It was required back then - back when photocopiers were not yet invented and instead of computer office equipment hectographs and spirit duplicators were in vogue - to inscribe the score to be printed in the newspaper by hand on tracing paper using india ink. The most pitiful part was that, chirographical errors could only be deleted by scraping the paper off with a razor. These hindrances began to awaken in my mind some notions.
I had lived through the second incident once again in Izmir, in the former "Halkevi" (Social-gathering House) on Kestelli street, where we, as a music society, used to rehearse under the tutelage of the late composer and photographer-artist Ali Ulvi Baradan. In order to obtain the scores of the works we were rehearsing, our master had sent us to the director of the Izmir Radio at that time, the late examplary Ali Riza Avni. When we formally visited him with the request for supplying us with music scores from the radio station library, he had called for the library functionary while we were present and told him: "give these lads the musical scores of the works they need at any time; do not ask for an ID or signature, they will copy and return them". He had thus honoured us, had delivered a lesson in human kindness, supplied us with the scores we needed without end, and more importantly, had been instrumental in embedding in our hearts permanently the love of Turkish Music.
Thusly, the responsibility that came with the obligation of returning to the library all the original scores we had obtained from the Radio Station after copying them one after the other by hand led me to seek other techniques for transcribing notations in a rapid and correct fashion.
In a milieu where computers were hardly known, I had started to apply my adolescent intellect to devising a writing apparatus, modified so that standard notes could be transcribed to any height on the staff. However, I had been frustrated and hampered due to the fact that I could find in those days neither anyone to support my project nor a financial capital to meet my expenses.
Following the years whence word processors began to take over from the mechanical printing office devices, my past zeal started to re-surface. As the "pros" and "cons" in light of our music culture of the monumental software from overseas in this field designed in conformance to Western musical idiom was put before me, I figured it was time to get down to work.
The preliminary code I wrote in 2001 was only 50 Kbs in size... Yet, it was much lacking in meeting the demands. From that day onward, Notist began to flourish, improve and blossom, so to speak, thanks to the sincere input and evaluations of its tenacious users.
Hidden in between the 14500 lines of code, the Notist progam bespeaks of countless weeks, months and even years of sleepless nights' work. Behind every precious second spared for it lies the passion for service towards those who had served Turkish Music; thereby presides gratitude towards those who have succeeded in devoting themselves to the youth without so much as an intimation of "hourly fees", as in the persons of Ali Riza Avni, Ali Ulvi Baradan and Burhaneddin Okte. Notist is not a commercial product produced for profit, it is rather a modest gift to share freely with the intent that every Turk with love of music procure a music notation archive in his own library which he can transcribe and hear.
M. Uğur Keçecioğlu
Istanbul, 4 February 2009
notist@hotmail.com
