Friday, June 20, 2008

Mathematicians Kemal Karaosmanoğlu and Süleyman Metin Yılmaz have developed a database software program of Ottoman classical music. Called Mus2okur, the software contains musical notes of thousands of Ottoman classical works

VERCİHAN ZİFLİOĞLU
ISTANBUL - Turkish Daily News

An incredible collection of the musical notes of Ottoman classical works has been gathered together in a revolutionary new software program created by two Turkish mathematicians.

Mathematicians Kemal Karaosmanoğlu and Süleyman Metin Yılmaz spent years looking at musical manuscripts of a myriad of Ottoman classical songs and instrumental works found in the dusty archives of TRT, Turkey’s first and only state television and radio station. As a result of this meticulous study, they applied the musical notes of more than 1,500 classical works to database software they created, calling the result Mus2okur. The software program not only contains the musical notes of centuries-old Ottoman works, but also their lyrics and information about the composers. In addition, each song in Mus2okur is provided with a makam, melodic mode, and usul, underlying rhythmic cycle that complements the melodic rhythm and helps shape the overall structure of a composition in Ottoman classical music.

Mus2okur also contains an index of a total of 24,000 different Ottoman classical works with their descriptive characteristics. All the works can be applied to 128 different musical instruments on a music computer and can be played with a fretless guitar.

Mus2okur is a masterpiece, said Karl Signell, world-renowned U.S. ethnomusicologist and scholar of Turkish classical music.

Mus2okur is one of the most successful studies I have ever witnessed and is a unique source for addicts and researchers of Ottoman classical music, said Periklis Tsoukalas, a Greek musician who specializes in Eastern music.

In the early years of the Turkish Republic, Ottoman classical music was neglected to a great extent because it evoked a past tradition and way of life not in line with modernization and Westernization efforts of the young nation state. We have adopted the notation system of the West and simply ignored our own classical music, said Karaosmanoğlu. As we turned our face to the West, we neglected our own music. Karaosmanoğlu noted that in most Western music, the octave is divided into 12 semitones, while Ottoman classical music features a much more complex range of tones.

Mus2okur also contains information on a specific music notation system created by Hampartsoum Limondjian, more commonly known as Baba Hamparzsum, a prominent Ottoman Armenian composer of Turkish classical music. Called the Hampartsoum notation system, the system Limondjian developed became the main musical notation system for Turkish classical music. Limondjian served as royal musician during the reign of Ottoman Sultan Selim III, who was also a musician. Hampartsoum notation uses symbols derived from an older notation called khaz used by the Armenian Church in the eighth and the ninth centuries.

The music notation system created by Limondjian is the basic notation system in the history of Turkish classical music. Thousands of old songs are still alive today thanks to Limondjian’s notation system, said Karaosmanoğlu. This is the reason why we have also incorporated his notation system to our software program, he said.

Mus2okur’s rich database makes it a great reference on Ottoman classical music for Western musicians and scholars who are interested in the unique style of music.

[http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=107702]

From hakkani.wordpress.com

There are two kinds of Imaan, faith. One is real and the other is imitative. The real brings light to the heart of a person; until then, he is only imitating faith. The signs of real faith are three. The first is the ability for listening to the tasbih of all creatures, their praying praise and respects to their Lord. Quran says that there is nothing in existence without tasbih, even inanimate objects. Once the Prophet, salla lahu alayhi wa sallam, took a handful of stones and held them up so that the Sahaba, his companions, might listen to their giving high respects. This was a miracle to give them real faith. The second sign is Allah’s opening of his heart to the fountain of wisdom, to know the wisdom behind all things in existence, to know their purpose and position. Like the essence of the rose forms tiny drops on the surface of rose-water, he has Hikmat, wisdoms, or the essence of knowledge. Thirdly, there are no more veils between him and Barzakh, the heavenly worlds. He may meet anyone from Barzakh without hindrance, the spirit of any Prophet or Saint. Until these three signs appear, know that you are still veiled and not open to the light of Iman. Allah says << Oh, you who believe, believe in Allah and His Prophet and His Books (Surat Nisa 136) This, addressing the believers to believe, indicates that they must improve to real faith and not stop at imitation. Tariqats are preparing mureeds for real faith. The meaning of mureed is one who is asking. What is he asking for - for real faith.

-Seyh Mevalana Nazim al-Hakkani
Mercy Oceans 2, First sohbet.

Just a first shot at video of the Dergah. It will be getting better as I take more footage.

Untitled from Yursil on Vimeo.

I found this to be an interesting article, especially when contrasting Muslim zikr and practices of self-reflection, which are far more well defined than what is mentioned in this article about Buddhist practices.

