Turkısh music content practice for chamber music guitar ensembles: An actıon research

This research aims to create, plan and implement teaching activities and educational materials with Turkish music content for guitar ensembles in chamber music courses in department of music education, and to teach this course with Turkish music content. Nineteen instructors that teach chamber music guitar classes at universities were interviewed in order to support and extend the research's problem statement. These interviews were conducted as part of the need assessment process. The research was designed and conducted as an applied action research in which the researcher took part as a practitioner. Action plans were created based on hüseyni, kürdi and hicaz maqam scales. The teaching process of the application consists of maqam scale studies and Turkish folk songs arranged by the researcher by taking expert opinions. The study group of the research consists of eleven students at Inonu University whose individual music instrument is guitar. Techniques such as observation, researcher notes, interviews, video recordings and student products were used to collect data. Descriptive and content analysis were used to analyze qualitative data. As a result of the opinions of the guitar educators, it was seen that the chamber music guitar lessons could not include Turkish music works at the desired rate due to the low number of arrangements with Turkish music content and the lack of sufficient number of educational resources suitable for the grade level. When the findings obtained from the researcher's notes, observation form, student and expert opinions during the action process were evaluated, it was concluded that the students were willing to work with Turkish music in general, and especially the studies with rhythmic elements specific to Turkish music contributed positively to performance and motivation. It was seen that the recognition and application of Turkish music maqam scales in theory and on the guitar was beneficial, and the arrangements handled with different guitar techniques supported and reinforced technical development in playing together. In addition, it can be said that the arrangements made for this study contribute to the chamber music guitar repertoire and constitute a source for teaching practices.