

Tolga Zafer Ozdemir studied piano, music theory and composition at Marmara University, Istanbul Technical
University and the University of Memphis/USA. His teachers include Faris Akarsu, Kamran Ince, Ilhan Usmanbas, and Fernando Benadon.
For many years he also worked as a teacher of the University of Memphis/USA, the Akdeniz University and Bilgi University.
His compositions, ranging from chamber music works to works for symphony orchestra, using classical as well as traditional or electronic instruments, have been performed in numerous countries on all five continents and have received several awards.
In his music, Tolga Zafer seeks to connect different cultures from around the world, past and present. As a constant seeker and researcher who is constantly dealing with music-theoretical questions and u. a. also concerned with compositional techniques based on algorithms, Tolga Zafer has constructed »Tritonet«, a musical computer for educational and performative purposes.
Likya Dede
The little girl is out of sleep. She asks Likya Dede to tell her a story that she has not heard before. Likya Dede accepts with one condition: At the end of the story she must find the name of the story and the characters. She happily accepts the challenge and Likya Dede beings his story about a man and a woman.
Through out the story he talks about:
How they exist,
How they become lovers,
How they become one,
How they become extinguish,
How they become permanent.
The piece is symbolizing the rite of passage for the little girl. At the end of the story, she will find the name of the characters.
The source of the Likya Dede stories are based on Anatolia. His main aim is to present the wholeness of the cultures which had been shaped in thousands of years, by many civilizations.
Likya Dede is a modern story composed for dance, narrators, symphony orchestra and ethnic instruments. Little girl and Likya Dede acts during twelve consecutive movements. A monolog of Likya Dede pursues the dialogue and music continues.
Story and Music : Tolga Zafer Özdemir
Libretto : Ruteba Doğan
Inspiration : Emre Özkan
Graphics : Asu Ceren
MIDI Symphony Orchestra: Oğuzcan Şehiraltı
Kanun: Esra Berkman
Percussions: Ömer Avcı
Saz : Alican Karapınar
Violin : Metehan Dada
Simple Web version
Use left buttons to choose the tonality and press notes to play the root chords
Tritonet Concept
Tritonet is a musical abacus which provides an innovative way of learning and applying music harmony. It makes learning music theory much more accessible by focusing on building the intuition behind harmony.
Tritonet can be seen as an evolution of the Circle of Fifths into the 21st century, enabling a wide array of possibilities for utilising music theory both in the traditional sense and in terms of exploring new territories.
In modern times, the artistic side of music has been overshadowing the fundamentally quantitative and aesthetic free part of harmony -- and this is how it was seen in the Quadrivium. Tritonet is attempting to resurrect this side of music, by bringing back the attention onto the ratios and symmetries which underpin music harmony.
Learning music harmony in medieval times took more than a decade. The Guidonian hand method, introduced in the 12th century as a visual helper, revolutionised theoretical education -- it allowed musicians to learn it in about two years. Tritonet, introduced a millennium later as an interactive visual helper, aims to dramatically shorten the duration of study required to internalise music harmony.
More details about this new approach can be found in the textbook "The Tritonet Approach to Music Theory"