Examination of the transcription of Hrant Kenkilyan's oud taksims and his performance attitude

In this thesis, the contributions of Ûdî Hrant Kenkulian, one of the most important oud performers of Turkish and Armenian Music, to the oud technique, and his idiosyncratic behavior, have been tried to be determined by transcriptions and examinations made on thirteen oud taksims belonging to Kenkulian. First of all, in our study, the documents containing Kenkulian's photographs, his life, and taksims, which will be published for the first time with this study, are obtained from TRT Archives and Music Department Archives, the private archives of Ara Dinkjian, Mevlüt Mutlu, Tevfik Bildik, Aydemir Tuncer, Raffi Koçun, and newspaper clippings. Among these documents, in addition to twelve taksims with the clearest and most understandable recordings, one from each makam from the taksims on the records that the artist filled for the "Sahibinin Sesi" company, due to the different tuning system he used in a taksim he made in the Hicaz makam, including two from this makam; A total of thirteen taksims from Hicaz (AX1828), Ferahnâk (AX2928), Hüseynî (AX1944), Kürdîlihicazkâr (AX1944), Hicaz Çifte Kiriş (AX2068), Rast (AX2145), Sabâ (AX2145), Acemaşîrân (AX2270), Hüzzam (AX2270), Nihâvend (AX2201), Uşşâk (AX2201), Karcığar (AX2032) ve Şedd-i Arabân (AX2422) makams constituted the sample of our study, respectively. First, by transcribing the relevant taksims, they were written in the FINALE notation program in today's notation system. Ornament and expression elements used by the performer are included in the notation of the Taksims. At the same time, the descriptions of the makams to which the taksims belong are written from musical sources from the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Afterward, attention has been drawn to the issues that reveal the attitude, wording, and musicality of the artist by examining taksims under the headings, which are ornament techniques, musical expression elements, motif and sentence structures, use of makam and form, rhythmic elements, and right and left-hand use of the performer. As the most striking features of Kenkulian's oud style, it is seen that he frequently uses grace note, glissando, doubling, wide vibrato, and vibrato tremolos, which takes their value from the previous note, that he makes a sound heard for a long time, mostly by amplifying it with harmonious sounds exceeding an octave, and that he composes his taksims in a way similar to the classical composition form. On the other hand, when the use of makam in taksims is evaluated, although he is an artist belonging to the Armenian minority, we see that he adopts the understanding of the performance of Turkish makam music, and that it coincides with the makam descriptions in the 17th, 18th, 19th century cycle books, and 20th-century Tanbûrî Cemil Bey's Rehber-i Mûsıkî book. As a result of all these determinations, we can say that among the oud players of Armenian and Turkish music, he has the characteristics that deserve to have a school in his field with his unique attitude and musical understanding.