The question arises why of all peoples, he chose the Turks for field research.

Since there was broad consensus that the settling Magyars in the Carpathian Basin mainly comprised Finno-Ugric and Turkic ethnics, the historical research of the old strata of Hungarian folk music was logically aimed to find contacts in the musics of these groups.

It soon turned out that there was no homogeneous Finno-Ugric or Turkic folk music. Finnish ethnomusicologists (A. Launis, I. Krohn, A. O. Väisänen) tried to find the common musical contents of Lapp, Estonian, Mordvin, Vogul and Ostyak collections, with little success. Väisänen, for example, found that the Vogul and Ostyak tunes were wholly identical in terms of form, structure and ornamentation, but their melodies had no type in common. It was confirmed again that connections between musics often basically diverged from interlingual connections.

Yet the most typical musical forms of the Finno-Ugric and Northern Turkic – Mongolic peoples are relatively easily separated. The original vocal style of Finno-Ugrians had twin-bar structure built of repetitive motifs, completely differing from the music of the neighbouring Turkic-Mongolic groups whose musical realm was pentatony without semitones, set often in strictly symmetrical strophic structures. We have to mention Robert Lach’s name again, who published tunes from World War I POW’s of Turkic and Finno-Ugric origins in the series Gesänge russischer Kriegsgefängener. Though not going beyond generalities in many cases, he was nonetheless the first to define the musical specificities of Finno-Ugrian and Turkic peoples (Lach 1926, 1928, 1929, 1952).

There was consensus among Hungarian ethnomusicologists that Hungarian folk music, whose pentatony differentiates it from the folk music of neighbouring peoples, was of Turkic-Mongolian origin. Also, the fifth-shifting form, earlier believed to be Finno-Ugrian in origin, soon turned out only to live within a 100 km circle around the Cheremiss-Chuvash border and to be known by only those Cheremiss people among whom the Chuvash linguistic influence was still discernible. This tends to confirm that the Finno-Ugrians living in the Cheremiss border area learnt it from the Turkic Chuvash ethnics. Anyway, the Cheremiss quintal-shift is unique in Finno-Ugrian folk music while its Chuvash counterpart harmonizes with the Northern Turkic and Mongolian folk musics (Sipos 2001a [2004!]).

Let us quote two scholars about this issue. In Vargyas’s view (2002:51) “All the different types of our pentatonic tunes can be linked up with the musical styles of the Volga Region and more remote Turkic-Mongolian areas.” László Vikár (1993:33), who carried on extensive research in the area, says: “Experience has revealed that it was the Finno-Ugrians who borrowed it from the Turks, and not vice versa.”

Speaking about the Cheremiss pentatonic fifth-shift, Bence Szabolcsi (1934: 144) declares: “Instead of Finno-Ugrian we should term the style a borrowing from the musical traditions of one or several Turkic peoples... the closer some Cheremiss settlements are to Chuvash or Tatar quarters, the more numerous are the features of Mongolic or surely Turkic character in their culture… the farther they are from these quarter, the more they share with the simpler melodic realm of Mordvins, Votyaks, Zuryens.” Szabolcsi’s acumen is proven by László Vikár’s and Gábor Bereczki’s identical conclusion drawn after twenty years of field research.

Let us say a few words about the pentatonic stratum mainly reciting the notes E-D-C: the pentatonic lament and the psalmodic tunes belonging to it. Dobszay (1983:38) opines that the core of the main type of pentatonic laments is the E-D-C tritone which is self-sufficient but can be symmetrically complemented both above and below (A-G) -E-D-C- (A-G,) to produce pentatony. The motifs are usually descending, but tunes with bulging lines reminiscent of the familiar tags of laments can also be met with. Such lamenting tunes can only rarely be found among Turkic peoples. An example is a Karachay lament (Sipos–Tavkul 2012:150-151), and the lesser forms are illustrated by laments of the Mongolian Kazakhs (Sipos 2001:95-96). Kodály thinks the psalmodic tunes belong to a “supranational” style of which the Hungarian tradition is also part. László Dobszay (1983:92-93) writes: “Bolgar and Gregorian analogies make it impossible to regard the Hungarian lament exclusively as an Ugrian melodic tradition.” Let me note at this point that some of the Anatolian parallels found by Bartók belong to this style, only they are not pentatonic (Sipos 2000). (There are practically no Kyrgyz songs of this character.)

