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Symbolic and Social Transformation in the Lute Cultures of Crete: Music, Technology and the Body in a Mediterranean Society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2019

Kevin Dawe
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Extract

This article considers the role of lute culture (specifically, the lyra) in a Mediterranean society. Cretan lute cultures have historical roots imagined and otherwise which entangle them completely in a local musical and social world. My research into Cretan musical instrument cultures among others have demanded not only a scholarly response to new questions but also the construction and application of a broad theoretical and analytical framework with which to try and understand lute worlds. It is within this cultural and academic context, therefore, that I probe the relationship of music, technology, and the body and how these connections are configured in a Cretan-Mediterranean context, in symbol and metaphor, and as engendered and socially active, existing where musical and social practices coalesce. Therefore broader and theoretically demanding questions must form the basis of an opening discussion as defining of an approach and preparing the ground for a focussed study of the Cretan context.

Type
Articles
Information
Yearbook for Traditional Music , Volume 37 , 2005 , pp. 58 - 68
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 By The International Council for Traditional Music

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Footnotes

1

The focus here is on the lyra-laouto ensemble or Zigia. The lyra [lira] or achladoschemi (plural = lyres [lires]) is a three-stringed, upright, bowed lute; the laouto [lauto] (plural = laouta [lauta]) is a four-course, plucked, long-necked lute. I believe the observations discussed here and explored mainly through the lyra have profound resonance with and is also applicable to other varieties of lute cultures in a Cretan context (laouto, mandolin, mandolin ensembles). I also focus on what might be called the Cretan ‘mainstream’ as it was configured between 1989-2000, in particular. During this time the Cretan protomasters continued to exert their influence as living treasures: Thanasis Skordalos, for instance, epitomised for many, including professional musicians, producers and listeners ‘the genius lyra player', Vasilis Skoulas ‘the true professional', and Dimitris Pasparakis ‘the teacher of Cretan music'. Others including Ross Daly, Xarantonis, Tasoula, and Aspasia Papadakis were seen as ‘peripheral'. See Dawe 1999.

References

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