"Communicative copying activity" and "Scribal performance" in the context of an 18th century musical note collection: In the person of Nâyî Mustafa Kevserî Efendi

Note collections about Ottoman/Turkish Music (O/TM), in prenineteenth century are the first transition period products from orality/aurality to music literacy of Ottomans. Kevserî Mecmû'ası of which the majority written by Nâyî Mustafa Kevseri Efendi, containing original instrumental music collection and many musical notes copied from Kantemiroğlu Edvârı, is important in terms of understanding how the transmissions from orality/aurality to textual medium was during this period. A traditional oral/aural product is subject to many interventions, starting from the production, through performance contexts and transmission to the textual medium, till reaching the final-reader. One of these processes is the copying activity. By comparing the notes transferred to the Mecmû'a with the source texts, some variations in the copies were observed to be similar to oral/aural performances'. The traditional performances were continued in the period when copying took place. Kevserî was a musician trained in the tradition. These facts led us to judge the role and scribal activity of a copyist like Kevserî in the history of textualization of O/TM performances. We developed a "theoretical framework" about the entity of "communicative copying activity" of a scribe, competent in a tradition and examined Kevserî's scribal activity within this framework. Our "theoretical framework" is based on "scribal performance" and "scribe as performer" ideas, constitute an application example of Performance Theory on textual transmissions. This approach assumes that a copyist, trained in an oral/aural tradition, performs through copying activity, taking place in a period that oral/aural performances continue. We examined the entity of Kevserî's "copying activity" in terms of transmission-caused variations; his writing styles; page usage; contribution to comprehensibility of the texts copied and his responsibilities in the collection planning. As a result of the evaluations, we concluded that Kevserî's scribal activity was "communicative" and "performative", not mechanical.