Present-day Greece includes irredentist enclaves in Epirus, in Macedonia, and in eastern Thrace... and identities like Sarakatsani, Kutsovlachs, Ar[o/u]manians, Karagouni (Turkish 'black cape' --see What's in a name?), Arvanites, Souliotes, Maniates, Sfaki, and of course Gypsy (Atsinganoi, ??????, Roma, Tziganes) are part of the endless complexities of Balkan life and history, which goes back to Illyrians, Dacians, Getae, Minoans, Mycenaeans, Dorians, Achaeans... To catch some of the flavor of controversies surrounding ethnic identity, see
an excerpt from A.J.B. Wace and M.S. Thomson The Nomads of the Balkans: an Account of life and Customs Among the Vlachs of Northern Pindus,and sample these disparate YouTube creations:Irwin T. Sanders The Nomadic Peoples of Northern Greece
David Binder Vlachs: a peaceful Balkan people
Danopoulos Albanian Migration into Greece
George Gavrilis The Greek-Ottoman Boundary as Institution, Locality, and Process, 1832-1882
Turks of Western Thrace via Human Rights Watch
North Greece since 1912 !!! bye bye ottoman empire !Wins of the (Greek Cretans) during war against Turks !!!!
Obloquy and creative calumnation aside, each ethnos, indeed each locality, seems to have its own music --though the membranes are pretty permeable, and likely to be breached at the whim of musicians (especially Romani musicians...). Sephardic Jewish contributions are also frequent, and some early 78 records were issued with multiple labels, the same content represented as Greek, as Turkish, as Hebrew... And some performers have been nimble in crossovers, Roza Eskenazi (born in Constantinople of Jewish parents, and her first gigs were with an Armenian troupe in Athens, ca. 1910) and Marko Melkon (born in Smyrna to Armenian parents, escaped the Turkish army draft by fleeing to Athens, and then to the US) being cases in point.
It's not surprising to find 'culture' varying over space. Consider traditional clothing, food, dialect... Some regions are clearly associated with particular musical instruments, and with particular sound flavors: the Epirus clarinet/clarino tradition, the klephtic songs of the Peloponnesus, the rizitika of Crete, the kemanche/lyra of the Pontic Greeks... The conventional typology of modern Greek musics provides a starting place:
For the most part, the Greek music of today can be divided into three prevailing forms: laiko, nissiotiko and dimotiko. These divisions echo geographical ones: laiko is modern and urban; nissiotiko is more traditional, island music; and dimotiko is music from the mountainous regions on mainland Greece which impacted with influences [sic!] linked to Turkey and the Balkans.Dimotiko: Modern Greek music, like modern Greek history, is often defined in relation to Turkey and its possession of Greek territory. After the fall of Byzantium in 1453, all of mainland Greece was occupied by the Turkish Ottoman Empire. The occupation lasted a full four centuries and the music of Greece, along with its political identity, was greatly changed by the association.
Dimotiko is grounded in traditional Byzantine music, which was based on a choral music akin to Gregorian chant, and to which Arabic singing styles had been incorporated. With it, from the Balkans, came the santouri, the saz and pipes. These joined existing instruments such as the lute, violin, guitar and especially the clarinet... The resulting fusion is called dimotiko, spawned from this meeting of Oriental forms with those it encountered in Greece... thematically, it is a rural music that often tells of life in the country, of the harvest, marriage, birth and death in the village. It is an ancient music which began its formation back in the Middle Ages, yet one which is still growing, vital and immensely popular today.
Laiko: Laiko is now the best-known Greek form. The word itself means 'popular', and the style [is] derived from elements of three other forms, the dimotiko, smirneiko and rembetiko.
A crucial ingredient in the formation of laiko was brought by the huge populations of ethnic Greeks from cities like Smyrna, Broussa, Aivali, Efesso and elsewhere who were forced back to Greece when their regions were annexed by Turkey in 1922. With these expatriated Greeks came their traditions... A full 1.5 million refugees arrived to join a population that was only 7 million at the time. Most went to the ghettos of Athens and its nearby port Piraeus. The sudden concentration of new peoples with new customs gave rise to a new music: rembetiko... Rembetiko was frequently a political music as well which expressed articulate criticism of their singers' plights and their opposition to contemporary events... With time, however, the image of rembetiko was cleaned up along with its lyric content and the way was paved for its entry into the mainstream... rembetiko met dimotiko met smirneiko and the transformation was complete. Laiko was born.
Nissiotiko: Finally, nisiotiko is music from the Greek islands. During the occupation, many Greek islands were protected by Venice, so it was the least affected by the influences which characterized the forms above. It owes its character more to Western forms of the Middle Ages...
(from the insert accompanying The Dance of Heaven's Ghosts, EMI 7243 8 55644 2 0)
Gail Holst-Warhaft summarizes the case for Island Music:
All Greek island music is influenced by its specific geographical location and by a history of occupation by foreign forces as well as constant raids by marauding pirates of various nationalities: Saracen, Tunisian, Italian and even Peloponnesian Greeks from Mani. The islands also formed a porous border area where the persecuted could flee in difficult times.GypsiesMost islands fall into groups: the Heptanese or Ionian islands, the Dodecanese, Sporades, Saronic, Cyclades, Northern Aegean Islands, and finally Crete and Cyprus as categories on their own. The music of some of the islands is marked by their proximity to the mainland – Thasos and Samothraki, for example, have music that closely resembles the music of Macedonia and Thrace; the islands of the Saronic Gulf show the influence of the Peloponnese and the Greek mainland. The music of the islands of Lesvos and Chios have a strong affinity with music from the Turkish mainland, particularly with that of Smyrna (Izmir) and Aivali. For obvious reasons, the Ionian Islands are known for the Italianate character of their music. On the other hand, the islands of Crete, Samos and Ikaria developed their own unique musical traditions.
(Re-evaluating the Nisiotika)
The highest concentration of Roma in Greece is in Epirus. However, finding Greek Rom music is a touchy business. The status of the Gypsies is so low that even though there are well known Rom players in Greece, (and the US) it is very rare to find one that will officially admit being one. (Roma are often referred to as "blacks" all over Europe, calling to mind many interesting parallels between the history of the Roma in Europe and the Africans in America.) Recordings are available, but don't expect the liner notes to state that the player is a Gypsy. This prejudice runs extremely deep, so even if you ask the proprietor in a Greek music store, you may not get a straight answer. The clarinettist Yiorgos Mangas has several releases out, and seems to be one of the only Rom musicians willing to declare himself.
(from Michal Shapiro They Call Themselves Roma)Laikodimotiko ksefantwma me Giwrgo Magga kai ton gio tou! via YouTube
Pontos
Tsambasin - Nikos Xanthopoulos Pontiaka Serra Karadeniz (note lyrics of Tsambasin)Rapproachment:Theodoros Pavlidis + Halkidis Pontiaka Lyra Kemence
Pontiaka Kalionzidis Lyra/Kemence Solo (much more lyrical than most kemence)