Draft:Muharrem Aslan

Muharrem Aslan (born 15 Jan 1977) is a singer, bağlama virtuoso, songwriter, composer and arranger from Turkey.

Aslan is a strong voice of özgün music, who produced various solo, instrumental and collaborative albums. He coined the fourtemolo playing technique on the baglama. He has reached broad audiences with the song called Ben Gönlümü Sana Verdim.

Early Life and Education
Muharrem Aslan was born and grew up in Turkey, in an Alevi spiritual music culture (deyiş), where spiritual leaders (Alevi dedes) are very prominent; this was the biggest factor in his decision to become a musician. From age 12, he began to play the bağlama and singing the folk songs.

Aslan completed his primary and high school education in Elbistan, and moved to Istanbul in 1995 to study Geodetic Engineering at Yıldız Technical University. While studying here, he took music theory lessons at the Fine Arts Department of the University. In 2001, he immigrated to Sydney, Australia, where he studied Bachelor of Music (Honours) at The University of New South Wales. In his honours thesis (2020), Five Songs Without Words: New Compositions for the Anatolian Bağlama, he composed a suite for the solo bağlama under the supervision of Assoc. Prof. Manolete Mora. This work incorporated a number of innovative playing techniques for the bağlama, one of which he referred to as fourtemolo. He graduated from UNSW in 2021. He then started studying Master of Creative Music Therapy at Western Sydney University in 2021 and graduated in 2023.

Fourtemolo
In 2020, he found a new playing technique on the bağlama, which he named as fourtemolo. Fourtemolo is a playing technique that involves the right hand without a plectrum. Its method as follows: while the thumb plays by touching the second and third string groups, the little, ring, middle and index fingers sweep seamlessly on the first string group simultaneously. The fourtemolo technique emerges a new musical style in bağlama repertoire.

In 2022, Aslan presented the technique with an album that he entitled the album with the same name - "Fourtemolo". Album has 10 works and all of them were played by using only with the fourtemolo technique. Since the vocal accompanied the fourtemolo technique, It can be said that the album is a fourtemolo-vocal duet album. The Fourtemolo album will be a complete reference for listeners in order to understand the execution of the fourtemolo technique and its effect of occurring a new musical style in bağlama repertoire.

Fourtemolo Notation


Aslan devised a novel notational system for the fourtemolo pieces, which is differ from the conventional baglama notational system. Since two melodies are performed at the same time in the use of the technique, he wrote the note of the pieces as two different melodies on the same stave. In musical notation, Aslan illustrated the symbol of the fingers as follows: 'p' (thumb), 'i' (index finger), 'm' (middle finger), 'a' (ring finger), 's' (little finger).

Collaborative Works
He produced a great number of collaborative works with musicians from Australia such as “Koçgiri Düz Halayı” with UNSW Jazz Orchestra in the Buluşmalar/Nexus album, “Climate” with UNSW Classical Guitar Ensemble in the Buluşmalar/Nexus Vol.2 album, “Tale of a Platonic Love” with the ‘Rose of April’ in the Buluşmalar/Nexus album and “The Legend of Ali Lake Mountain” album with the “Rose of April”. These are only a few examples of Aslan’s collaborative works. Aslan emerges as a songwriter, composer, Arranger and bağlama virtuoso in these albums.

Solo Works
Aslan’s first album,Gule Nisan, is an instrumental album which he completed the recording sessions in Sydney and published in Turkey in 2005. And then he released the Yedi iklim in 2009 and the Tutsak Sevdalar in 2011, respectively. Especially, the song Ben Gönlümü Sana Verdim in the Tutsak Sevdalar album has reached wide audiences.

He released the Sustum album in 2018 that he composed poems from renowned Turkish poets in this album such as Nazım Hikmet Ran, Sabahattin Ali, Hasan Hüseyin Korkmazgil, Cemal Süreya, Özdemir Asaf. He also composed from other living poets such as Yavuz Doğan, Efe Kaya and Celalettin Kurt. As usual for the all albums in sustum album, also he appears as the arranger, bağlama, kopuz, piano, guitar player. The album mostly coinsists of Western instrumentation in terms of arrangements.

Aslan released the İklimsiz Acılar album in 2019. The album consists of a hybrid of Western and Turkish instrumentation. In this album, he also composed poems from renowned poets alongside his original songs.

Ağlamakla Gülmek Arasında album which he published in 2021 has fifteen songs in total. Aslan has five his own original songs in the album. He wrote the “Tanı Beni”, the “Tamara” and the “Gönül” songs in 2010, whereas the “Doğum Günün Kutlu Olsun” and the “Çal Bağlamacı” songs in 2019. Alongside his original songs, he composed poems from Hasan Hüseyin Korkmazgil, Adnan Yücel, Yavuz Doğan and Efe Kaya. He worked on this album for six months and as usual he did the arrangements, mixing and mastering of the all works. In the Bırakılan Mektup, which he released in 2021, he first used the fourtemolo technique in song of “Gönüllü Sürgün”, “Yağmurkuşu”, “Alplerden Munzura” and “Kerbela Uzak Değil”.

Discography
Following is a list of albums by Aslan:
 * Gule Nisan (2007)
 * Yedi İklim (2009)
 * Tutsak Sevdalar (2011)
 * Sustum (2018)
 * İklimsiz Acılar (2019)
 * Buluşmalar/Nexus (2019)
 * Anadolu Resitali (2019)
 * Buluşmalar/Nexus Vol.2 (2020)
 * Ali Göl Dağı Efsanesi (2020)
 * The Legend of Ali Lake Mountain (2020)
 * Ağlamakla Gülmek Arasında (2021)
 * Bırakılan Mektup (2021)
 * Fourtemolo (2022)
 * Five Songs Without Words (2022)