Let us finally mention the narrow-range pentatonic style moving on the notes D-C-A-G which Hungarian scholarship derives from Old Turkic roots. It was discovered by Lajos Vargyas (1984:147-150) and complemented by several melodic analogies and variants by Katalin Paksa (1982:527-553). This melody type is also missing from Kyrgyz folk music.

Where is then the Finno-Ugrian legacy of Hungarian folk music? In 1934 Bartók informed Bence Szabolcsi that he thought the Finno-Ugrian layer of Hungarian folk music should be searched for among the non-pentatonic Hungarian folksongs.

A knowledge of the simple short motivic structure of Finno-Ugric folk music might prompt the conclusion that among the twin-bar tunes of e.g. children’s games, villőzés we might find Hungarian–Ugrian connections. About this musical stratum, however, Zoltán Kodály (1976:54) writes the following: “The endless repetition of twin bars or short motifs in general is implied by the music of every primitive ethnic group as a typical form, and they are even in the ancient tradition of more advanced peoples”. Indeed, some of the most typical basic motifs of Hungarian music built of twin bars can be found among German, or for that matter Anatolian children’s song, too.

But the most typical rotating Hungarian motif of twin bars (E-D-C-D and D-E-D-B) is hardly represented in Finno-Ugrian music; what does occur is lost in the multitude of the simple Finno-Ugrian motivic forms. Neither motif is typical of Kyrgyz folk music, either.

The regölés motif with its up-shooting end has been extensively researched and compared, among other sources, with an intonation formula of Byzantine liturgy and with Southeast European, Asian and Caucasian tunes of folk customs. No Finno-Ugrian origin could be demonstrated, nor can any such tune be found in Kyrgyz music.

The investigation of the connections of laments has signal importance, as it is perhaps the least changeable genre, and therefore it may allow a glimpse of the oldest layers. I only quote two opinions again. Vargyas (1981:261) says that “obviously,… the Hungarian lament also belongs to the Old European melody style with the difference that instead of fixed motifs it puts constantly extemporized lines in a sequence and the order of cadences also always changes.” Vargyas only found such improvised tunes among Vogul-Ostyak melodies as a coherent style in addition to Hungarian music. Dobszay (1983:93) rejects most of Vargyas’s examples and concludes from his investigations: “The Bolgar and Gregorian analogies make it impossible that the Hungarian lament be regarded as exclusively Ugrian in origin… We should localize this musical idiom to the southern zone of Europe and regard the analyzed styles as diversely developed descendants of a practically Mediterranean melodic culture protruding a bit upward in the east.”

Robert Lach’s collections (1952:60-61) in POW camps of World War I reveal that such lamenting tunes occur among ethnic groups around the Caucasus, among Turkic and even Slavic ethnics.1 My own investigations demonstrate that the most prevalent Anatolian and Kyrgyz forms of the lament are very close to Hungarian laments, and the central form of Azeri laments is also very similar. The Karachay-Balkar Turks of the Caucasus also have similar laments, and the Mongolian Kazakh lament is identical with the simplest Hungarian ones. The Southern Kazakh lament displays typological similarities with the Hungarian lament. (Sipos 2001)

To sum up: scholarship agrees that the descending pentatonic tunes, a fundamental old layer determing the nature of Hungarian folk music, are of northern Turkic-Mongolian origin. The idea of Finno-Ugrian musical kinship deliberated on account of laments, children’s songs, regös tunes was more recently disproved, these simple musical forms being taken for the common stock of a large area, and also, Turkic contacts are seriously considered.

As seen above, with their works Vikár-Bereczki (1971, 1979, 1999) took the first steps to disentangle the eastern threads of the prehistory of Hungarian music, and this research gradually expanded into the comparative musical analysis of a vast area. (Sipos 1994–2013)

On February 24, 2011, I sent an e-mail to Bruno Nettl, one of the fathers of American ethnomusicology:

Dear Bruno!

