The Baglama Saz A Method Book For The Turkish String Instrument

I am a classical guitarist who was just curious about the Baglama. I bought one, knowing very little about it and am happy to have found this clear method for beginners. Very happy with my purchase.

I am totally new to the saz and Turkish music in general. After receiving my instrument (from Turkey), I started watching whatever instructional videos were available in English. This only confused me more, since there are so MANY different tunings for the saz. This book lays out the most natural traditional tuning (bağlama düzeni) and describes the fretboard with all of the extra Turkish microtones. It has lots of sheet music with notation for fingering and right-hand plectrum direction. I highly recommend this book for English speakers that are confused like I was.

This is the first formal baglama saz instructional compendium that I have tried out. Living in Iowa, you can understand how master class opportunities on Turkish folk instruments might be limited. The book has a good 25 pages or so on the basics of music, what makes Turkish music different from western music, and anatomical analysis of the instrument itself. When I first started out, I had been fiddling around with tuning the instrument in 5ths, but the book is written in a different tuning (A, G, D) which seems rather odd to someone used to guitar or orchestra stringed instrument tunings. (Yes, that's A on the first string, down a whole step to G on string two, and up a fifth to D on the highest string).I went ahead and tuned my instrument the way the book suggested, and I later found out that the YouTube user Greg Socolofsky has some beginner videos using the same tuning intervals as the ones in the book, so perhaps this tuning is not as uncommon as I previously thought. I am currently about 5 songs into the book after reading all of the instructional material, and I must say that the instructional intro is a must-read to fully understand how the music is written in the rest of the book. Reading the introductory pages has made reading the music a heck of a lot easier. However, it is certainly different than what most western players of instruments that look like this are used to. There are no tabs in here, but like I said, I think the preliminary training on how the book is composed is super helpful, and honestly, a pretty healthy thing for musically-minded people who are used to tabs.The only reason I've docked a star is because some of the translations are not always easy to understand, and, while this is clearly intended to be a basic fundamentals book, I found recordings of some of these songs, and the songs in the book are drastically simplified at times. This can sometimes make it challenging for western ears to play along to the recordings. It might be helpful if the folks at Sala could upload some accompaniments to their YouTube channel for a few of the songs in here just as an instructional supplement. Otherwise, this is a solid foundational volume for beginners to the baglama saz.

best for beginners

The tuning used for all the songs in the book is AGD, which is a short neck tuning. The book does not mention even once that this is for short neck baglamas. In order to make this tuning work on the long neck, you should tune the strings to F#-E-B and then put a capo on the fourth fret. The book does not tell you this! If you try the tuning in the book, your strings will have a very hard time staying in tune and risk breaking.The translations in the book are pretty poor too They should have had a native english speaker review it before publishing, but clearly did not.All said, there is some decent information in here on their scale system, strumming patterns, and other information that baglama players would need. Overall, there aren't many alternatives out there, so I'd advise only getting it if you have a short neck baglama.

This is a good book for the beginning baglama player in that you quickly start playing actual songs.

I teach world music, and am a professional sitar player, performing Indian classical music. I wanted to branch out into Turkish music (my son is married to a Turkish girl and they bought me a Bağlama). This book is a clear step-by-step method.

It’s good book for people like myself who play another instrument but want to learn the balgama!