Resources / Getting Started

Getting Started

Meshk is an interactive study app for cümbüş and oud players — and for anyone studying Turkish makam music — built around real, historically-attested tunings and makams on a fretless neck. It plays them with physically-modeled (Karplus-Strong) plucked-string synthesis and shows exactly where microtonal pitches fall between the fixed semitone positions, instead of quietly rounding everything to twelve-tone equal temperament.

Quick start

The fastest way in:

1. Click a tuning chip above the neck to set the instrument's strings.
2. Pick a makam from the dropdown to light up its notes on the neck.
3. Click any dot — or press Play the makam — to hear it.

That's sound in well under a minute. Everything else on the page just goes deeper into one of those three steps.

The app starts in Auto mode: tap any position on the neck to hear the note. A Strum mode is available for more realistic two-hand playing -- see the app guide for details.

Two ways to explore

Where to go from here depends on what you're here for.

If you're new to the material — Pitch systems → Çeşni and ajnas → Makam catalog

If you're already familiar with the basics — Using this app → Tuning overview → Tuning catalog

Both paths, and everything else in the catalog, are on the Resources index.

What's here

• An interactive fretless neck — six doubled courses, spaced the way pitches actually fall on a fretless instrument rather than evenly like frets.
• Historically-attested tunings, each carrying a source citation and a confidence badge instead of an unsourced assertion.
• Makams built from çeşni (tetrachord/pentachord) construction, with karar, güçlü, yeden, and seyir direction named explicitly.
• Koma-accurate microtonal markers — perdeler that fall between the fixed semitone positions get their own marker, placed exactly where the pitch lands rather than snapped to the nearest key.
• Karplus-Strong plucked-string synthesis, with a sound design panel for shaping the tone and saving presets.
• Saved patterns — play an authored phrase for a makam where one exists, or tap out and save your own note sequence.

Where to go next

For control-by-control detail on the neck, tuning chips, makam and karar selection, the sound panel, and pattern playback, see Using this app.