Emirgan mosque

Emirgan shore, midday.

I was going to the Tulip festival and just got out of the ferry, when I heared the öğle (midday) ezan from the Emirgan mosque. The mosque itself is a beautiful and delicate wooden building painted in white, very much in tune with the other old buildings on the shore. The traffic on the shore had a lingering rhythm, too.

Listen to the recording:

At 0’19 of the track there is a sudden sound of a concrete element crashing down at a restoration site next to the mosque (nothing severe happened, though, fortunately) and at 1’00 you can hear the muezzin turn off the minaret speaker. Tship!

PS. Also, some very nice ezan recordings from different parts of the world (Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey) and the five different makams to be listened to here (comparing the different styles made easy).

Trabzonspor supporters

İstiklal caddesi, afternoon.

Football. No way you can live in Istanbul and not stumble on it. You can try to ignore it but eventually you will hear about it. If not via television, radio or eavesdropping, then via the supporter groups that take the streets before the game.

Last week there was a game between Galatasaray (I guess) and Trabzonspor. The visiting team supporters, probably a few hundred of them, wearing blue and burgundy, walked through Beyoğlu chanting and clapping their hands. People stopped and watched them go by, smiles on their faces, taking pictures. Some of the fans have probably come a long way from the Black sea coast city Trabzon (we are talking hours and hours on the bus). Just to see their team play, and of course: to make some good supporting noise!

Listen to the fans pass by:

Constantinople Ecumenical Patriarcate

Fener, Friday afternoon

Last March, a few weeks before Easter, I went to hear a service at the Greek Orthodox Patriarcate, located at Fener. The walled complex has seen a lot of history, some of it very violent since the 17th century. To get to the Church of Saint George you must go through metal detectors that protect the clergy.

The congregation present that day was formed of elderly people, some local, some from nearby, some who came as a tour group from abroad (Germans is my guess). We all waited in silence for the clergy to enter, whispering, sitting at the creaking wooden benches. After the clercy entered, dressed in their black cloacks, the congregation stood up and the service could begin. The service consisted of a chanting dialogue between the clergy and the Psaltis Cantor (representing the people). Nothing was read in a normal speaking voice.

Listen to the very beginning of the service:

Tulips and a skipping rope

Tulip festival, Emirgan park,
afternoon.

There’s no sense in describing the Istanbul Tulip Festival to someone who hasn’t seen it. All I can say is that there are fragrant tulips everywhere, a lot of them. Some things you just have to see for yourself. (And the same goes without saying to sounds as well, to hear them with your own ears.)

The soundscape in the park however was quite different from the visual intake. Colourful, yes, but not as serene. The park is very popular this time of the year. Among the gloriuos and lush tulips there were teenaged girls skipping rope. Bir-kii-üç, haydi! “One, two, three! Come on!” The rope hitting the pavement is accompanied by giggles and laughter. On the background there are whistles of the park guards and families having a picnic, strolling around. One small boy is enjoying the thick, cool grass by rolling over it and patting it with his hands. He stops when he sees me, looking a bit shy, realizing he’s among others in a public park.

Kittens!

at home, Thursday afternoon

I was washing dishes today when I heard something unusual from outside the window. Kittens! Squealing kittens, tiny tiny meaows. Some neighbours were present, wondering what should be done with them. The mother cat was following the situation very closed from a few meters. (I hope they didn’t give the kitties any harsh verdicts. I am a cat person, you see. I’d prefer them to be left alone.)

This was no miracle as the cats in our yard have been fighting and mating fiercly for weeks day and night waking up the whole neighbourhood. There is something peculiarly funny about the sounds of some cats having a fight in our yard. Maybe it’s the sudden change in the dynamics. The nonintentional comedy. Some of them just have to most hilarious voices, accents or what ever you could call them.

I didn’t have the chance to take a close-up picture of the kitties so here’s a picture roughly pointing to their direction. With a tulip (it’s the Tulip Festival time, more on that later).

