Repertories and identities of a musician from Crete (Magrini)

Notes


Preface
This article is a revised and enlarged version of a paper presented at the round-table on "Anthropology of Mediterranean musicians", held within the conference "Musicisti del Mediterraneo: Storia e Antropologia" organized by Mousiké and the ICTM Study Group on "Anthropology of Music in Mediterranean Cultures," Bari, 27-30 June 1996. The topics dealt with here are deeply connected to those discussed in the other articles appearing in this number of EOL, presented as papers at the same conference. This article presents the case study of a Greek musician, within the larger frame of the study of Mediterranean musicians introduced by Amnon Shiloah. The life history of Papadakis examined here suggests considerations on the topic of diaspora, introduced by Philip Bohlman, with particular attention for musical behavior of Mediterranean emigrants to the U.S., a topic more extensively examined by Karl Signell. Finally, it discusses the role of music as marker of regional cultural identity, dealt with by Svanibor Pettan, and the importance of remodelling exerted by state and mass media.

1. Two recent conferences chose musicians as a theme:

"Musicisti del Mediterraneo: Storia e Antropologia" organized by Mousiké and the ICTM Study Group on "Anthropology of Music in Mediterranean Cultures," Bari, 27-30 June 1996

"Musicians and Musicianship", organized by the ICTM UK Chapter, Durham, 7-9 April 1995.
.

Publications include previous examples of research on folk musicians. See in particular James Porter's articles and book on Jeannie Robertson (Porter 1976, 1988, Porter and Herschel 1995)

2. Chaniá is a town and also a province. When Chaniá is mentioned in this article without further specification, the author refers to the town. [ return ]

3. Displacement seems to change the view people have of their homeland. See the case of Pavlos Daskalakis, a computer programmer and lyra player born in Crete and living in Berkeley, California: "Like other immigrants, Dhaskalakis found his regional identity changing outside his homeland. He said, 'When I went to Athens, I missed Crete. When I went to America, I missed Greece'" (Signell 1996). [ return ]

4. According Papadakis, many lyra players started as violin players. [ return ]

5. Stelios Lainakis, Roberto Leydi and Tullia Magrini collaborated on fieldwork in Crete in 1977 and 1979. Stelios Lainakis took part in fieldwork with Tullia Magrini again in 1994. Papadakis kindly put his list at our team's disposal in 1977. [ return ]

6. In this period Smyrna's population, including its outer settlements, reached 300,000, the majority being Greek. [ return ]

7. Modern instruments have even four strings. [ return ]

8. See Chianis 1980: 678, for comparison with Pontic lyra.[ return ]

9. Verbatim transcription of an interview with Papadakis, recorded in Chaniá (26 August 1994). Tape K64/94, archive T. Magrini [ return ] .

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