Sarris, H. (2013). The 'Greek clarinet' in Thrace revisited: A contemporary ethnomusicological perspective. Greece as an intercultural pole of musical thought and creativity. International Musicological Conterence, June 6-10, 2011, Thessaloniki, pp. 23-30. (original) (raw)
Related papers
Music and traditions of Thrace (Greece): a trans-cultural teaching tool
Dedica Revista de Educaçao Ε Ηumanidades, 2012
The geopolitical location as well as the historical itinerary of Greece into time turned the country into a meeting place of the European, the Northern African and the Middle-Eastern cultures. Fables, beliefs and religious ceremonies, linguistic elements, traditional dances and music of different regions of Hellenic space testify this cultural convergence. One of these regions is Thrace. The aim of this paper is firstly, to deal with the music and the dances of Thrace and to highlight through them both the Balkan and the middle-eastern influence. Secondly, through a listing of music lessons that we have realized over the last years, in schools and universities of modern Thrace, we are going to prove if music is or not a useful communication tool -an international language -for pupils and students in Thrace. Finally, we will study the influence of these different "traditions" on pupils and students' behavior.
In this paper I wish to explore my academic journey in the field of ethnomusicology and to ruminate on the reception of ethnomusicology as an academic discipline in contemporary Greek tertiary education. Raising critical questions concerning the role of Greece as a cultural crossroad of musical thought and creativity, I will tackle particular theoretical and methodological challenges that Greek ethnomusicologists face today. In the beginning, by providing autoethnographic accounts, I briefly describe the academic, musical and socio-cultural milieu in the late 1990 in Greece that led me to study ethnomusicology and conduct fieldwork in Iran. Hoping that musicology and ethnomusicology in Greece can maintain fruitful dialogues, I consider the reception of ethnomusicology by Greek music scholars and unravel the dominant musicological discourses that seem to construct future ethnomusicology in Greece. I also re-examine the historically-based bifurcation of ethnomusicology under the light of the anthropological discourses among Greek scholars regarding the distinction between ethnomusicology and anthropology of music. The entry of ethnomusicology in Greek academia in the beginning of the 21st century, especially the kind of ethnomusicology brought in Greece by the young generation of scholars trained abroad, resembles to a degree the history of the arrival of anthropology within the Greek tertiary education in the 1980s. I suggest thus to look at the history of anthropology in Greece and learn from the experiences and difficulties Greek anthropologists encounter when trying to establish their discipline among the Greek scholarly community. This paper aspires to provide platform for dialogue and critical reflection among disciplines engaged in the cultural study of music in Greek tertiary education.
2011
The geopolitical location as well as the historical itinerary of Greece into time turned the country into a meeting place of the European, the Northern African and the Middle-Eastern cultures. Fables, beliefs and religious ceremonies, linguistic elements, traditional dances and music of different regions of Hellenic space testify this cultural convergence. One of these regions is Thrace. The aim of this paper is firstly, to deal with the music and the dances of Thrace and to highlight through them both the Balkan and the middle-eastern influence. Secondly, through a listing of music lessons that we have realized over the last years, in schools and universities of modern Thrace, we are going to prove if music is or not a useful communication tool – an international language – for pupils and students in Thrace. Finally, we will study the influence of these different “traditions” on pupils and students’ behavior.
2016
This paper combines the methods of musicology and archeology and applies them in the study of archaeological remains of musical interest, considering their findspot and original context of use in order to place musical activities in a well-defined space and occasion; and to interpret the cultural, religious and social meaning of musical performances. The research will bring out a particular musical tradition of the Western Greeks and will reconstruct the role of music in the specific context of Selinus: the remains offer the opportunity for a reflection on the way in which the Western Greeks reworked the musical heritage of the motherland, and reinforced their cultural identity.
Concepts of Greekness: The Recorded Music of Anatolian Greeks after 1922
It is well attested that Asia Minor Greeks faced considerable hostility upon their arrival in Greece after 1922. Among the manifestations of this intolerance were claims that they displayed too many Levantine characteristics to be gnAEsioi ÄEllhnew. Considerable pressure was brought to bear on these refugees to conform, which in turn raised concerns among the refugees about the maintenance of their cultural distinctiveness. This paper suggests that, through the recorded performances of the refugee community in Athens after 1924, historians may begin to appreciate the identity crisis which the Mikrasiãtew experienced. The refugees found in their own highly developed music an avenue for the unchallenged expression of their own concept of Greek identity. Ironically, their own musical idiom, which provided them with a measure of commercial success and a temporary means of identity preservation, was to be ultimately subsumed within the broader, locally developed rebétiko genre that it had unwittingly encouraged. Relegated in rebétiko scholarship to the level of a mere catalyst for the musical revolution of the buzúki that followed, the recorded performances of the refugees preserve for us some of the dilemmas of mass relocation and identity among the displaced of Asia Minor.
The Crying Clarinet: Emotion and Music in Parakalamos
PhD Thesis, 2019
This thesis considers how emotion is conveyed through music in the Greek Epirote village of Parakalamos. It also looks at the relationship between musical ‘style’ and social space. Drawing upon theoretical literature that concerns emotion and place, this ethnographic study argues that musical meaning is contingent upon social interaction. In Parakalamos, the sound of the clarinet is associated with emotional experience and in this way it signifies place. In short, the ‘crying clarinet’ is created through the intersection between music, emotion, and place.
in Poesia,musica e agoni nella Grecia antica, Poetry, Proceedings of the IVth International Meeting of MOISA, Lecce, October 2010, Rudiae, Ricerche sul Mondo Classico, 22-23 Vol.1 published by Universita degli Studi di Lecce, Editors: D.Castaldo-E.G.Giannachi- A.Manieri,, 2011
Historical Musicology and ethnomusicology developed as different scientific fields. nonetheless it gradually becomes obvious that an interdisciplinary approach in both fields reveals important dimensions which fill the picture of both approaches. i will try to orientate to certain social dimensions found in the historical sources and to some important social phenomena which reveal that social change can explain musical change because music changes its function. Social reaction against musical change is indispensable to the way music in its turn affects society, and similar musical changes regarding the musical ethos may appear in different eras just because musical ethos is affected by the social function and the purpose music aims at, in differeny societies. Therefore in this sense it becomes clear that an interdisciplinary approach to contemporary and ancient phenomena in music and society can offer new knowledge and new interpretations which may shed light on the ancient musical phenomena and their relationship with contemporary ones. It also reveals the inner and constant process of preservation and change both in music and society. In our case the phenomenon of musical contests in Ancient Greece is an ideal topic because the main reason for its genesis can be traced precisely to social change.
Evangelos Karamanes (sous la direction de), Du terrain à l’archive : les archives de folklore et d’ethnologie en tant que pôles de recherche, d’éducation et de culture. Actes du XXXIème Atelier du réseau FER-EURETHNO, Athènes, 14-16 septembre 2018, Athènes 2019 ( 253-265).
The Music Section of the Hellenic Folklore research Centre, Academy of Athens, is an audio archive with thousands of recordings of Greek folk music, generated as a part of fieldwork. its development in 1950 was determined by the fear that traditional music would soon die out under the pressure of industrialized culture. Therefore, the researchers who collected music material for the archive became interested in massive recordings of folk songs, each time filling a gap in the music map. Today it is obvious that collecting music material requires theoretical equipment, and that the understanding of a music culture presupposes the study of its music in context. This has an impact on the way scholars and students of ethnomusicology think of the archive. This essay discusses issues related to the music archive, its history, its past and present use, and makes some suggestions for the benefit of it and its users.