I am very much interested in your opinion about the following. You know that my main interest is the musical world of the Turkic people, which is as complex as their ethnogenesis. The relationship between their languages is very different from the relationship existing between their musics. I am thinking about writing a comparative study of the music of Turkic-speaking peoples, mining out the common musical layers and pointing to the main differences and similarities.

Do you consider that a good idea? It seems so that comparative musicology looks old-fashioned.

Best wishes, János

Bruno Nettl, in his usual very polite manner, answered my letter the other day:

Dear János, good to hear from you.

A comparative study of the musical styles of Turkic peoples? Sounds like a good idea to me. One would have to be quite careful in drawing historical conclusions. As far as the old-fashionedness of comparative studies is concerned, I wouldn’t pay attention, the fact is that comparative study of all sorts is always being undertaken. Anyway, things that are considered old-fashioned return as new discoveries…

Best wishes, Bruno

And I, too, do think that a comparative analysis of Turkic musical styles is a good idea. What makes this project even more important is that Turkic peoples play a fundamental role in Asia, so we should have a deep knowledge of their music if we wish to understand the musical world of Central Asia. However, the way leading to our goal is not an easy one. First of all, we do not know the folk music of many Turkic peoples. Lexicons are sometimes too sloppy, and many articles on this topic contain no or too few transcriptions or analyses.

As a result of my proposal, the Music of the Turkic Speaking World ICTM Study Group was founded in Sheffield in 2006. We held meetings in London, Berlin, Cambridge, and in 2014 in Istanbul with a growing number of participants from different countries. This and The Musical Geographies of Central Asia conference in the SOAS (London) seem to prove that scholars have an increasing interest in the folk music of the Turkic peoples.

A comparative analysis of the music of Turkic peoples may seem limited in a sense, but we are speaking of a very large area from China to Bulgaria. These musics show amazing diversity, and the relationships among them are radically different from the relationships among the Turkic languages. The comparative research of Turkic folk music is actually a Euroasian folk music research of a very wide spectrum with results useful in anthropology-dominated ethnomusicology, musical education, and in lucky cases in the research of the ethnogenesis of some peoples, the study of the cultural development of Eurasia and several other areas.

We should keep in mind that language, culture and music obey different rules. Just as we do not expect Kurdish and Norwegian culture to be similar because both peoples speak an Indo-European language, we also should not expect this from any of the Turkic peoples. During their long history, the culture and language of the Turks assimilated several peoples who, during the process of Turkification, also influenced the conquering Turkic culture.

That was probably the case in Anatolia where at Manzikert in eastern Turkey the Seljuk Turks defeated the Byzantine troops in 1071, but they did not take Constantinople (Istanbul) before 1453. In the meantime they gradullay occupied the whole area of today’s Turkey. In the course of history several ethnic groups settled in or occupied Anatolia for varying lengths of time, including Hattic, Hittite, Cimmerian, Persian, Celtic, Greek, Armenian, Roman, Kurdish groups. When the Seljuks arrived, a highly mixed population lived here including Greeks on the shore (e.g. Troy), Persian-speaking Kurds, early Christian and Jewish communities and descendants of Hattic and Hittite people, among others.

No wonder then that Anatolian folk music is very different from the folk music of Turkic peoples living more to the east and displays several European contacts. This may be the outcome of the interplay of the occupying Turks and local people (of Byzantine culture), particulary if we consider that the occupying forces were mainly men while the defenders of the homes killed in action were also mainly the potent males. The occupiers then brought women slaves, later wives from the seized territories. The women learnt the language but probably passed down their vernacular songs to their children.

Let us also recall the story of the Karachay people living now in the North Caucasus. In the third millennium B.C. Cimmerians, Scythians and Alan layers were added onto the base originally founded by local tribes of the Central Caucasus who had created the Kuban culture. The Hun-Bulgar and Khazar tribes arrived there sometime after the first few centuries of the first millennium, followed by the Kipchaks from the tenth century on. (Karatay 2003, Şeşen 1985 and Tavkul 1993, 2002)

Similarly complex but different processes produced the Kyrgyz folk music. The possible constituents were discussed in the chapter on Kyrgyz ethnogenesis.