Resources / Theory / Çeşni and ajnas — the building blocks
Çeşni and ajnas — the building blocks
The central idea
Established Makams are not scales. They are assembled from smaller units — tetrachords and pentachords — joined at a shared pitch. The scale is what falls out of the assembly; it is a byproduct, not the definition.
Turkish theory calls these units çeşni (flavour). Arabic theory calls them jins (pl. ajnas, meaning genus/type). The concept is shared; the inventories and tunings differ.
This matters for the app: drill çeşni, not scales. A player who knows the Hicaz tetrachord in the hand can construct a dozen makams. A player who has memorised twelve scales has memorised twelve unrelated things.
Turkish çeşni
Named by size:
- üçlü — trichord (3 notes)
- dörtlü — tetrachord (4 notes), spans a perfect fourth = 22 commas
- beşli — pentachord (5 notes), spans a perfect fifth = 31 commas
The interval sums are hard invariants. Use them as validation in the data layer.
Interval shorthand
| Symbol | Name | Commas |
|---|---|---|
| B | bakiye | 4 |
| S | küçük mücennep | 5 |
| K | büyük mücennep | 8 |
| T | tanini | 9 |
| A | artık ikili | 12 |
Tetrachords (dörtlü) — sum to 22
Established
| Çeşni | Pattern | Commas | On D | Character |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Çârgâh | T T B | 9+9+4 | D E F♯ G | Major-like |
| Bûselik | T B T | 9+4+9 | D E F G | Minor-like |
| Kürdî | B T T | 4+9+9 | D E♭ F G | Phrygian |
| Rast | T K S | 9+8+5 | D E F♯↓ G | Neutral third |
| Uşşak | S K T | 5+8+9 | D E↓ F G | Neutral second |
| Hicaz | S A S | 5+12+5 | D E♭ F♯ G | Augmented second |
Note that Rast and Uşşak contain no equal-tempered equivalent — the K interval (8 commas ≈ 181 ¢) sits between a minor and major second. These are the çeşni that require a fretless instrument.
Çârgâh, Bûselik, Kürdî and Hicaz are all playable in 12-TET, which is why those makams appear on keyboards and in Turkish pop.
Pentachords (beşli) — sum to 31
Established
| Çeşni | Pattern | Commas |
|---|---|---|
| Çârgâh | T T B T | 9+9+4+9 |
| Bûselik | T B T T | 9+4+9+9 |
| Kürdî | B T T T | 4+9+9+9 |
| Rast | T K S T | 9+8+5+9 |
| Hüseynî | S K T T | 5+8+9+9 |
| Hicaz | S A S T | 5+12+5+9 |
| Nikriz | T S A S | 9+5+12+5 |
Each is its tetrachord plus a tanini on top, except Nikriz and Hüseynî which have their own shapes.
Trichords (üçlü)
Attested Smaller units used where a makam's karar sits on a neutral pitch:
- Segâh — 8 + 5 commas
- Hüzzam — 8 + 4 commas
These generate the makams whose finalis is the segâh perde itself, which is one
of the harder concepts for players coming from Western music: the tonic is a pitch
that doesn't exist on a piano.
Arabic ajnas
Established The Arabic inventory overlaps but is named and grouped differently. The core ajnas:
| Jins | Size | Rough intervals (¢) | Turkish cousin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ajam | tetra | 200, 200, 100 | Çârgâh |
| Nahawand | tetra | 200, 100, 200 | Bûselik |
| Kurd | tetra | 100, 200, 200 | Kürdî |
| Rast | tetra | 200, 150, 150 | Rast |
| Bayati | tetra | 150, 150, 200 | Uşşak |
| Hijaz | tetra | 150, 250, 100 | Hicaz |
| Saba | tetra+ | 150, 150, 100 | (no close equivalent) |
| Sikah | tri | 150, 200 | Segâh |
| Nikriz | penta | 200, 100, 300, 100 | Nikriz |
Important caveat Practice: the cents figures above are the notational 24-TET values. Actual performance differs, and differs regionally. The Turkish and Arabic versions of "the same" jins are audibly distinct — Turkish Rast's third is around 385 ¢ (17 commas) while Arabic Rast's is notated at 350 ¢ and performed variously.
Saba is the interesting outlier. It doesn't span a clean fourth — its fourth degree is lowered, giving it a destabilised, plaintive quality with no Turkish one-to-one equivalent. Worth a dedicated study module.
How çeşni combine
Established A makam takes a lower çeşni on the karar and an upper çeşni starting on the pentachord's top note (if the lower is a beşli, the junction is the 5th degree; if a dörtlü, the 4th).
Examples:
Rast = Rast beşli on G + Rast dörtlü on D
Uşşak = Uşşak dörtlü on A + Bûselik beşli on D
Hicaz = Hicaz dörtlü on A + Rast beşli on D
Nihâvend = Bûselik beşli on G + Kürdî dörtlü on D
Nikriz = Nikriz beşli on G + Rast dörtlü on D
Change the upper çeşni and you get a different makam over the same lower one. The Hicaz family is the clearest demonstration:
| Makam | Lower | Upper |
|---|---|---|
| Hicaz | Hicaz dörtlü on A | Rast beşli on D |
| Uzzâl | Hicaz beşli on A | Uşşak dörtlü on E |
| Hümâyun | Hicaz beşli on A | Bûselik dörtlü on E |
| Zirgüleli Hicaz | Hicaz beşli on A | Hicaz dörtlü on E |
Four makams, one shared lower çeşni, all commonly conflated by outsiders as "the Hicaz scale." A study app that teaches this distinction is doing something no scale dictionary does.
Suggested drill design
- Play the çeşni alone against a drone on its first degree
- Same çeşni transposed to three different karars
- Same lower çeşni with two different uppers — hear the makam change
- Identify a çeşni by ear from a short phrase
- Locate the çeşni on the neck in three different tunings
Sources
- Karl Signell, Makam: Modal Practice in Turkish Art Music (Seattle: Asian Music Publications, 1977; repr. Da Capo Press) — çeşni construction and tetrachord/pentachord terminology
- Murat Aydemir, Turkish Music Makam Guide (Istanbul: Pan Yayıncılık, 2010) — çeşni-based makam construction across 60 makams, with recorded examples
- Johnny Farraj and Sami Abu Shumays, Inside Arabic Music: Arabic Maqam Performance and Theory in the 20th Century (Oxford University Press, 2019) — ajnas theory and the comparative Arabic/Turkish vocabulary
- MaqamWorld, created by Johnny Farraj — an online reference for ajnas tables and Arabic maqam construction
- Harold S. Powers, "Mode," in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London: Macmillan, 1980) — comparative theoretical framing of modes built from smaller melodic units rather than fixed scales