CALLS TO PRAYER

It's been too long since I've released any Turkey stuff, so lets see if we an remedy that. This is some video we shot in Istanbul. We were walking through a park when the afternoon call to prayer happened and I really wanted to capture the audio... (what I mean is that the video is nothing special, but the audio is cool... I would love to do some field recording in that park some day)

There are mosques everywhere in Istanbul, and when the call to prayer happens, the sound echoes off the buildings and hills for miles around. The audio in the video above was taken right near Aya Sofya and the Blue Mosque. You can hear calls to prayer coming from both places in the video.

This struck me as somewhat curious, because Aya Sofya isn't a mosque. It started as a Christian church, but was turned into a mosque at one point. But when the modern state of Turkey was founded, Aya Sofya became a museum. At first I didn't think they did a call to prayer, but once a saw the sound system on their minarets, I realized that they did.

So what to they say during the call to prayer at a place where you don't really pray? Julie and I were on a boat with our friend Christina on the Golden Horn when the evening call to prayer happened. So I tried to explain what they might be saying right then at Aya Sofya. Julie turned on the camera as I started...

For the record, that night on the boat is one of the most beautiful nights I have ever seen in my life. I've got tons of pictures and I'll post them in the near future.