The saz has a small round wooden body and a very long neck with seven strings. The player plucks the strings with a thin flat piece of plastic, and the sound is bright and twangy. Different sizes of saz make different sounds - some are big and deep, some small and light.
Every region of Turkey has its own folk songs. A song from the Black Sea coast in the north has a fast bouncy beat. A song from the Aegean coast in the west sounds breezy and dancing. A song from the eastern mountains has long, sad, sweeping melodies. You can almost guess where in the country a song comes from by how it sounds.
Many folk songs are very old - hundreds of years old - and have been passed from grandparent to parent to child without being written down. Children learn them at home, at school, and at family parties. Knowing the old songs is a way of carrying your home with you, even when you move away.
Modern Turkish pop and rock musicians often add a saz to their songs. So a song you hear on the radio in Istanbul today might mix electric guitars, drums, and a 500-year-old folk tune from a village.