Acemli Rast

Acemli Rast

Durak	Rast
Güçlü	Neva
Yeden	Irak
Seyir	Ascending
Lower Çeşni	Rast pentachord
Higher Çeşni	Buselik tetrachord

Acemli Rast ("Rast with Acem") is the implementation of the descending version of the Rast scale in Turkish makam music. It is in 53 Tone Equal Temperament.

Breakdown of the Acemli Rast Makam[1]

Components	Note	Western Note	Steps to following note	Cents from Durak note	Function
Rast pentachord	Rast	G	T (9)	0	Durak
	Dügâh	A	K (8)	203.77
	Segâh	B	S (5)	384.91
	Çargah	C	T (9)	498.11
	Neva	D	T (9)	701.89	Güçlü
Buselik tetrachord					Güçlü
	Hüseyni/Hisar	E	B (4)	905.66
	Acem	F	T (9)	996.23	The Yeden of this scale is Irak (F#), which is not octave equivalent with Acem.
	Gerdaniye	G	-	1200.00	Tiz Durak

Comparison with Western scales

Since the makam is based on 53-TET, it is impossible to directly tie it to 12-TET Western scales. However, using the 48-TET model, while worse than many other models in approximation,[2] allows for such comparisons.^α

The approximation of Acemli Rast within 48-TET would be: Mixolydian(3).^β

Notes

^α This is because 48 is divisible by 12.

^β denotes a quarter flat, 25 cents in this case. (One Holdrian Comma in 53-TET)

References

1. "RAST". TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (in Turkish). Retrieved 2024-02-07.
2. Bozkurt, Barış; Yarman, Ozan; Karaosmanoğlu, M. Kemal; Akkoç, Can (March 2009). "Weighing Diverse Theoretical Models on Turkish Maqam Music Against Pitch Measurements: A Comparison of Peaks Automatically Derived from Frequency Histograms with Proposed Scale Tones". Journal of New Music Research. 38 (1): 45–70. doi:10.1080/09298210903147673. hdl:11147/2853. ISSN 0929-8215.