At the age of eight, he was accepted to the Imperial School of Enderun, where he began his education among the foregoing masters of Turkish classical music, from whom he acquired a firm theoretical basis.

As his father Zeki Mehmed Ağa is said to have refused to pass on to his son his knowledge of the tambur, most of the work must have come to be incumbent on Osman Bey himself.

With the death of his father, he gave up singing and concentrated solely on his instrument and took part in "incesaz fasılları" performed at the court of Sultan Abdulaziz Han.

[2] In 1885, he succumbed to a pulmonary disorder from which he had been suffering for a long time, and was buried in the cemetery of the Yahya Efendi Dergâhı in Istanbul.

The only former peşrev composer he is said to have cherished is Gazi Giray Han, whose "Hüzzam Peşrevi" he designated the as "sehl-i mümtenî", ("a simple work done with great skill", “piece of a jewel").