At the hairdressers – kuaför

S & B, Çengelköy,
Thursday, midday

Since I was a little girl I had realized that going to the hairdressers was something essential to the women living in Istanbul. In Finland we were used to cutting our hair by ourselves (I cut my friends’ hair, they cut mine ect), not to talk about the manicures and pedicures (what luxury!). So at the beginning of every summer my mother took me to the kuaför in Selimiye and  I could choose the style I wanted. For me it was more of a chance to experiment something that couldn’t be done at home so the results were various. Very entertaining.

A few days ago I went to cut my hair, and recognised the familiar sounds and scents. The keynote sound of hairdressers, the fön, huffed most of the time accompanied by the radio and small chatter of ladies having their nails done:

The sound of scissors clipping my hair was something that maked me feel just a bit pampered. And while modeling my hair, Metin bey flattered me, admiring the looks of my face (as a good kuaför should, of course). The leasurely afternoon was well spent. Listen to the clip:

Evening at a meyhane

Akşam sefası, Beyoğlu,
Friday, midnight

A friend took me to a tiny  meyhane, a restaurant with a duo playing Turkish classical music, popular tunes everybody seems to know. The place was on a small street, just a turn away from the crowded İstiklal street. There was no sign on the street as there usually isn’t. We climbed up the stairs to the (if I remember right) fouth floor. Still no sign. Just a faint echo of music and people talking and laughing trickling from the door. Once the door opened it became clear that this was a very popular place indeed.

I really enjoyed evening and the welcoming atmosphere. Listen to the lively soundscape:

World Roma Day

Balat, Thursday 8 April

The World Roma Day festivities have started at the shore of the Golden Horn (Haliç) strait. Listen to the recording:

The echoing ezan faintly heard in the begining of the recording made the festival pause for a few minutes. But soon the voices of the müezzins are no longer heard and the soundsystem is switched on.

The Çanakkale Lapseki Roman orchestra is warming up and doing soundcheck. The clarinetist Hüsnü Şenlendirici stolls on the stage and soon the air fills with the sound of Roma music. The evening continues with more and more performers, and the people are dancing and enjoying themseves despite the cooling evening weather. Compelled to leave the spot due to not just high but ear piercing decibel levels I fled to a cafe near by and enjoyed the music through the walls.

The announcer thanked the local MP and city authority for organizing the event. Unfortunately the city authorities will also bulldoze and rebuilt the Balat and neighboring Fener districts in very near future as they are to attract more tourists to the detriment of local residents. These kind of gentrification projects are familiar to the former Sulukule residents as well. A Roma neighbourhood like Balat, that too.

Bazaar chicks

Friday, midday at Çengelköy

It’s a market day (pazar) at Çengelköy, a sunny Spring day. The stalls on the street, covered lightly, have put their produce beautifully on show. Spinach, carrots, cheese, cabbage, artichokes, bananas, lettuce, garlic, mushrooms, aubergines, tomatoes… and çağla, delicious and sour small green raw apricots [edit: not apricots! silly me… raw almonds]. The colours themselves are bright and fresh enough to eat! People are walking up and down the street. Two young girls have stopped to watch into the two card board boxes, with chicks cheeping inside.

Hear the chicks. You’ll also hear the salesman shouting ‘Taze günlük, taze günlük yumurtalar çiftlikten!’ (Fresh daily, fresh daily eggs from the farm!)

Akbil

Eminönü ferry pier, 6 pm, Tuesday.
People have done their work for the day and are running to catch the ferry to the Asian side, Kadıköy.

Meriç Öner writes about Akbil (the ‘smart ticket’, a small keychain-like magnet that can be used to pay trip fares at ferries, buses, metros, trains, the ‘tünel’, funicular, tram, you name it, in Istanbul) in the book İstanbullaşmak (eds. Derviş, Tanju, Tanyeli: Garanti Galeri 2009) that there are all kind of things one can know about the one using the akbil by listening to the electronic notes it plays when used. The A – E interwal (‘first trip of the day’), the B – A sharp – B – C sharp (‘s/he is a transfer passanger), the B – E – A sharp – B – E – A sharp (‘damn! Must get in the line… my akbil has dried out’).

All this akbil powered human traffic turns the piers and stops into places of electric symphonies. But Öner points out that the most intimiating sound of akbil is the silence when one searches for the pockets of ones bag and just doesn’t… now where is it!!??

Listen to the Eminönü pier: