Music, software, atlases — Çağlayan Yıldız

In 2021–2022, Çağlayan Yıldız worked as a music-education advisor at Deplike. He co-developed Chordie, contributed to interface and user-experience design and was responsible for checking musical accuracy. Questions encountered in lessons now also entered decisions about how software should behave. He wanted tools in which he could try musical ideas directly, while making clear that he did not write the code himself.

He spent about a year working with Defne Cemgil on his first music app, MathRonome; Cemgil developed its audio engine. In later work he began describing the musical ideas and behaviour of tools while AI wrote the code. Trying them, listening and finding what was missing or wrong remained his responsibility. His work on MathRonome and AllGoRhythmics explores time and rhythm. String Logic and Keyboard Logic, both in development, concern relationships between sounds. SLoop is part of his work on listening repeatedly to a short passage of a recording and exploring it on an instrument. Elvin’s Numbers, Elvin’s Bells and Aquadrum Pro are also part of Puja’s app work.

He is working to bring his book in progress, apps, interactive tools and history atlases together in Puja Academy. He wants a structure in which people can identify their own learning needs, follow a path or explore freely. He is also returning to the software idea for Signs for Improvisation that had waited for years.

He made the first concrete Jazz History Atlas experiment in September 2026, beginning a historical map through which listeners could move from musicians to recordings and to the people playing together. He does not equate combining sources with verifying everything they contain, and describes the atlas as open to correction. His music-related humour appears in Saçmalı-Yorum, and his challenges to misinformation in the Pardon Ama… series.

He also continued performing and releasing recordings. His work at 251 Soul ended in June 2024; HUE, Puja Jams and Circuit Blenders appeared in 2025. His hope for educational tools is that people who cannot share a room with him can still learn through listening, experimenting and making their own music.

The orchestra on the film set

Collections Orchestra was the ensemble Yıldız led in The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, filmed in Antalya in 2023. They accompanied Eiza González singing Mack the Knife in the cabaret scene of the film, released in 2024.

Before the recording setup was ready

When Toros Yıldırım and Görkem Efe first met him in the studio as a trio, three of his students were listening. With his recording setup not ready, Yıldız captured the music in stereo on a simple Zoom recorder. The encounter was released as Puja Jams. Circuit Blenders with Serhan Erkol came from a wholly improvised concert combining instruments and electronic setups.

What changes through learning?

Yıldız uses a distinction that Tamer Dövücü helped him clarify: knowing, being able to do, and being. Explaining a concept, hearing and playing it, and using it in music are different things. Rather than supplying ready-made exercises, he wants to teach the rules that let learners make their own. By algorithm he means how musical material is constructed and transformed.

His rhythm idea, The Thick Moment, belongs to the same enquiry. He believes some rhythmic difficulties arise from notation rather than the music itself. He values students finding their own voices and surpassing him rather than resembling him. He sees learning as a recurring process in which student and teacher continue to learn from each other.

How the atlas began, and its sources

A table of jazz musicians shared by a friend in a WhatsApp group prompted his first atlas experiment. It began with forty bebop musicians in September 2026. Rock, soul, blues and Western classical atlases are also ready, still awaiting publication.

His data sources include MusicBrainz, Discogs and Wikidata. He aims to retain the source of each fact and distinguish playing on the same recording from musical influence. He was surprised that Ron Carter had the most connections in the atlas data at that time.

Budiilizm

Budiilizm is Yıldız’s name for his habit of questioning accepted systems. In his account, it means changing a system where he can, or finding a way to remain outside it where he cannot. Looking for another solution after objecting is part of it too. He uses the idea to describe many of his choices, from leaving school to developing his own tools.

Playing together as an experience

When discussing HUE, he puts his long friendship with Oğuz Büyükberber first. He says that trust, alongside the changes each of them goes through, keeps their musical conversation alive.

He describes his approach to music through this shared experience too. He cares about listening and responding to other players as well as the resulting recording. He does not want to compete with AI over who composes better; he values technology that makes room for playing music together.

From this period