A digital humanities research project

The many lives of
travelling melodies.

Explore how familiar tunes acquired new words, meanings, identities, and histories as they moved across languages and borders.

Explore the melodies About the project

01: flagship melody family
07: language pathways
06: research locations

Melody family 001Üsküdar’a Gider İken / Kâtibim

01 / The idea

One melody.
Many social lives.

A contrafactum is a song that uses an existing or closely related melody with different words. Across the Eastern Mediterranean, the Balkans, West Asia, and North Africa, melodies have long crossed linguistic and political boundaries.

This project follows those movements—without forcing every shared tune into a single, definitive story of origin.

02 / Featured family

A melody with many names

Open the full case study ↗

Active research dossier

Üsküdar’a Gider İken
/ Kâtibim

A widely circulating melody associated with a well-known Turkish song and with versions remembered across several neighbouring repertoires. The dossier brings together titles, recordings, places, narratives, and degrees of certainty.

Trace this melody →

Melodic contour · research sketch

Documentrecording & print evidence Comparemelody, words & performance Contextualisemedia, migration & memory

03 / How it works

From listening to genealogy

The project combines close listening with historical and geographical evidence.

◒

Listen

Attend to melodic contour, rhythm, mode, phrasing, and performance.

≋

Compare

Place titles, lyrics, translations, and recorded versions side by side.

⌖

Map

Locate recordings, publications, memories, and transmission routes.

⤳

Trace

Build chronologies without mistaking the oldest known source for an origin.

✦

Contextualise

Interpret circulation through migration, urban life, media, and politics.

04 / Research themes

Melodies do not travel alone.

They move with people, technologies, institutions, commerce, and memory.

01Migration & mobilityRoutes, displacement, diaspora↗ 02Urban musical lifePorts, cafés, theatres, neighbourhoods↗ 03Recording & broadcastingRecords, radio, film, digital circulation↗ 04Language & translationNew lyrics, titles, meanings↗ 05Memory & nationalisationHeritage, ownership, contested pasts↗

05 / Research notes

Stories from the archive

View all notes →

Field note 01

Methods · 7 min read

Why the oldest recording is not automatically the origin

Recorded evidence is a timestamp—not a birth certificate. A methodological note on working with gaps, asymmetries, and oral transmission.

Read the note ↗

Field note 02

Listening · 5 min read

What remains recognisable when words change?

A guide to hearing contour, cadence, rhythm, and performance beyond song titles.

Read the note ↗

Open research

Know another version?

Musicians, listeners, collectors, archivists, and local historians can help identify recordings, titles, memories, and overlooked sources.

Suggest a version ↗

The many lives oftravelling melodies.

One melody.Many social lives.