However, Sen did not use the piano to play Chopin or Mozart. He used it to play Oyun Havaları (dance tunes). He developed a percussive, glissando-heavy technique where the piano mimicked the darbuka (goblet drum) and the klarnet . In recordings of “Şen Çiftetelli,” one hears not a delicate classical touch, but a hammering of the bass register to drive the rhythm, while the right hand dances through the Hicaz or Uşşak makams (modes) with a staccato brightness. He was, in essence, a one-man fasıl orchestra.
The form is simple: A repeated chorus (the nakarat ) followed by improvised verses. Sen often quotes popular folk songs or türkü melodies within the improvisation, a nod to the audience that says, “I am a pianist, but I am still one of you.” To understand the reception of this piece, one must imagine the Gazino (casino/nightclub) culture of 1960s Istanbul and Izmir. These were venues where families and friends would sit at tables covered in checkered cloths, eating meze and drinking rakı, while a stage band played. The Çiftetelli was the peak of the evening—the moment when the professional dancer (or an enthusiastic aunt) would take the floor.
Piyanist İbrahim Sen – Şen Çiftetelli (Hüsnü Şen) — 1960s pressing, preferably with the surface noise of vinyl, as the crackle is part of the rhythm. PIYANIST IBRAHIM SEN - Sen Ciftetelli husnusen...
The name “Hüsnü Şen” attached to the piece suggests a possible compositional credit or a lyrical origin. “Hüsnü” is a masculine Turkish given name (meaning “beauty” or “virtue”), while “Şen” means “joyful” or “merry.” It is likely that “Hüsnü Şen” refers to a specific thematic motif or a tribute to a fellow musician (perhaps a clarinetist or vocalist), but over time, the title merged with the rhythmic descriptor “Şen Çiftetelli.” In the popular consciousness, Ibrahim Sen owns this melody. To say “Çiftetelli” is to invoke a specific, unmistakable rhythm. The word itself translates to “double stringed” (referring to a bowed instrument technique), but musically, it denotes a 4/4 or 8/4 rhythmic cycle with a distinct düms and teks (low and high drum sounds). The classic Çiftetelli pattern is often written as: Düm teka teka Düm tek / Düm teka teka Düm tek .
Yet, the name “Ibrahim Sen” remains less known than the tune itself. He is a ghost in the machine of Turkish pop history—a studio musician who likely recorded dozens of these Oyun Havaları in a single session, never anticipating that fifty years later, his percussive piano would accompany a bride’s entrance or a henna night in Berlin, London, or New York. To listen to Piyanist Ibrahim Sen’s “Şen Çiftetelli / Hüsnü Şen” is to listen to the sound of cultural hybridity as pure dance. It is a piece that refuses to be sad. It refuses to be purely Eastern or purely Western. It is the sound of the piano becoming a darbuka , the makam bending to the major scale, and the dancer’s hips drawing a circle that has no beginning and no end. However, Sen did not use the piano to play Chopin or Mozart
But just as the listener settles into this exotic modality, the Çiftetelli rhythm kicks in, and the harmony shifts. Sen introduces over the Eastern bass. For instance, while the left hand hammers the D (as the karar or tonic), the right hand plays a Bb major arpeggio, then an F major, creating a tonal ambiguity that is neither purely makam nor purely Western. This is the signature of the “Turkish Piano” style: polytonality born of necessity, as the piano’s equal temperament fights against the microtones of the makam .
Furthermore, the piece represents a rare moment of in Turkish music. Much of the classical fasıl repertoire is melancholic ( hüzün ), dealing with lost love or existential longing. Sen’s piece has no melancholy. It is pure rhythm, pure şen . In a culture that reveres sadness ( hüzün ) as a high aesthetic, Ibrahim Sen’s “Şen Çiftetelli” is a populist rebellion—a reminder that the Anatolian spirit also knows how to laugh. Legacy: The Digitized Folk Hero In the 21st century, “Şen Çiftetelli” has found a second life. With the advent of YouTube and streaming, Piyanist Ibrahim Sen’s grainy, mono recordings have become viral sensations. Turkish wedding DJs sample the piano riff. Young bateri (drum) students learn the pattern by ear from Sen’s records. The piece has even crossed over into global “Oriental dance” playlists, often mislabeled as “Arabic Belly Dance,” to the chagrin of purists. In recordings of “Şen Çiftetelli,” one hears not
However, in the hands of Ibrahim Sen, the Çiftetelli becomes something more. It becomes a belly dance rhythm par excellence, but stripped of its sometimes-melancholic Ottoman court origins. Sen’s version is şen —literally “merry.” The tempo is brisk, almost hurried. The left hand plays a walking bass line or a repetitive ostinato that mimics the darbuka , while the right hand plays parallel thirds and chromatic runs.