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World On Your Street: The Global Music Challenge
Hande Domac
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Describe the atmosphere and live music at a local pub, restaurant, festival, church or temple, club night.... inspire other people to check it out!


Musician: Hande Domac

Location: Leicester

Instruments: voice, saz

Music: Turkish


ÌýÌý to Hande Domac talk about her music

ÌýÌý to Hande Domac perform a favourite song

'My singing reflects my emotions where I'll always find a song that best expresses how I'm feeling.'

How I came to this music:

Turkey has seven regions, each with different characteristic and cultural specialities. My mother comes from the Black Sea but she was born in Istanbul. My father comes from the south of Turkey but at the age of seven he moved to Istanbul.

I'm not a professional musician but my father comes from the music world. In Turkey he played traditional Anatolian music on television. I've sung since my childhood. I was 14 or 15 when I started singing in the theatre. I decided to go to a conservatory in Turkey but I changed my mind and decided to come to England instead.

I sing Turkish music and I play the saz. I learned to play the saz myself. It comes from central Anatolia. It's like the bouzouki, a Greek instrument. It's got a long strap and a neck with seven strings.

There's a story about how music originated in Turkey. On the return of the hunt, one of the hunters heard a different and beautiful sound. When he looked to where the sound was coming from he saw the skull of a dead horse. A hair from the mane of the horse was wrapped around the skull and it vibrated in the wind. The hunter took the skull and tried to make sound by beating his fingers. He liked the sounds coming from the skull that he fashioned the first stringed instrument on this principle.

Where I play:

Hande Domac and GaffarI entered a competition organised by a newspaper and I came second. At that time I was singing Turkish pop music which is like Western music although the melodies are a bit different - it's half Arabic and half Western.

Young Turkish people always try unsuccessfully to do Western music. Later I changed my style and now I sing folk music. Back home, I was a singer in a group but here in England I haven't performed because I'm trying to learn English.

A favourite song:

The song I've chosen is quite emotional. It's about a bride whose just married a man against her will. She feels angry towards her mum and father. In Turkey, especially in the Eastern part, many girls end up being married in this way.

Turkish music is quite rich and endless. My singing reflects my emotions where I'll always find a song that best expresses how I'm feeling. It's important to my life. I sing cheerful music as well but I'm interested in sad music because Turkish music is sad and emotional. Characteristically Turkish people are quite sad, even fatalistic.

Click here for Hande Domac's storyClick here for Mosi Conde's storyClick here for Rachel McLeod's story


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