Glossary

Turkish Music Portal has an excellent dictionary of Turkish music terminology, but I'll list important words I use in this project on this page for convenience.

beşli (pl beşliler, lit 'quintet')

Pentachord. A dörtlü with a tanini appended to it. A makam is made up of one beşli and one dörtlü.

dörtlü (pl dörtlüler, lit 'quartet')

Tetrachord. It can also be used generically to refer to an üçlü, or a beşli as well. A makam is made up of one dörtlü and one beşli.
See dörtlüler in the guide.

durak (pl duraklar, lit 'stop/pause')

Tonic. The starting perde of a chord or scale.

makam (pl makamlar, lit 'location')

A type-melody that is often loosely translated as 'scale' or 'mode.' A makam belongs in one of three categories:

1. Basit (simple)
2. Göçürülmüş (transposed)
3. Bileşik (compound)

A basit makam is defined through

1. The first perde, ie durak (tonic).
2. A dörtlü or beşli starting from said durak, the final perde of which is called güçlü (dominant).
3. A beşli (if following a dörtlü) or a dörtlü (if following a beşli) beginning from the güçlü, whose ending perde is called yeden (leading tone, or subtonic).

Bileşik makamlar work similarly, but substitute one of the chords with a basit makam. A göçürülmüş makam is a basit or bileşik makam transposed to a different durak.
Makamlar have three seyirler

1. Çıkıcı (rising/ascending)
2. İnici (falling/descending)
3. İnici-çıkıcı (falling-rising/ascending-descending)

musiki (pl musikiler, lit 'music')

Music. Since French müzik replaced this word, it came to be used for traditional, especially classical Turkish music.

üçlü (pl üçlüler, lit 'triplet')

Trichord. A dörtlü with the final interval removed.