Erkan Oğur

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Erkan Oğur
Erkan Oğur
Background information
Origin	Turkey
Notable instrument(s)
Fretless Classical Guitar

For other uses, see Erkan Oğur (disambiguation).

Erkan Oğur (born 1954, Ankara) is a Turkish musician.

He has invented the first classical fretless guitar and influenced many musicians with his compositions. He is an explorer, inventor and an ambassador of music combining the sounds of Turkish folk music, classical music with the ancient traditional music. He has played for many concerts all over the world. He has many compositions and regarded as a master in instruments kopuz and baglama.

[edit] Biography

He spent his childhood in Elazığ, in eastern Turkey. During his days in Elazığ, he got interested in violin and baglama (Turkish instrument), and he started to practise frequently. He graduated from high school in Ankara. As a result of encouragement to be a scientist by his father, he started to study chemical engineering and continued his education in Germany. He was introduced to guitar education in 1973. Instead of being an "average" scientist, he chose to be a "good" musician. Since he needed detailed sounds from a guitar in order to obtain Turkish melodies, he modified the guitar and invented the fretless guitar.

He returned to Turkey in 1980, and started to study in the Istanbul Technical University Conservatory. After his military service, he worked as an oud teacher. He had live performances with Fikret Kızılok and Bülent Ortaçgil where he contributed to scene with fretless guitar. He released his first album in Germany called Arayışlar ("Search"). In 1989 he went to the USA to work with numerous local blues artists. He introduced fretless guitar into blues. A year later, he released his first album in Turkey, Bir Ömürluk Misafir ("Guest For A Lifetime"), which was ranked 4th in European lists. He still performs concerts through the world and in Turkey. He works with Kemal Eroglu on technical improvements on baglama; and continues his performances with Fahir Atakoglu and Bulent Ortacgil. He is a member of Telvin Trio, which mainly performs Turkish folk music in improvised jazz style, with İlkin Deniz and Turgut Alp Bekoglu and has released an album called TELVİN in 2006.