Editing Music of Turkey (section)

=== Arabesque ===
{{Main|Arabesque music}}
[[File:Yıldız Tilbe - Konser01 (cropped).jpg|thumb|[[Yıldız Tilbe]], a prominent arabesque singer]]
Arabic music had been banned in Turkey in 1948, but starting in the 1970s immigration from predominantly southeastern rural areas to big cities and particularly to Istanbul gave rise to a new cultural synthesis. This changed the musical makeup of Istanbul. The old tavernas and music halls of fasıl music were to shut down in place of a new type of music.<ref name="soundsofanatolia"/> These new urban residents brought their own taste of music, which due to their locality was largely middle eastern. Musicologists derogatively termed this genre as arabesque due to the high-pitched wailing that is synonymous with Arabic singing.

After the [[1980 Turkish coup d'état|coup d'etat in 1980]], Arabesque music was seen by the government as having a negative effect on the Turkish people, so Arabesque artists were not featured on the national broadcast, [[Turkish Radio and Television Corporation|TRT]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Duvar |first=Gazete |date=2020-09-13 |title=Kısa Türkiye Tarihi: Karanlığın başladığı ‘80’li yıllar |url=https://www.gazeteduvar.com.tr/yazarlar/2020/09/13/kisa-turkiye-tarihi-karanligin-basladigi-80li-yillar |access-date=2025-05-05 |website=https://www.gazeteduvar.com.tr/yazarlar/2020/09/13/kisa-turkiye-tarihi-karanligin-basladigi-80li-yillar |language=tr-TR}}</ref> Even with this ban in place, its mainstream popularity rose so much in the 1980s that it even threatened the existence of Turkish pop, with rising stars such as [[Müslüm Gürses]] and [[İbrahim Tatlıses]].<ref name="soundsofanatolia"/> The genre has underbeat forms that include Ottoman forms of [[Belly Dance|belly-dancing music]] known as ''fantazi'' from singers like [[Gülben Ergen]] and with performers like [[Serdar Ortaç]] who added Anglo-American [[rock and roll]] to arabesque music.

It is not really accurate to group Arabesk with folk music. It owes little to folk music, and would be more accurately described as form of popular music based on the makam scales found in Ottoman and Turkish classical music. Though Arabesk was accused of having been derived from Arabic music, the scales (makam) used identify it as music, that, though influenced by both Arabic and Western music, is much more Turkish in origin.