GLOBAL HIT
January 11, 2008
Turkish Cymbals
Al l this week, we’ve been visiting the Turkish city of Istanbul. It’s
a place where history won’t stay in the past. In fact, Istanbul’s
history is playing a big part in shaping the city’s future. Some of
you wrote to comment onour series. Aubree Caunter, of Cleveland, came
back to the US last August after living in Istanbul for several years.
Thank you, she writes, for highlighting Istanbul and all its quirky
charms.Here’s another quirky bit of Istanbul for you. It involves
cymbals — you know, drum cymbals. In the final part of our series
from Istanbul, The World’s Alex Gallafent explores an industry that’s
both ancient and modern.
Throw your mind back a few hundred years, to the 17th century. You’re
a visitor to Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire. Let’s
say you’re an important visitor – an ambassador maybe.
Walking through the Topkapi Palace, you’re greeted by these
sounds. It’s anOttoman military band. Usually they play stirring music
on the battlefield.Today, they’re performing a sedate march to welcome
you to Constantinople. Listen out, in particular, for the jangling
cymbals high up in the music.
Jump forward to modern times, and you’ll see those Ottoman cymbals
have evolved. Now they’re key to the sound of different
music. American music. Jazz.
Say hello to drummer Mel Lewis and his Jazz Orchestra, burning through
a tune in the late 1980s. In that recording, Mel Lewis is playing
Turkish cymbals. In fact, more or less the whole tradition of
cymbal-making in modern music comes from Turkey.
The Chinese were making cymbals centuries ago, too, but it’s Turkey
that’s led the way in modern times.
Now, you might think a cymbal is a cymbal is a cymbal. Not so. For
drummerslike Joey Waronker, a cymbal is part of your musical
voice. Waronker has played with the likes of Beck and R.E.M.
`I’d be looking for an even-ness of sound, and then a certain amount
of decay of the sound, like I might want something with a longer decay
or a shorter decay.’
That means how long it takes for the sound to die away. Waronker looks
for other things too. Like whether the sound of the cymbal is sharp or
mellow. Or whether it’s high or low. Each cymbal has a unique sound –
in fact, some drummers can be identified simply by their choice of
cymbals.
`Like Elvin Jones – you immediately know it’s him or Tony Williams was
another one. And they both used old Turkish cymbals but you just knew
the second you heard it who it was.’
In case you DON’T know, that’s Tony Williams you’re hearing right now,
fromthe Miles Davis album, Nefertiti.
That rich, pingy ride sound Willams had in the 1960s is something of a
holygrail for jazz drummers.
The stick hits are all clear and distinct, but the cymbal doesn’t
sound toometallic or cold. It’s a warm sound, you can hear a bunch of
different colors in the sound, it’s like the metal’s alive somehow. OK
– full disclosure. I play drums myself. So it’s easy to get carried
away about these things.
The point is, your cymbals are YOU. They’re a big part of what
identifies you musically. Drummer Joey Waronker does most of his
playing in California. But his cymbals come from here.
This is Istanbul Agop, a cymbal-making company on the outskirts of,
yes, Istanbul. The craftsmen working here are part of a cymbal-making
lineage that goes right back to the days of the Ottoman Empire. Part
of what distinguishes them is that they make all their cymbals by
hand. A master cymbal-maker, Fatih, takes me through the process on
the factory floor.
`This is the casting process – we put copper and zinc together, we mix
them – and put into the oven which is 1200 degree. And after the
melting, we put into these cases.
The exact formula for the alloy is a family secret passed from father
to son. Each pool of molten metal cools and sets in a heavy iron
pan. But it’s about to get warm again.
`After we cast the copper, we put them into the oven, we make them
warmer and softer. Then we put them into this machine to make them
thinner.
They thin the sheet of metal seven or eight times.
`After these processes, we cut the edges off the cymbals and we start
to hammer them. Each cymbal has 2000 / 2500 hammer hits in one
cymbal.’
This is the key to traditional Turkish cymbal-making. Hammering the
cymbal makes the surface of the metal uneven. That disrupts the way
the cymbal vibrates when you hit it. And because every cymbal is
hammered in a slightly different way, each instrument has a different
sound.
Well it’s not QUITE as simple as that. Lots of other factors play a
part indetermining the character of a cymbal.
The weight of the metal, how much alloy is used. Or the taper of the
cymbal- how thin it is at the edge.
`They’re like fingerprints or snowflakes – there really are no two
alike.’
That’s Brett Campbell, a cymbal specialist based in Boston. He says
it’s hard to distinguish cymbals hammered by hand and cymbals hammered
by a computer-guided machine. That’s how some of the big American
cymbal companies produce their instruments: the computer produces a
random hammering action to getthe same effect as a person.
`I don’t know if I could tell, to be honest with you.’ One of those
big American companies, Zildjian, was ORIGINALLY Turkish. The company
moved its operations to the US in the 1920s. Today Zildjian sells more
cymbals than the smaller companies still operating in Turkey.
Zildjian can legitimately claim its place in the Turkish lineage. And
theircymbals are generally agreed to be excellent. But there’s a
romance to the hand-made instrument that’s hard to deny. Brett
Campbell hopes traditional Turkish companies don’t get TOO big,
because if they did…
`You know, they would have to change their manufacturing
techniqueswhich would change their sound and their mystique – and
everything would suffer that goes along with that.’
Right now, Turkish cymbal-makers like Istanbul Agop have achieved that
rarething – a successful integration of ancient craft and modern
commerce.
`They can remain in the old world, while still providing an instrument
that works in 2008.’
Before any cymbal leaves the Agop factory, it gets stamped with
company logo. It reads ‘handmade cymbals made in Turkey’. So next time
you hear some American jazz, go take a peek at the cymbals. There’s a
good chance they’ll beTurkish.
For The World, I’m Alex Gallafent, Istanbul.
web resources:
Istanbul Cymbals
Zildjian