METRO SAHNESİNDE MÜZİKSEL DENEYİM

Street musicians perform not only in open spaces but also on ferries providing maritimetransportation and at subway stations providing underground railway transportation. Thisresearch aims to examine the performance practices of musicians performing music at theAyrılık Çeşmesi Subway Station in the Kadıköy district, following the subway musicianshippractice that started in Istanbul in 2000 with the slogan “Let the Subway Carry You”. The studyfocuses on the question of how musicians construct their performance practices shaped in apublic space such as the subway, their forms of interaction, and their relations with spatialconditions. Based on this problem, the study was conducted with 14 subway musicians whoperform at this station, which is an important transit point between the Anatolian and Europeansides of Istanbul. The data in the study were obtained through unattended observation andface-to-face interviews and evaluated with ethnographic methods within the framework ofethnomusicology discipline. As a result of the findings, it was concluded that physicalenvironmental conditions, spatial dynamics, and social interactions affect the musiciansperformances in a multi-layered way and that musicians try to maintain their musical practicesby developing various individual strategies against these conditions.