Bright, bold, epic. The makam that dominates Turkish folk music.
Hüseynî is the makam that dominates Turkish folk music — bright, bold and epic. It joins a Hüseyni pentachord on the karar to an Uşşak tetrachord on Hüseyni, resolves on perde Dügâh (A), and takes perde Hüseyni (E) as its güçlü.
From perde Dügâh, the Hüseynî dizi runs through these degrees across one octave. A degree is labelled with a core perde name where it lands exactly on one, and with its degree number otherwise. The letters are the koma value of each interval: T = tanini (9), K = büyük mücennep (8), S = küçük mücennep (5), B = bakiye (4), A = artık ikili (12). Press play the scale — every perde sounds at its true position in the 53-koma octave, microtonally, not rounded to a piano key.
The dizi lands on these named core perdes: Dügâh, Segâh, Çârgâh, Nevâ, Hüseynî, Evc, Gerdâniye. The degrees in between carry no core perde name and are shown by number.
Turkish music is written for one reference tuning (Bolâhenk); differently sized instruments transpose it down — Süpürde by a whole tone, Kız by ≈ a fourth, Mansur by ≈ a fifth. The written perdes don't change, only the sounding pitch.
The same seven steps drawn against the core perde lines, so you can see the melodic shape and exactly which degrees sit between the piano keys.
Each dot is a degree's true koma height above the karar. Reddish dots don't sit on a core perde — they fall 'between the keys'. Turkish scores write these with the koma / mücennep accidentals.
Hüseynî makam is assembled from the Hüseyni pentachord below and the Uşşak tetrachord on Hüseyni above, meeting on one shared perde. What defines the makam is not only the scale but its karar (Dügâh), its güçlü (Hüseynî), and its seyir (descending / mixed).
Hüseynî usually has a descending seyir: melodies enter from the octave or the güçlü Hüseyni and work downward to the karar Dügâh. It shares its notes with makam Nevâ; what separates them is that Hüseynî descends from the top while Nevâ moves up and down around the middle.
The 'neutral second' of Uşşâk, but with the melodic weight up on perde Hüseyni and a top-down melodic path.
Bright, bold, epic. The makam that dominates Turkish folk music.
Heard in: countless bozlak and uzun hava.
Makams from the same family — they share material and are told apart by seyir and güçlü:
Hüseynî is the makam that dominates Turkish folk music — bright, bold and epic. It joins a Hüseyni pentachord on the karar to an Uşşak tetrachord on Hüseyni, resolves on perde Dügâh (A), and takes perde Hüseyni (E) as its güçlü.
In the Arel-Ezgi-Uzdilek system the koma steps are 8 + 5 + 9 + 9 + 8 + 5 + 9 — 53 koma in all, one full octave. Named: K – S – T – T – K – S – T.
Hüseynî makam resolves on perde Dügâh; its secondary centre of gravity (güçlü) is perde Hüseynî. Its seyir (melodic path) is descending / mixed.
The 'neutral second' of Uşşâk, but with the melodic weight up on perde Hüseyni and a top-down melodic path.
Hüseynî is grouped here under "Resolving on Dügâh", and shares material with Bûselik, Kürdî, Uşşâk, Nevâ, Karcığar, Bayati. These are told apart not by their scale but by their seyir and güçlü.
This scale is given in its standard Arel-Ezgi-Uzdilek / conservatory form and is checked to close the octave at 53 commas. There is always a small gap between what the theory writes and what a performer plays.
Back to the Turkish Makam tool for all seven çeşni, the perde ruler and the 20 makams; for the history of makam and maqam see the Middle Eastern Music lesson; for Western scales, the Scale Library.