Uşşak Makamı: Structure, Seyir, and the Theory/Practice Gap

Uşşak is, by common account, the second makam a Turkish makam student meets after Rast — and the first whose identity depends on a pitch that has no equivalent on any fretted, 12-TET instrument. Its karar sits on dügâh rather than rast, its Arabic-tradition cousin is Bayati, and it is among the most frequently heard makams in Turkish folk song.

Why Uşşak comes second

Attested Once Rast has introduced the basic idea of a neutral, neither-major-nor-minor scale degree, Uşşak is among the makams most commonly taken up next in Turkish makam pedagogy. It shares Rast's core challenge — a pitch with no Western equivalent — but isolates it to a single scale degree, rather than the two neutral degrees and direction-dependent seventh that make Rast harder to internalize by ear.

Practice Uşşak and its close relatives Hüseynî and Muhayyer are also among the most common makams in türkü (Turkish folk song) and devotional repertoire, so early fluency here pays off outside the classroom immediately, not just in theory.

Çeşni construction

Established Uşşak joins an Uşşak dörtlü (tetrachord) on dügâh to a Bûselik beşli (pentachord) on nevâ — the same lower-unit-then-upper-unit logic covered in full in Çeşni and Ajnas, which this article does not re-derive. The Uşşak dörtlü's interval pattern is S K T (5+8+9 commas); the Bûselik beşli's is T B T T (9+4+9+9 commas). Concatenated — 5-8-9-9-4-9-9 — the sequence sums to 53 commas, a full octave, exactly as Holdrian Commas and 53-TET requires of any complete AEU scale.

Scale in Holdrian commas

Established The ascending scale, in commas above the karar (dügâh):

Established The second degree has no settled name of its own at this exact position — it falls between the named perdeler kürdî and segâh. That gap is not an oversight; it is the source of the theory/practice question below.

Functional pitches

Established Karar, güçlü, and yeden govern Uşşak's melodic behavior:

• Karar (resting tone): Dügâh — where phrases and the piece itself conclude.
• Güçlü (secondary center): Nevâ, a perfect fourth above the karar — the junction where the lower dörtlü ends and the upper beşli begins, and a frequent point of temporary arrival before the final cadence.
• Yeden (leading tone): Attested less firmly fixed in the sources consulted here than the karar and güçlü. The closely related Karcığar and Muhayyer, which share Uşşak's lower dörtlü on dügâh, both name rast — a whole tone below dügâh — as their yeden, and Uşşak is generally described the same way.

Theory and practice: Uşşak's defining pitch

Established The second degree carries Uşşak's entire identity, and it is the clearest illustration of this site's recurring theory/practice theme. Derived strictly from the Uşşak dörtlü's own interval pattern, it sits 5 commas (≈113 cents) above dügâh. Broader AEU discussions, however, often locate this same functional pitch by reference to the independently named segâh perde — 8 commas (≈181 cents) above dügâh, three commas higher than the çeşni-derived figure.

Attested Measured performance sits below both theoretical figures. Pitch-histogram studies of recorded performances — including Barış Bozkurt, Ozan Yarman, M. Kemal Karaosmanoğlu, and Can Akkoç's 2009 comparison of competing Turkish maqam theories against measured pitch data — find this degree clustering lower than AEU's theoretical prediction, commonly cited in the region of 140–160 cents above the tonic, varying by performer, recording, and melodic direction. Treat any single number here as a band, not a target: that paper's actual contribution was showing that no single theoretical model predicts performance precisely, not supplying one replacement number of its own.

Seyir: the melodic path

Established Uşşak's seyir is çıkıcı (ascending): the melody begins at or near the karar (dügâh), moves upward through the Uşşak dörtlü — dwelling on the neutral second — reaches the güçlü (nevâ), and often continues into the upper register toward muhayyer before descending back through the same territory to a final cadence on dügâh.

Practice As in Rast, a skilled performer treats the güçlü as a temporary point of arrival before the final descent. The neutral second is where the makam's character is most exposed — rushing past it, or forcing it toward a Western minor or major second, is the most common way to make Uşşak stop sounding like Uşşak.

The Uşşak family

Established Uşşak shares its dügâh karar with several close relatives, distinguished by their upper çeşni or by seyir alone:

• Hüseynî — a Hüseynî beşli (S K T T) on dügâh topped by an Uşşak dörtlü on hüseynî; seyir is inici-çıkıcı (descending-ascending). Extremely common in türkü repertoire.
• Muhayyer — the identical scale to Hüseynî, distinguished purely by seyir: Muhayyer is inici (descending), beginning near the upper octave and working down. A direct demonstration that a makam is more than its scale.
• Karcığar — shares Uşşak's own lower dörtlü on dügâh but tops it with a Hicaz beşli on nevâ instead of a Bûselik beşli, adding an augmented second in the upper register. Common in Roman and folk repertoire.
• Bestenigâr — Uncertain a rare, thinly documented makam sometimes described as combining Uşşak's lower dörtlü with a Rast beşli. No surviving compositions are confidently attributed to it and sources disagree even on its karar; treat any specific construction as tentative.

Attested Uşşak's Arabic-tradition cousin is Bayati, built from a comparably shaped tetrachord but tuned independently. Çeşni and Ajnas covers why comparing the two traditions by cent value is a common error rather than a useful shortcut — Turkish and Arabic neutral seconds are audibly different pitches.

Practice guidance

Practice Because Uşşak's identity lives almost entirely in one pitch, the most effective practice is not running the scale but drone work: sustain dügâh and search by ear for the neutral second, resisting the urge to resolve it to a Western half step or whole step above.

Established Uşşak's prevalence in Turkish folk song and devotional music makes it one of the more immediately rewarding makams to internalize early — a listener encounters it constantly outside the classroom, which is not true of every makam in this catalog.