Acemli Rast Explained

Turkish Scale Name:	Acemli Rast
Durak:	Rast
Güçlü:	Neva
Seyir:	Ascending
Yeden:	Irak
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.^[3]

The approximation of Acemli Rast within 48-TET would be: Mixolydian (3)^[4]

Notes and References

1. Web site: RAST . 2024-02-07 . TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi . tr.
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 . en . 38 . 1 . 45–70 . 10.1080/09298210903147673 . 0929-8215. 11147/2853 . free .
3. Note: This is because 48 is divisible by 12.
4. Note: denotes a quarter flat, 25 cents in this case. (One Holdrian Comma in 53-TET)