Çeşm-i Siyahım - Turkish Song

Music & lyrics by Aşık Mahzuni Şerif, arrangement & vocals by Farya Faraji. Many thanks to my boy Arash for having helped out with some of the shots in this video—they’re from my October 2021 trip to Turkey, specifically in Cappdocia for this video. Şerif Cırık, (1939-2002), was an aşık, the Turkish equivalent to a bard, people who master the bağlama, as well as olden repertoires of folk music and poetry which they contribute to by adding to it themselves. In this, Cırık’s style was a direct continuation of the traditional forms of Anatolian Turkish music and poetry, often rooted in the heartlands of Cappadocia and neighbouring regions, with strong influences and overlaps with Alevism. The arrangement consists of a bağlama, a kopuz, a bendhir drum and a mey/duduk. The melody is in the makam (mode) of Bayat, the most commonly used mode, traditionally, in Middle-Eastern music, which is the same as the Western Aeolian mode, but w