Smelly, Shitty, Stinky Brits....

[gamavor]

The post bellow is actually reposted from one of "their" so-called newspapers. As you can guess it has nothing to do with personal hygiene.

 

GLOBAL HIT

January 11, 2008

 

Turkish Cymbals

http://www.theworld.org/?q=node/15295

 

 

All this week, we've been visiting the Turkish city of Istanbul. It's

a place where history won't stay in the past. In fact, Istanbul's

history is playing a big part in shaping the city's future. Some of

you wrote to comment onour series. Aubree Caunter, of Cleveland, came

back to the US last August after living in Istanbul for several years.

 

Thank you, she writes, for highlighting Istanbul and all its quirky

charms.Here's another quirky bit of Istanbul for you. It involves

cymbals -- you know, drum cymbals. In the final part of our series

from Istanbul, The World's Alex Gallafent explores an industry that's

both ancient and modern.

 

 

Throw your mind back a few hundred years, to the 17th century. You're

a visitor to Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire. Let's

say you're an important visitor - an ambassador maybe.

 

 

Walking through the Topkapi Palace, you're greeted by these

sounds. It's anOttoman military band. Usually they play stirring music

on the battlefield.Today, they're performing a sedate march to welcome

you to Constantinople. Listen out, in particular, for the jangling

cymbals high up in the music.

 

 

 

Jump forward to modern times, and you'll see those Ottoman cymbals

have evolved. Now they're key to the sound of different

music. American music. Jazz.

 

Say hello to drummer Mel Lewis and his Jazz Orchestra, burning through

a tune in the late 1980s. In that recording, Mel Lewis is playing

Turkish cymbals. In fact, more or less the whole tradition of

cymbal-making in modern music comes from Turkey.

 

The Chinese were making cymbals centuries ago, too, but it's Turkey

that's led the way in modern times.

 

Now, you might think a cymbal is a cymbal is a cymbal. Not so. For

drummerslike Joey Waronker, a cymbal is part of your musical

voice. Waronker has played with the likes of Beck and R.E.M.

 

`I'd be looking for an even-ness of sound, and then a certain amount

of decay of the sound, like I might want something with a longer decay

or a shorter decay.'

 

That means how long it takes for the sound to die away. Waronker looks

for other things too. Like whether the sound of the cymbal is sharp or

mellow. Or whether it's high or low. Each cymbal has a unique sound -

in fact, some drummers can be identified simply by their choice of

cymbals.

 

`Like Elvin Jones - you immediately know it's him or Tony Williams was

another one. And they both used old Turkish cymbals but you just knew

the second you heard it who it was.'

 

In case you DON'T know, that's Tony Williams you're hearing right now,

fromthe Miles Davis album, Nefertiti.

 

That rich, pingy ride sound Willams had in the 1960s is something of a

holygrail for jazz drummers.

 

The stick hits are all clear and distinct, but the cymbal doesn't

sound toometallic or cold. It's a warm sound, you can hear a bunch of

different colors in the sound, it's like the metal's alive somehow. OK

- full disclosure. I play drums myself. So it's easy to get carried

away about these things.

 

The point is, your cymbals are YOU. They're a big part of what

identifies you musically. Drummer Joey Waronker does most of his

playing in California. But his cymbals come from here.

 

This is Istanbul Agop, a cymbal-making company on the outskirts of,

yes, Istanbul. The craftsmen working here are part of a cymbal-making

lineage that goes right back to the days of the Ottoman Empire. Part

of what distinguishes them is that they make all their cymbals by

hand. A master cymbal-maker, Fatih, takes me through the process on

the factory floor.

 

`This is the casting process - we put copper and zinc together, we mix

them - and put into the oven which is 1200 degree. And after the

melting, we put into these cases.

 

The exact formula for the alloy is a family secret passed from father

to son. Each pool of molten metal cools and sets in a heavy iron

pan. But it's about to get warm again.

