My Instrument: Baha Yetkin and his ud

The Turkish lute skipped a generation in London-based Baha Yetkin’s family. His father presented him with his first ud as a child, hoping Baha, unlike him, might walk in his grandfather’s footsteps. An elder brother who played flamenco guitar got him started, but his formal training began at a local music conservatory in Istanbul, and subsequently in classes with Oytun Uçar and Mustafa Seven. In his late teenage years he worked as an accompanist, learning his craft in some of the city’s leading bands (notably Mustafa Keser’s). 

“Faruk Türünz made my first ud for me,” Yetkin tells me. “I don’t use it much because the ebony fingerboard, unfortunately, has become hard to adjust. However, it was a gift from my father, so it carries memories for me, and it has a deep, big sound. I still use it for recordings though. On stage I mainly play an ud with a walnut body these days, one I bought from Ramazan Calay ten years ago. It broke twice, but Ramazan repaired it well on both occasions. The last time, I had him install a bridge pickup, which makes it handy for gigging, and it is a comfortable instrument for me. I learned a lot from the master ud players I met in their workshops. I would play with them and ask them questions. People like Yurdal Tokcan and Necati Çelik, who shaped my playing and tone decisively.” 

Çelik and Tokcan represent what is sometimes referred to these days as the ‘Turkish ud school.’ This in an important concept, Yetkin feels, even if it is not, exactly, an ancient one. The style can be traced to the playing of Udi Nevres Bey and Mısırlı Ibrahim Efendi at the end of the Ottoman period. In the early years of the Republic, Yorgo Bacanos pushed it towards the emerging Turkish music industry while Şerif Muhittin Targan looked towards the conservatories. Composer Çinüçen Tanrıkorur (1938-2000) brought together the vocal sentimentalism, the formal experimentalism and the new instrumental virtuosity of that century’s middle decades. Kadri Şençalar’s famous ud improvisations (taksims) built on the new synthesis. Çelik and Tokcan would take it to the next level. The result is sometimes referred to as lezzetli tavır – ‘sweet plectrum.’ It is a mood as much as a style, hard to define. The musical phrases hang in the air, the cadences and modulations are delicately balanced, the atmosphere is tender and melancholic. It makes demands on technique and modal (makam) knowledge, too, Yetkin points out. But both are held in reserve, revealed in glimpses only. 

Yetkin’s solo album, The Turkish Oud, featuring instrumental works and improvisations, is a study in lezzetli tavır. A little unexpectedly, perhaps, for an album dedicated to an instrument, it also features songs. Yetkin knows the Turkish song tradition inside out and sings well, accompanying himself on the ud like another of his heroes, composer Selahattin Pınar. Is there a tension, I find myself wondering, between the instrument’s solo trajectory and its traditional accompaniment role? His students here, after all, come from all over the world – Malaysia, Argentina and Norway, as well as the UK – and presumably have relatively little interest in the latter. Is the instrument at a crossroads? “I think a musician should know both,” he says. “If you know how to accompany a singer, solo performance will both be easier and more effective. From the perspective of Turkish music, remember, the instrumentalist must know the songs better than the singers. The song motivates the instrumentalist. That’s what you’ll find with the very best ud players around the world, Marcel Khalife, Ara Dinkjian, Munir Bashir, Yurdal Tokcan and Necati Çelik.” Traditions fragment in time, but Yetkin sees his instrument holding things together, at least for now.   

This article originally appeared in the August/September 2022 issue of Songlines magazine. Never miss an issue – subscribe today