The theme of this paper, ambiguities of meaning for the words "Mevlevi" and "music," ties in with questions that arose spontaneously at the 2006 Balkan music symposium in "Tirana" (held in Golem, Albania). We could not agree on the meaning of "makam music" or "Balkan music."

Rather than leading our audiences down the rocky path of ambiguity and misunderstanding, we can do them the kindness of smoothing their way by defining words that might be misunderstood. I might understand "Balkan music" as music of countries formerly under Ottoman rule; Professor Seebass might accept any reasonable definition. Professor Beken might understand "makam music" as the strictly-codified music of Ottoman elites, while Professor Aksoy might prefer to apply the term to a broad range of Ottoman-influenced Balkan music. To have a reasonable dialogue, we need only define our words.

One final ambiguity: this "paper." I consider the most recent update of this online version (see timestamp on homepage) the fullest and the most definitive. My improvised live presentation at the Symposium on 30 September 2006 survives only in memory, although the Web-based outline seen and heard at that presentation is also online. The dead-tree version, written a month before the Symposium and published in the symposium proceedings (Urban Music in the Balkans, ed., Sokol Shupo, ASMUS 2006), is the earliest and least developed.