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Turkish folk music () is the traditional music of Turkish people living in Turkey influenced by the cultures of Anatolia and former territories in Europe and Asia. Its unique structure includes regional differences under one umbrella. It includes popular music from the Ottoman Empire era. After the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, Turkish President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk ordered a wide-scale classification and archiving of samples of Turkish folk music from around the country, which, from 1924 to 1953 collected more than 10,000 folk songs. Traditional folk music was combined with Western harmony and musical notation to create a more modern style of popular Turkish music.
History and development
Western music had begun to influence Ottoman music from before the early Tanzimat period. According to Degirmenci "the first westernization movement in music happened in the Army; in 1826 Giuseppe Donizetti, brother of the famous opera composer Gaetano, was invited to head the military band of Nizam-i Cedid (the Army of the New Order), which was founded by Selim III." Sultan Abdulhamit II was said to prefer Western music, saying "To tell the truth, I am not especially fond of alaturka music. It makes you sleepy, and I prefer alafranga music, in particular the operas and operettas."
The Ministry of Education established the Bureau of Culture in 1920, which began to collect folk songs, around a hundred of which were published as Yurdumuzun Nagmeleri (Melodies of our Country) in 1926. Hungarian composer Béla Bartók was also invited to help collect folk songs in Turkey, 2000 of which were published between 1925 and 1935.