DR.ŞÜKRÜ ŞENOZAN’S SPEECH ON MUSIC

“ From time to time I had dinner with Atatürk. He had liked to talk about music.

We were back from Yalova. Atatürk was complaining about to catching cold and did not seem cheerful. I was sitting on the other side of the table. He was talking with Nuri Conker and other friends.

- Doctor. Let’s talk about music. He said.

- With your permission me let’s start with the definition of music, I said.

- As you like, he said.

After definition of the music I explained the differences of melody, harmony, polyphony between western and eastern music. I had previously made notes of what I was going to say. I said the both styles of the had been cherished for many years because of the familiarity. I said that western music had developed and improved with theoretical and experimental work and had achieved the international success with it’s harmony, orchestration and instrumentation. I declared that a music academy must be established to prepare the theory of music for harmony. I continued that a music institution must be established for harmony in our music but before the harmony there was much more work to be done, our music could by melodic by this means. Some musical phrases and idioms must be translated into Turkish as well. I continued with hundreds of necessities, such as incongruities in the rules of series, quartets, and quintains that caused arguments between the theorists for a long time and the errors in harmonies classification could be clarified with a music institution.

I continued my speech thus. After I had finished, Atatürk said:

- I have to find a music teacher for myself, he said and stood up.

He greeted us at 10:30, then he left, we also stood up. Nuri Conker caught me when we arrived at the corridor.

- So you knew this before. Why didn’t you tell us before?

- The time was not right sir.

He did not said anything that night. Atatürk embarrassed me 3 months later with these following words.

- The Doctor has given us a seminar on music, I especially thank the doctor. I benefited very much.

I will try to give the criticism in Dr. Şenozan’s speech in the presence of Atatürk later on with my explanations concerning Atatürk’s ideas.”