Kazak Türklerinin Düğün Geleneği Müzikleri ve Ritüel Örnekleri
Music and Ritual Examples of the Wedding Traditions of Kazakh Turks

Summary/Abstract: Societies have expressed their life practices and experiences orally. These oral language products have sometimes transformed into poetry, songs, tales, stories, and epics. Societies have utilized the art of music while expressing their thoughts and emotions through these genres. Music plays an important role in reflecting and transmitting the cultural values of a society. Kazakh society also make extensive use of songs in their wedding traditions, which are characterized by entertaining and rich ritual features. The marriage tradition of the Kazakh Turks is marked by magnificent celebrations. The music and musical lyrics performed here are legacies of cultural life. Musical performances observed in the Kazakh wedding tradition, such as “jar-jar, betaşar, sınsu,” are significant in terms of the meanings they carry within the oral culture. The “sınsular” sung during the farewell to the bride are laden with philosophical thoughts reflecting Kazakh oral culture and their cultural worlds. In this respect, it can be said that the music performed within the context of wedding traditions not only reflects the emotional world of the Kazakh people but also exhibits social attitudes that guide human relationships. This study examines the musical performances that remain current in Kazakh oral tradition and their connections to tradition. The cultural meanings carried by the words in Kazakh wedding music and the rituals performed in the execution environments have been evaluated. It has been identified that the songs sung during the farewell to the bride, the verbal exchanges between the bride and groom during the wedding, and the musical melodies and lyrics performed during the bride’s unveiling ceremony still reflect the shared joys of the community today, and are used to convey important messages affecting wishes, desires, and interpersonal communication. The overt and covert functions of the messages conveyed by the songs sung in the Kazakh marriage tradition have been addressed. Changes and transformations between the songs sung in ancient wedding traditions and those sung today have also been explained. The cultural analysis of changes in the songs performed in the marriage tradition following technological advancements and economic changes has been conducted.

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