Scans of Monks’ Brains Show Meditation Alters Structure, Functioning

Wall Street Journal
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All of the Dalai Lama’s guests peered intently at the brain scan projected onto screens at either end of the room, but what different guests they were.

On one side sat five neuroscientists, united in their belief that physical processes in the brain can explain all the wonders of the mind, without appeal to anything spiritual or nonphysical.

Facing them sat dozens of Tibetan Buddhist monks in burgundy-and-saffron robes, convinced that one round-faced young man in their midst is the reincarnation of one of the Dalai Lama’s late teachers, that another is the reincarnation of a 12th-century monk, and that the entity we call “mind” is not, as neuroscience says, just a manifestation of the brain.

It was not, in other words, your typical science meeting.

But although the Buddhists and scientists who met for five days last month in the Dalai Lama’s home in Dharamsala, India, had different views on the little matters of reincarnation and the relationship of mind to brain, they set them aside in the interest of a shared goal. They had come together in the shadows of the Himalayas to discuss one of the hottest topics in brain science: neuroplasticity.

The term refers to the brain’s recently discovered ability to change its structure and function, in particular by expanding or strengthening circuits that are used and by shrinking or weakening those that are rarely engaged. In its short history, the science of neuroplasticity has mostly documented brain changes that reflect physical experience and input from the outside world. In pianists who play many arpeggios, for instance, brain regions that control the index finger and middle finger become fused, apparently because when one finger hits a key in one of these fast-tempo movements, the other does so almost simultaneously, fooling the brain into thinking the two fingers are one. As a result of the fused brain regions, the pianist can no longer move those fingers independently of one another.

Lately, however, scientists have begun to wonder whether the brain can change in response to purely internal, mental signals. That’s where the Buddhists come in. Their centuries-old tradition of meditation offers a real-life experiment in the power of those will-o’-the-wisps, thoughts, to alter the physical matter of the brain.

“Of all the concepts in modern neuroscience, it is neuroplasticity that has the greatest potential for meaningful interaction with Buddhism,” says neuroscientist Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. The Dalai Lama agreed, and he encouraged monks to donate (temporarily) their brains to science.

The result was the scans that Prof. Davidson projected in Dharamsala. They compared brain activity in volunteers who were novice meditators to that of Buddhist monks who had spent more than 10,000 hours in meditation. The task was to practice “compassion” meditation, generating a feeling of loving kindness toward all beings.

“We tried to generate a mental state in which compassion permeates the whole mind with no other thoughts,” says Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk at Shechen Monastery in Katmandu, Nepal, who holds a Ph.D. in genetics.

In a striking difference between novices and monks, the latter showed a dramatic increase in high-frequency brain activity called gamma waves during compassion meditation. Thought to be the signature of neuronal activity that knits together far-flung brain circuits, gamma waves underlie higher mental activity such as consciousness. The novice meditators “showed a slight increase in gamma activity, but most monks showed extremely large increases of a sort that has never been reported before in the neuroscience literature,” says Prof. Davidson, suggesting that mental training can bring the brain to a greater level of consciousness.

Using the brain scan called functional magnetic resonance imaging, the scientists pinpointed regions that were active during compassion meditation. In almost every case, the enhanced activity was greater in the monks’ brains than the novices’. Activity in the left prefrontal cortex (the seat of positive emotions such as happiness) swamped activity in the right prefrontal (site of negative emotions and anxiety), something never before seen from purely mental activity. A sprawling circuit that switches on at the sight of suffering also showed greater activity in the monks. So did regions responsible for planned movement, as if the monks’ brains were itching to go to the aid of those in distress.

“It feels like a total readiness to act, to help,” recalled Mr. Ricard.

The study will be published next week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “We can’t rule out the possibility that there was a pre-existing difference in brain function between monks and novices,” says Prof. Davidson, “but the fact that monks with the most hours of meditation showed the greatest brain changes gives us confidence that the changes are actually produced by mental training.”

That opens up the tantalizing possibility that the brain, like the rest of the body, can be altered intentionally. Just as aerobics sculpt the muscles, so mental training sculpts the gray matter in ways scientists are only beginning to fathom.

I get it, the Dunkin Doughnuts thing was a spectacle representing a type of national bigotry from neocons and corporations.

But is this “Keffiyeh” craze thing still going on in the Muslim community? I’m not Palestinian, nor am I from Kufa. I haven’t even visited and I don’t particularly like getting involved or donning various national or political symbols.

I can’t wait until we see Turban solidarity, at least then its Sunnah.

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