Kürdî

This article is about the muscial scale. For other uses, see Kurdi.

Kürdî

Durak	Dügâh
Güçlü	Neva
Yeden	Rast
Seyir	Ascending Ascending-Descending
Lower Çeşni	Kürdi tetrachord
Higher Çeşni	Buselik pentachord
Higher Extension	Kürdi tetrachord

Kürdî is a scale in Turkish makam music. It is in 53 Tone Equal Temperament.

Kürdî in 53-TET

Breakdown of the Kürdî Makam^[1]^[2]

Components	Note		Western Note	Steps to following note	Cents from Durak note	Function
Kürdî tetrachord	Dügâh		A	B (4)	0	Durak
	Kürdî		B♭	T (9)	90.56
	Çârgâh		C	T (9)	294.33
	Neva	-	D	T (9)	498.11	Güçlü
Buselik pentachord		-
	Hüseyni/Hisar		E	B (4)	701.89
	Acem		F	T (9)	792.45
	Gerdaniye		G	T (9)	996.23
	Muhayyer		A	-	1200.00	Tiz Durak

The Kürdî makam has a higher extension, starting from Muhayyer, with the steps of the Kürdî tetrachord. The notes in that case are Muhayyer, Sümbüle, Tiz Çârgah, Tiz Neva.^[1]

This is equivalent to having a Buselik makam on top of Neva.

Comparison with Western scales

Since the makam is based on 53-TET, it is impossible to directly tie it to 12-TET Western scales. However, using the 48-TET model, while worse than many other models in approximation,^[3] allows for such comparisons.^[4]

The approximation of Acemli Rast within 48-TET would be: Phrygian

References

1. Bay, Tolgahan (October 2023). "Türk Müziğinde Kürdî Makamının Tarihsel Değişim ve Dönüşümü Üzerine Bir İnceleme". Ayalgu Interdisciplinary Turkish Music Research Journal. 1 (1) – via dergipark.
2. "KÜRDÎ". TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (in Turkish). Retrieved 2024-04-09.
3. Bozkurt, Barış; Yarman, Ozan; Karaosmanoğlu, M. Kemal; Akkoç, Can (March 2009). "Weighing Diverse Theoretical Models on Turkish Maqam Music Against Pitch Measurements: A Comparison of Peaks Automatically Derived from Frequency Histograms with Proposed Scale Tones". Journal of New Music Research. 38 (1): 45–70. doi:10.1080/09298210903147673. hdl:11147/2853. ISSN 0929-8215.
4. Note: This is because 48 is divisible by 12.