The bağlama — also known as the saz — is one of the most recognisable instruments of Anatolian music. More than a musical tool, it has long served as a companion to storytelling, poetry, and collective memory. For centuries, travelling poet-musicians known as aşıks carried news, emotions, and moral reflections from village to village through its strings, shaping a shared musical language rooted in lived experience.
Figures such as Âşık Veysel and Neşet Ertaş transformed personal experience into shared cultural expression, using music as a means of connecting communities across time and geography. Their songs remain deeply embedded in everyday life in Türkiye, continuing to be sung, remembered, and reinterpreted today.
This Hey Jukebox playlist follows the bağlama’s journey from these rooted traditions into more contemporary soundscapes. Alongside archival recordings and iconic folk songs, the selection includes modern interpretations by musicians who engage with the instrument in new and exploratory ways. Artists such as Erkan Oğur and Ahmet Ozan Baysal approach the bağlama not only as a bearer of tradition, but as a living instrument capable of dialogue with the present.
The bağlama itself exists in many forms — long-necked, short-necked, and smaller variations such as the cura — each associated with different regions and playing styles. Today, it continues to resonate far beyond Türkiye, particularly within diaspora communities, where it often becomes a symbol of belonging, continuity, and cultural memory.
Curated in collaboration with Yunus Emre Institute, this playlist accompanies the Hear it Live performance at the Horniman. Ahmet Ozan Baysal, who regularly teaches and shares the bağlama tradition through educational programmes at the Yunus Emre Institute, brings this living heritage into conversation with the Museum’s collections and audiences.
These sounds invite listeners to pause, listen, and reflect on how music travels — carrying stories, identities, and memories across time and place.
Opening: The Bağlama as a Storyteller
This opening section introduces the bağlama as a storytelling instrument at the heart of Anatolian folk culture. Voice and poetry take the lead, inviting listeners into a shared musical language shaped by travel, memory, and lived experience.
Tracks
Uzun İnce Bir Yoldayım – Âşık Veysel
Gönül Dağı – Neşet Ertaş
Regional Airs and Rhythmic Landscapes
Instrumental and dance-based forms foreground rhythm, regional character, and movement. These pieces allow the bağlama to articulate place and identity without words, creating an open and accessible listening space.
Tracks
Boğaz Havası – Erol Parlak
Ağır Zeybek – Erol Parlak
Cezayir – Erdal Erzincan
Semah and Deyişler – Ritual, Movement, and Devotion
Semahs are sacred musical forms rooted in Alevi-Bektashi ritual practice. Combining music, movement, and spirituality, they present the bağlama as a guiding instrument within communal remembrance and ethical reflection. Deyişler express spiritual longing, humility, and moral inquiry.
Tracks
Kırıntı Semahı – Erdal Erzincan
Urfa Semahı – Kutsal Evcimen, Sinan Güngör, Cemalettin Güleç
Duaz-ı İmam – Dertli Divani
Yıldız – Âşık Veysel
Laments, Love, and the Human Voice
Songs of love, fate, and separation form the emotional core of the repertoire. Slow-paced and deeply expressive, these pieces foreground the human voice and its intimate relationship with the bağlama.
Tracks
Ah Ellerin Sala Sala Gelen Yar – Neşet Ertaş
Ben miyim Dünyada Bir Bahtı Kara – Neşet Ertaş
Shared Cultural Memory – Iconic Folk Songs
These widely recognised works form a collective musical memory across generations. Continually reinterpreted, they connect land, labour, love, and existence through enduring melodies and texts.
Tracks
Kara Toprak – Âşık Veysel
Kirpiğine Kaşına – Arif Sağ
Mevlam İki Göz Vermiş – Aşık Mahsuni Şerif
Hey Jukebox!
Listen to a playlist of the songs discussed in this blog on Spotify and in the Museum on Tuesday afternoons.
Lead image: CC BY-SA 4.0