Characreristics of Zaralı Halil Söyler' singing style

Traditional Turkish Folk Music has been transmitted through both oral and written culture for years and continues to be transmitted to this day. In this transmission, the role of culture carriers is thought to be great. In this study, the vocal performance of Zaralı Halil Söyler, who is one of these cultural carriers and who is thought to be an important figure both with his performance and his source personality, was examined and analyzed over 10 works he performed. In order to understand the performance dimension of these works and to approach them from a certain perspective, in the first parts of the study, elements such as style, attitude, interpretation and vocals were mentioned and in the same measure, the history, culture and life of Zara region were examined in order to establish a connection between the philosophy and lifestyle of Zaralı Halil and the works. In the main part of the study, the works were examined from a literary and musical point of view, and within this examination, the works belonged; subject, language features, mouth structures, rhyme and stop schemes, syllable structures, sociological dimensions, modal features, procedural structures, dagger structures, vocal interval and ornament structures were examined and efforts were made to give information about style and attitude. In these analyzes, elements such as the characteristic performance style of Zaralı Halil, the use of naive and soft voice in the performance, the wide range of voice, the use of stereotyped daggers were clearly revealed and these elements were shown in detail with note writing. In addition, the composition aspect came to the fore with the fact that Zaralı Halil internalized the events he experienced and put them into performance. It was thought that the fact that he was constantly traveling during his life and having musical conversations in different regions had an effect on his performance, however, determinations were made about this issue in the mouth and procedure structures in the works. In general, with this study, where the vocal performance of Zaralı Halil is examined, it is aimed to understand the composer and performer aspect of Zaralı Halil and to contribute to the field and those concerned.