Minstrel Traditions
The minstrel tradition in which cultural heritage, customs, knowledge, mores and behaviour are expressed and respected because of their age is, like other cultural values, a cultural value created by a general culture to meet a particular need rather than perform a particular function.
In popular verse, minstrels’ poems are in the form of quatrains. Metre is also a feature of the quatrain form, and seven, eight, and eleven syllables are the general traditional forms.
Minstrel traditions can be set out along these lines:
1. Using a pen name
2. Becoming a minstrel after a dream (drinking wine)
3. Master – apprentice
4. Repartee – opposition.
5. Sound restriction.
6. Riddle.
7. Dialogue form.
8. Teaching history.
9. Inspiration by another poem.
10. Playing the saz
1. Using a pen name :
This is a name poets use when writing instead of their own names.
In popular literature, the use of a pen name is a practice based on tradition. Most minstrels’ real names have been forgotten, and their pen names are employed instead. Dadalopluis real name was Veli, Sümmani’s Hüseyin, and Gevheri’s Mehmet etc.
Traditionally, the minstrel takes the pen name he will use by one of these methods;
a) Choosing His Own Pen Name
- Taking his name or surname as a pen name
- Taking another name he feels suited to his life and art
b) Taking one from a master minstrel, elder or religious leader
- The master tests the apprentice
- The master chooses an appropriate name for the apprentice
- A name is taken under the influence of an elder or religious leader
c) Taking a name in a dream while drinking wine
2) Becoming a minstrel after a dream (drinking wine) :
The dream motif is one frequently encountered in popular literature. This motif generally appears in popular tales, as well as in accounts of minstrels’ lives.
Minstrels generally ascribe the way they started out on that path, or learned the trade and became masters of their profession, in one of two main ways, either being raised by a master, or else drinking wine in a dream.
This can be wine, sherbet, water, or even foods such as apples, pomegranates, bread or grapes.
In minstrel literature, drinking wine is generally an obligation of the dream motif tradition. The belief is that in order to become a minstrel one must either be trained by one or else drink wine from the hand of an elder.
3) Master – Apprentice:
One of the most important of the centuries-old traditions in minstrel literature is that of the master and apprentice. Minstrels generally mature by studying at the feet of a master in the profession.
It is a requirement of the tradition that a would-be apprentice should take lessons in playing and verse composition from a master. The apprentice needs to display the greatest patience during the learning process. At the end of this, the master will recite a prayer of blessing on the young man, and give him his permission to appear before the people in public.
4) Minstrel Repartee:
Mutual banter between minstrels and the audience, designed to be barbed and yet humorous at one and the same time.
This is one of the ways in which a minstrel attempts to prove his superiority over others, by means of questions and answers and checkmating the opposition.
Minstrels also engage in mutual improvisation within the context of generally accepted rules. This consists of at least two opponents, within the context of musical and poetical rules.
5) Sound Restriction:
A presentaion of skill, which minstrels, demonstrate their mastery of art. It consists of creating verse in which certain sounds (B, P, M, V, F) are excluded. This is a kind of context in which minstrels place a needle between their lips to demonstrate their technical virtuosity.
6) Riddle:
This, in popular verse, is a form in which the name of a person or object is concealed. The riddle has a special importance in minstrel literature. Creating and solving riddles requires special minstrel virtuosity and knowledge.
‘Murat Uraz’ describes the performance of the riddle in these terms:
On nights when riddle are to be performed in the coffee houses, cigarette and nargile smoking are banned, nobody may speak in a loud voice, and everyone sits in an orderly manner. The riddle that has been prepared by the minstrel is written down in large letters that can be read from a distance on piece of paper and pinned onto a bit of wood. One millimeter of wax is then smeared over the wood. The minstrels greet those coming to the café according to their occupation and standing. The person thus greeted sticks money onto the wax on the wood in accordance with the greeting he has received. Whoever guesses the riddle takes the money, and the minstrel composes a musical improvisation. If the riddle remains suspended on the wall of the café for several nights and nobody manages to guess it, then the minstrel announces the answer and he takes the money.’
7) Dialogue Form:
Particularly widespread forms in popular verse, in which the minstrel and his lover take it in turns to make statement, either free form or quatrains.
8) Teaching History:
When the minstrel wishes to deal with matters such as; famine, fire, flooding, epidemics and important battles that concern people in their social life of the community and to include his own date of birth in the poem. The date is generally mentioned in either the first or last quatrain, and occasionally in the main body.
9) Inspiration by Another Poem :
Known as nazire, this is when one minstrel produces a poem closely model on one by another, with the same metre and measure.
10) Playing the Saz:
The saz is an instrument that inspires the minstrel, and one of the most important elements of the minstrel tradition.