Çağlama

The çağlama is a young instrument — a deliberate hybrid of the Anatolian bağlama and the guitar, invented and first performed by Ömür Kılıçaslan. It keeps the bağlama’s fret layout, so it can voice the microtonal koma intervals essential to Anatolian and wider Eastern music, but borrows its hardware from the electric guitar: steel guitar strings and a truss-rod-reinforced neck built to take their tension.

Between two worlds

That construction makes the çağlama a natural bridge instrument. It speaks the modal language of the bağlama while plugging into amplifiers, pedals and studio chains like an electric guitar — one instrument moving freely between a village repertoire and a Berlin club stage.

How Deniz Mahir plays it

That in-between space is exactly where Deniz Mahir Kartal works. The çağlama is a cornerstone of KafaNar, his solo project blending Anatolian tradition with electronic beats, loops and vocals — building, in his words, a bridge between the Bosporus and the Spree.

Hear it: watch Deniz Mahir play the çağlama.