In an effort to make clear the work of Murat Aydemir's 2010 book "Turkish Music Makam Guide," my intention is to write from personal experience concerning my own encounters with each each example makam. My reason for doing this is mainly to enrich the knowledge base of English-speaking enthusiasts and students of the Turkish traditional music tradition who don't have personal contact with a teacher and are thus not able to (as Murat puts it) "play the pitches and "flavours" correctly". Regardless of other written sources, Murat's own recordings on tanbur are the final say in terms of pitches and flavours in the context of each makam as noted here. Other authors on the subject will be noted where I was inspired by a connecting thought.

Enough preamble though. Rast is the first makam and one of the most basic. Indeed, musicians base what "akord" (transposition, tuning, or register) they are in by noting where the makam Rast would be played on their instruments. For all examples in the book, the akord called Bolahenk is used by Ayedemir. Rast is therefore on on Western concert pitch "D".

The first thing that is notable about the makam descriptions is the fact that Ayedemir details usually several scales (or at least a scale and its extension) that make up each makam. This points directly to the concept that a makam is more than just a scale or even a combination of scales.  My humble attempt is to put it thusly:  A makam is a collection of musical flavours in the form of melodic lines referencing specific scales and played out in certain recognised fashion as it sets a certain mood. 
So, essentially, Ayedemir emphasises sequences of flavours, correct pitch inflections (though he could definitely go into more detail regarding this within the text), and proper cadences for the flavours to arrive on to generate the required mood for a certain makam.  Here is my rendition and analysis of a Rast şarkı by Dramalı Hasan Hasgüler.  I am specifically not using examples provided in Aydemir's book to prevent redundancy.

 The set list for Turkish art music gigs has been expanded, and I have a couple of co-conspirators. So shortly I'll be forming a trio (bowed tanbur, Ud, Percussion). During this time, I've also picked up a very informative key to maintaining a link to the ongoing evolution of the tradition: Murat Aydemir's "Turkish Music Makam Guide". This is the only such book (that I know of) published in English and is quite a boon to English-speaking enthusiasts of the Turkish Art Music tradition. It details 60 or so Makams via a few pages each on the sequence and execution of the proper flavours required to manifest each makam and further supports these notes with an analysis of sound recordings presenting a taksim and composition from the repertoire. The recordings are included via two CDs with the book. In future articles, I will detail my journey through the worlds of these 60 makamlar and likely draw comparison and analysis from other sources on the subject (mostly written, such as Karl Signell's work but also analysis of recordings from notable sources in Turkish music; this is all as best I can given my isolation in New Zealand at the moment).