Welcome to Levopolis!

Here are some of my tunes, played by me on the saz (as seen above). I've also just added one done on the ukulele, and a spoken-word piece.

Each entry lists the name of the scale used, mostly based on the Turkish makam system; note that Hicaz, Bayati, and the Rast scales include tones you won't find on any piano!

Also note that these tunes are inspired by the makams, in that they use the scales upon which those makams are based - but a makam is more than just a scale; it includes typical cadences and compositional idiom that my tunes don't necessarily aspire to. That is why I am careful to say, for example, "in the Bayati scale" rather than "in makam Bayati".

Finally, please note that these aren't performance-quality takes; they are just bare-bones archival recordings for my own reference.

Ultrafinally (postultimately?), note that several heretofore unnamed tunes now have names! Gayle and I have been listening to them and had synergistic inspirations.

New tunes are marked with a ">"

>20060406 (Hicaz) — Doesn't even have a name yet. This is the first ukulele piece I've put up here. The occasional tambourine in the background is actually Rufus shaking his dog tags.
Anatolian Wood* (Rast scale) — One of my favorite crossover mutations.
Caravan of Love (Rast scale) — The text of this is from an Arabic poem by ibn 'Arabi, which you can read here.
Chili Peppers (Hicaz scale) — This is one of my earliest pieces. I was playing for some Middle-eastern dancers and needed some more tunes in Hicaz, so I composed this little ditty. The name derives simply from the fact that I wanted something kinda spicy.
>Din al-Hubb (Spoken) — I had this inspiration for a rhythmic spoken-word rendition of the Arabic poem played on saz as Caravan of Love.
>Dodi Yarad (Neveser) — These are selected verses from the Song of Songs, set to a lovely Turkish Sufi melody.
Friend of My Heart (Rast scale) — Dedicated to my first and enduring great love, Gayle.
Gilgul (Neveser scale) — My friend Pam told me this sounded like a Mevlevi turning-song, and that made me think of the Hebrew word galgal, which means "wheel", which wasn't quite right. Gayle helped refine it to gilgul, which means turning or revolving, and is a common shorthand term for gilgul ha-nefesh, or reincarnation.
The Greenway (Mixolydian) — Gayle thought this sounded like a travellin' song. Since I have Tolkien on the brain right now, I thought of the Greenway, which is the old road leading north from the crossroads at Bree, now covered in grass, and leading to who knows what adventures? Gayle riffed on that, and she composed words for it! Note that this was originally composed in the Rast scale, and you can hear the first version by clicking here.
Havaya Hamishim* (Nihavend scale) — The name of this one is a rather awful multi-lingual pun; if you can't figure it out, you can ask me in email.
Longing (Nihavend scale) — This song is dedicated to a woman I consider my other great love, though the feeling is (romantically, at least) unrequited — hence the bittersweet character of the tune.
Merkaz al-Waheed (Nihavend scale) — This song came by experimenting with using the center course of strings on the saz, which has two strings tuned in unison. This gives a leaner, cleaner sound than the usual melody course of strings, which has two in unison and one an octave lower, and it made me think of unity, and of centering. Gayle contributed merkaz ("center") from Hebrew, and the word that came to me was waheed, which means unity, aloneness, uniqueness in Arabic. Interestingly, merkaz is identical in both Hebrew and Arabic, so you can't tell we used both in the title.
T'khelet Deshe (Acemli Rast scale) — This one is the most banjo-like tune I've done, and it makes me think of bluegrass. T'khelet is Hebrew, from the word for "blue", and it is the word for the blue thread the Torah says we should wear in the fringes of our garments. Deshe means "grass".

*These are not my own compositions. You can probably figure out whose they are. :-)