Bahaddin Ögel’s Contributions to Music History and Cultural Musicology

Abstract

One of the most important scientists in the field of General Turkish History, Prof. Dr. Bahaeddin Ögel had written very valuable works in terms of cultural history. His extensive works continue to shed light on other areas in which history has helped. One of these fields is the history of music, which is a sub-branch of both musicology and history. The side disciplines that Bahaeddin Ögel’s works shed the most light on are folklore and music. It is possible to come across many musicological data in his works on general Turkish history or mythology. So much so that Turkish music history studies written without reference to his works are considered insufficient. In addition to these, Ögel has books and papers on musicology. With the discipline he brought from the science of history, he also contributed to methodological musicology writing based on documents. The main subject of this study is Ögel’s works on music history, organology, cultural musicology, the content of these works, and Bahaeddin Ögel’s relationship with music.

In this descriptive study, the opinions of valuable scientists who were his students have been consulted along with the literature review; based on the semi-structured interview technique, information on the subject was obtained from them.

In the study, Ögel’s works containing data in the field of musicology have been determined; the sub-branches these studies shed light on have been examined such as music history, organology, cultural musicology. It is possible to divide Prof. Dr. Bahaeddin Ögel's works that present data to these fields into two. The first is the works that are mainly about General Turkish History or mythology, but contain musicological data in various sub-titles. The other is individual works that directly concern musicology, such as “Mehter” and “Turkish Folk Music Instruments”. At the end of the study, Ögel’s works on musicology have been classified. His books, articles and papers written independently on music or other subjects but containing musicological information have been listed. Finally, Ögel’s contributions to the field of musicology have been tabulated. These contributions have been identified under the main headings as follows: Data on Turkish music history (chronological development and changes), information on Turkish music types, military music in Turks (tuğ, nevbet, mehter teams, duties, instruments), Organological information (information on the origins of instruments etc.), Information on music and mythology (music, musicians and instruments in legends etc.), Information on words related to music (definitions and discussions on musical words on which there is a discussion; Introduction of musical words not well known to Anatolian Turks)