“The problem with getting older,” he stated, “is that we begin to have too many memories.” He leaned back in his chair philosophically rolling his cigarette; this man with skin darkened by a Mediterranean sun, the top three buttons of his white shirt hanging carelessly open, his sleeves rolled to reveal wrists liberally dusted with dark hair turning grey.
“I grew up with this music. These songs tell the story of my life.” She sat, her posture straight with her feet tucked under her, her eyes intense and her wavy dark hair crowning the representation of a stunning woman powerfully in her prime.
A coffee table, laden with beer and wine glasses, tobacco and an ornate moroccan ashtray sat between us. Pink walls, warm lamps and colorful art surrounded us. A puppy yowled and yawned and the sounds of cats chatting filtered in. Balcony doors opened to reveal the sea and the soft glow of orange lights from the city below. Turkey glimmered and winked on the horizon in the distance. We sat late into the early morning hours, as three musicians put together their list of songs to play the next night at a restaurant across the water in Turkey; one man, lost in his wanderings and afraid to find home, another man living so close to his Turkish home, but unsettled, and woman carrying so many memories that a listener aches to hear her sing. I sat, a privileged quiet observer, as each song was called, discussed, taken apart and put back together. I closed my eyes as they played, mentally placing my own parameters around the form of each song, attempting to bend the scales to the knowledge of my western ears.
After the music stopped, I would ask a novice’s questions, “What was that song about?” And after every song, the woman would look at me, her lips quirked with dry humor. “Pain.”
Of course.
But not every Rebetiko song is about pain in it’s pure form. Some sing of coffee, of being a waitress, of a woman’s power, of teasing, of hashish and some are political. After the Greco-Turkish war in the 1920s, a wave of over one and a half million refugees flooded into the poorest neighborhoods of the big cities; Athens, the port of Pireaus, and Thessaloniki. As their music blended with the already existing forms, Rebetiko began to evolve into the voice of the outcast, the poor, the displaced, and the laborers carrying Greece through the industrial revolution. While the Greek middle and upper classes turned their ears to the sounds of western classical music, the hidden heart of each city belonged to Rebetiko.
Passed on as an oral tradition, songs generally begin with an improvised instrumental solo (Taximi) The bare basics of a Rebetiko ensemble would consist of a harmonic instrument (rhythm guitar,) a solo instrument (baglamas, bouzouki..) and a singer. The harmonic structure of each song is fairly simple, often times centering around the key of D minor and usually consisting of no more than four chords. The melodies, however, are far more complicated, pulling their notes from different modes and emphasizing unexpected chromaticism. The lyrics evoke daily life, describing trials and joys with unapologetic stark simplicity.
I settled into my chair in the apartment on the hill as music moved past and through me. Perhaps I looked bored or maybe just tired. But inside, the words and winding notes were wrapping around the heart of this foreign listener and giving a tight squeeze.
No comments:
Post a Comment