Cem Pulathaneli and Oguz Tarihmen are Turkish street musicians who write and perform songs about democracy and human rights in Istanbul. They call themselves Teneke Trampet or “Tin Drum” after the famous novel by German author Guenther Grass. The book is about a three-year-old boy living through WWII who refuses to grow up and who has the power to break glass with his voice. The story raises questions about the power of art to combat war. Throughout the story Oskar’s musical talents help him protest the Nazi occupation of Europe and the rise of fascism. There are some parallels between the political messages of the story and the themes Teneke Trampet sing about; however, Oskar’s life and the choices he makes have surreal, fairytale-like elements while Oguz and Cem are completely realistic about their careers as street performers.
We interviewed Teneke Trampet in Cem’s apartment in Kadikoy, on the Asian side of Istanbul. The living room where we set up our cameras was spacious with large windows, beautiful hardwood floors, and wall-to-wall bookshelves full of texts in multiple languages. I wondered how many hours of street performance it took to afford what I was quickly and silently referring to as The Apartment of my Dreams. Later in the interview, Oguz explained how he and Cem were able to fund their lifestyles.
Cem and Oguz have had an impressive amount of success since they started playing together in 1997. They’ve performed in many cities along the Agean coast and in Germany. But in 1999 Teneke Trampet turned down a record deal because they were too busy pursuing educations abroad. In 2005 Oguz travelled to Uganda, began making music with artists he met, and won national and international awards for his song writing. Now finished with their travels and their degrees, Oguz and Cem are settled again in Istanbul and both musicians are full time teachers.
In a previous post I wrote about the idea that artists aren’t ‘real artists’ if they have ‘normal’ lives outside of their artistic pursuits. Oguz and Cem have an opposing view. They have busy schedules and admit that finding time to design academic curriculum and write songs is difficult. But, because they don’t have to depend on music for income, they are allowed an artistic freedom that other performers do not have. “We spend far more money on music than we make from it,” Oguz told us. “But we play what we want, not like the musicians who play songs they don’t like. They’re treated like Jukeboxes.” He describes what Teneke Trampet has now as a “luxury of their own repertoire.”
Oguz and Cem are also realistic about the effect that street music has on society. We talked with them about the role popular music played in the recent revolution in Cairo and asked them if they’d seen social change in Istanbul as a result of their music. They smiled and admitted that things have changed since they started playing, that there is more ethnic tolerance and less violent police intervention in public protests, but that they are not able to take full credit for these changes. “At one time I thought I could change the world through street music,” Oguz said, “but being a musician isolated from others is not enough. You have to build bridges between musicians and journalists, writers, and activists – then maybe you can change something.”
Music has long been an important medium for communicating social needs. However, as evidenced by the hippy and punk movements of the sixties and seventies, when many young people opted to “drop out” of mainstream culture and used mind altering drugs to remedy feelings of discontent, music has also been a source of inspiration for destructive or unproductive idealism. Modern political musicians like Oguz and Cem avoid the extremes of idealism with pragmatic approaches to their careers, their artistic goals, and their creative process.
A few days after our interview with Teneke Trampet we spoke with another Turkish busker who, without seeming any less logical about his approach to busking, represented a slightly different side of street performance philosophy. Ata Özev is an idealist. He may live with less financial security than Oguz and Cem, and perhaps less artistic freedom, but his beliefs and the ways in which he carries them out on the street when he performs bring to mind one of the nobler aspects of romanticism: an emphasis on human emotion, when personal and professional success can be measured by the amount of positive human interaction one initiates throughout a given day.
We met Ata in a tea garden not far from Cem’s apartment in Kadikoy. He sat in the middle of the courtyard surrounded by colourful portraits of the famous Turkish communist poet, Nazim Hikmet. On the table in front of him was a stack of notes he’d prepared. He read slowly, carefully enunciating ideas he’d taken great care to organize; these were notes he hoped to one day compile into a book that could serve as a guide to the etiquette, attitudes, and perceptions of the street artists.
Ata first spoke about the great potential for spiritual experience in the busker lifestyle. He jokingly explained that the years he spent studying business at university and then working for a company in Istanbul had been directed by god, that he’d been granted the opportunity to learn about ‘the enemy’ in order to understand how to fight against it. Since quitting his office job he’s been busking in Istanbul full time.
Ata talked about something he refers to as “Street Consciousness” – the idea that what goes around comes around. “Busking starts with giving,” he said. “And if you start with giving, everything goes the right way. You’re never alone anywhere – you have that feeling.” Ata explained that if a performer goes out thinking about his monetary needs he won’t play well. But if he gives up on this need, his change buckets begins to fill up. “You have to be selfless,” Ata said. He explained that community awareness is important. A street musician has to be sensitive to the needs of other buskers as well as the needs of his listeners.
Ata’s experiences as a street performer have made him believe in the basic goodness of human beings again. He said that being a street performer is a solitary job for him but he’s never lonely. When people dance to his music, or when children tip whatever they have in their pockets, when someone smiles at him or writes a note saying “Thank You!” and drops it into his guitar case, when a stranger buys him a cup of tea on a cold day, Ata feels deeply connected with his audience.
He calls himself oneworlddestiny, a title that refers to a more idealistic world he hopes the human race will someday begin to create. “There needs to be a switch in paradigms,” he said. He criticizes people in power, saying their priorities are in the wrong place, but he has very little faith in the political process or activism. Ata believes in changing lives on a smaller scale. “If you touch five people for five minutes,” he says, “maybe that’s enough.”
The world’s busking community is made up of diverse attitudes. The more we interview artists, the more it seems as if there are as many different approaches to the busking lifestyle as there are street performers. Oguz and Cem demonstrate that there is a way to be financially responsible while maintaining artistic freedom. They also show that bringing about change in society is a community effort, one that cannot be done through music alone. Ata, on the other hand, illustrates that devoting oneself to spiritual goals and seeking emotional satisfaction over economic comfort are also legitimate motivations for street performers.
Belle Crawford