 

`After we cast the copper, we put them into the oven, we make them

warmer and softer. Then we put them into this machine to make them

thinner.

 

They thin the sheet of metal seven or eight times.

 

`After these processes, we cut the edges off the cymbals and we start

to hammer them. Each cymbal has 2000 / 2500 hammer hits in one

cymbal.'

 

This is the key to traditional Turkish cymbal-making. Hammering the

cymbal makes the surface of the metal uneven. That disrupts the way

the cymbal vibrates when you hit it. And because every cymbal is

hammered in a slightly different way, each instrument has a different

sound.

 

Well it's not QUITE as simple as that. Lots of other factors play a

part indetermining the character of a cymbal.

 

The weight of the metal, how much alloy is used. Or the taper of the

cymbal- how thin it is at the edge.

 

`They're like fingerprints or snowflakes - there really are no two

alike.'

 

That's Brett Campbell, a cymbal specialist based in Boston. He says

it's hard to distinguish cymbals hammered by hand and cymbals hammered

by a computer-guided machine. That's how some of the big American

cymbal companies produce their instruments: the computer produces a

random hammering action to getthe same effect as a person.

`I don't know if I could tell, to be honest with you.' One of those

big American companies, Zildjian, was ORIGINALLY Turkish. The company

moved its operations to the US in the 1920s. Today Zildjian sells more

cymbals than the smaller companies still operating in Turkey.

 

Zildjian can legitimately claim its place in the Turkish lineage. And

theircymbals are generally agreed to be excellent. But there's a

romance to the hand-made instrument that's hard to deny. Brett

Campbell hopes traditional Turkish companies don't get TOO big,

because if they did...

 

`You know, they would have to change their manufacturing

techniqueswhich would change their sound and their mystique - and

everything would suffer that goes along with that.'

 

Right now, Turkish cymbal-makers like Istanbul Agop have achieved that

rarething - a successful integration of ancient craft and modern

commerce.

 

`They can remain in the old world, while still providing an instrument

that works in 2008.'

 

Before any cymbal leaves the Agop factory, it gets stamped with

company logo. It reads 'handmade cymbals made in Turkey'. So next time

you hear some American jazz, go take a peek at the cymbals. There's a

good chance they'll beTurkish.

 

For The World, I'm Alex Gallafent, Istanbul.

 

web resources:

Istanbul Cymbals

Zildjian

 

 

http://groong.usc.edu/news/msg216627.html

 

Zildjian and Agop are Armenian names and the only reason why their products are labeled Made in Turkey, instead of Made in Armenia is because the smelly, shitty, stinky Brits have helped the Turks to subdue the Christians in the Ottoman Empire. I wholeheartetly wish that Brits and their country be Paki-Islami-Turkisized as soon as possible. As I said in different topic, the World would have been better place without Anglo-Saxons, Turks and Jews! Amen!

 

[crusader1492]

Unfortunately, Ziljian originally advertized his product as "Turkish" symbols so what do you expect? Perhaps he wasn't a patriotic Armenian.

Regardless, I understand the frustration of the matter...Turks taking credit (again) for somthing they had nothing to do with and the west (in this case the British) bolstering the lie.

 

What else is new...

[Ashot]

Nothing else is new, lets go to Turkey manufacture something and write down made in Armenia!!!

[Zartonk]

I've got to say gams, your title gave me a good chuckle. It's like "...oh and something about cymbals in there too."

 

Let's just say, that we've dealt longer with both metals and music for the "zil" to be a Asian gift.

 

 

[gamavor]

The example with the cymbals is probably the most innocent. There was a TV show on one freaking EU channel the other day, where they were prizing the "Turkish" tulips! Someone should tell the European bastards (where is Marsiletsi") that Turkey as country was created in 1923 with the help of bastard Europeans and has nothing to do neither with the birthplace nor with the cultivation of the tulips.

[Ashot]

they are going to "assasin" that someone, unless he is from "USA". "The Fear" ba mihat kino rezhisyor cheliney mihat lav kino khaney!!!