style and melodies of their
own region, the albums of the revived Alevi music are made up of a mixed
repertoire. In other words, the revivalists soon learned that there was an al-
bum concept that could be sold to all Turkish audiences. One of the earliest
examples of this concept is the album Biz insanlar, released by Arif Sa g in
the early 1990s. The album incudes a variety of Alevi religious and non-
religious genres, political protest songs, and Turkish folk songs appealing
to all Turkish listeners.
40
Having used new sounds, such as sampled and
electronic drums, synthesized bass and computer-generated string glissandi
in the album Biz

Insanlar, Arif Sa g has successfully combined Turkish folk
music with the mainstream popular music styles. The other core revivalists,
such as Musa Ero glu, Yavuz Top, and Sabahat Akkiraz, have performed a
similar content and sonic design in their albums since the 1990s.
By the late 1990s, however, Alevi music had evolved into a popular form
that, despite retaining many musical gures from its roots, sounded increas-
ingly Western. It might be argued that there has probably been a decrease in
the diversity of performance styles. At the same time, there has been an in-
crease in the variety of musical experiments and forms that young musicians
perform. Clifford Geertz has stated in his Interpretation of Cultures that the
desire once aroused in a population to become a recognized and respected
people in the world, with their own rights, cannot be quenched.
41
Initially,
some young aspiring musicians who dream of national fame tried to copy
the styles of the core revivalists. However, young Alevi musicians soon be-
gan to develop in their own directions. By the 2000s, some young Alevi
musicians, such as Arzu, Ay segl, Kvrck Ali, and Gler Duman, used
ba glama with electric instruments, strong percussion, and sometimes string
orchestras in their albums, so that songs that might belong to the Arabesk,
which is one of the two main streams of Turkish popular music, conformed
closely to the popular music aesthetic. These albums were an intensifying
fusion of popular music components and Alevi musical experience. Even
Sabahat Akkiraz, as a well-known revivalist Alevi singer, joined in this ten-
dency in a different way. Her recent recordings, combining Alevi melodies
with electronic music and jazz, epitomize the different styles. Needless to
say, the future will show us how the Alevi musical revival develops. How-
ever, it is obvious that the interaction between traditional Alevi music and
popular music depends on the reproducibility of the perceptions of Alevi
musicians and their audiences themselves. Thus, it also needs to be recog-
40
Erol, Change and Continuity in Alevi Musical Identity, 115.
41
Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books,
1973), 237.
182 Chapter Nine
nized that how well mainstream popular music components are used in the
traditional Alevi music varies according to the individual dispositions and
marketing strategies of Alevi musicians.
Conclusion
In the beginning of this article, I tried to explain that both production and
consumption are not to be regarded as xed, immutable processes but must
be viewed as engaged in a dialectic. If cultural appropriation is dened as
processes by which meanings are transformed within specic hierarchical
structures of power, it could be argued that cultural consumption could be
explained as processes by which meanings are transformed within the self.
42
Orthodox psychology dened need as a state of tension that would eventu-
ally disperse and wither away once the need has been gratied. The need
that sets the members of consumer society in motion is, on the contrary,
the need to keep the tension alive and, if anything, it is stronger with every
step.
43
This argument can be read in the context of change and continuity
in Alevi music: the need which sets the Alevi consumer in motion is the
need to keep the tension alive between traditional Alevi music and pop-
ular music styles. Under conditions of de-monopolization of the real or
authentic Alevi music, the revivalists have relinquished their commitment
to traditionalism and avant-gardism and have adopted an increasingly open
attitude towards consumerism by popularizing Alevi music and making it
more accessible to wider audiences.
For Alevi musicians, I would argue that the revival has provided them
with a language in which their professional activities can be legitimately
represented in a commercial market. They have still been trying to survive
in a highly competitive market. Alevi musicians who use popular music
styles and techniques in their performance and recordings believe that the
introduction of Western instrumentation, harmony, and technology in Alevi
music has never distanced this music from its traditional ethos. Thus, the
revivalist considers the popular music components of this music as a sym-
bol of musical progress. In this case, the notion of progress as a myth of
modernity plays a part in dening the revived Alevi music and its authen-
ticity. This discourse of authenticity not only serves as the legitimization of
the practice but also as an important marketing strategy.
42
Michel A. Possamai, Cultural Consumption of History and Popular Culture in Alternative
Spiritualities, Journal of Consumer Culture 2, no. 2 (2002): 204.
43
Bauman, Consuming Life, 13.
Ayhan Erol: Alevi Musical Revival 183
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