Greek Rebetiko from a Psychocultural Perspective

Same Songs Changing Minds

Daniel Koglin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781134803552
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medien & darstellende Kunst
• Subtopic: Ethnomusikologie

Greek Rebetiko from a Psychocultural Perspective: Same Songs Changing Minds examines the ways in which audiences in present-day Greece and Turkey perceive and use the Greek popular song genre rebetiko to cultivate specific cultural habits and identities. In the past, rebetiko has been associated chiefly with the lower strata of Greek society. But Daniel Koglin approaches the subject from a different perspective, exploring the mythological and ritual aspects of rebetiko, which intellectual elites on both sides of the Aegean Sea have adapted to their own world views in our age of globalized consumption. Combining qualitative and quantitative methods from ethnomusicology, ritual studies, conceptual history and music psychology, Koglin casts light on the role played by national perceptions in the processes of music production and consumption. His analysis reveals that rebetiko persistently oscillates between conceptual categories: it is a music both ours and theirs, marginal and mainstream, joyful and grievous, sacred and profane. The study culminates in the thesis that this semantic multistability is not only a key concept to understanding the ongoing popularity of rebetiko in Greece, and its recent renaissance in Turkey, but also a fundamental aspect of the human experience on the south-eastern borders of Europe.

Chapter 1
Discursive Mode I (Myth): Telling Tales of Rebetiko

The history of rebetiko remains to be written and rewritten so as to contribute to our society’s self-knowledge and to the understanding of certain aspects of the urbanite experience, particularly in times of trouble.

Nikos Kotaridis (1997, 21)

I fear that, in the final analysis, we cannot hope to ever acquire a scientifically unimpeachable history of our popular music. We can only obtain a history of the bourgeoisie’s speculations about it.

Thodoros Hadzipandazis (1986, 23f.)

As was indicated in the Introduction, various types of Greek urban folk music which are now commonly subsumed under the umbrella category ‘rebetiko’ have given rise to much controversy in Greece’s local and national press ever since they made their appearance, as a form of paid entertainment, on the stages of urban music cafés, during theatre performances and via the gramophone record.¹ Only in part has this controversy –as perhaps any debate – been determined by rational intentions. The commentators upon rebetiko have seldom defined their concepts precisely. Quite the contrary, their remarks are usually characterized by inconsistencies, allusions, ambiguities and rather emotional diction. Lack in conceptual clarity and internal consistency has, however, not precluded the rebetiko debate from developing its own logic. This becomes particularly clear if we examine its central metaphors as well as some frequently recurring topoi created around these metaphors.

Timothy Rice (2003) has pointed out the fruitfulness of analysing discourses about music in terms of the metaphors that form their basis. Drawing on ideas of philosophers like Max Black, Paul Ricœur and Mark Johnson, Rice defines metaphors as implicit or explicit statements in the form of ‘music is x’ that claim two distinct concepts to be structurally related. What is more, he argues, metaphors can be perceived as being true not only in a figurative but also in a literal sense. Contrary to classical teachings, metaphors need not be innovative so as to stand ‘above the commonplace and mean’, as Aristotle had demanded in his Poetics (Part XXII). Instead, a non-artistic understanding of metaphor enables Rice to subscribe to the view that ‘metaphoric process is an omnipresent principle of cognition’ (Johnson 1981, 43).

As they can be used in both poetic and conventional language, metaphors have a dual capacity: ‘to frame our understanding when taken as true, near and obvious and […] to alter and reconfigure our understanding when taken as surprising, far, and insightful’ (Rice 2003, 165). Time is a factor that plays a crucial role in this dual capacity of metaphors, for what at some point in time is perceived as a surprising, insightful (or far-fetched) relation of two concepts – the metaphor ‘rebetiko is an art form’ is a good example – can later become a truism (on this typical ‘career’ of metaphors, see Gentner et al. 2001, 227–32). Cultural background, however, is equally important. A metaphorical statement that expresses a banal and self-evident truth in one society may sound anything from highly imaginative to completely nonsensical in another.

To put it in a nutshell, the duality of metaphors seems to concern two dimensions: near–far (literal–figurative, common–uncommon) and implicit–explicit. Many metaphors are used as ‘figures of speech’ and are therefore explicit; some metaphors, however, are left implicit and exist only in the form of connotations. The well-known phrase ‘rebetiko died in the mid-1950s’, for instance, relates a musical genre explicitly to the notion of death by placing the relevant symbols (i.e. the words ‘rebetiko’ and ‘died’) side by side. Implicit in this phrase is the metaphorical idea that ‘rebetiko is a living organism’ which is born, comes of age and, eventually, passes away. For the purpose of analysing the rebetiko debate, I find it more productive to distinguish metaphors according to their explicitness than to their novelty. While debaters on rebetiko are often contemporaries who share the same cultural background, they obviously disagree on whether or not their statements about rebetiko are literally or figuratively ‘true’ – otherwise there would be no need for them to debate. In other words, novelty (versus obviousness, ‘truth’) of a metaphorical statement is a rather subjective quality, whereas its explicitness can be determined with a much higher degree of objectivity.

Following the media theory of David Altheide, I will use the term ‘theme’ for explicit and recurring metaphorical statements which run through the discourse on rebetiko, and the term ‘frame’ for the abstract, connoted metaphorical relations that, while not being stated explicitly, ‘focus on what will be discussed, how it will be discussed, and above all, how it will not be discussed’ (Altheide 1996, 31). Thus, ‘rebetiko died in the mid-1950s’ is a theme, whereas ‘rebetiko is a living organism’ would have to be considered a frame, unless this phrase forms part of a written or verbal statement. Another major theme is the oft-repeated claim that ‘rebetiko songs are plain and truthful’, which I call the simplicity theme. An example of how certain issues of the debate are framed in order to present them in a particular light is treating certain rebetiko songs – e.g. those related to drug use – as expressions of opposition to the Establishment (henceforth called the nonconformity frame).

Another important aspect of the rebetiko debate is the way relevant information is selected, organized and presented in particular media (newspaper articles, films, audio recordings, biographies, live performances, compilations of song lyrics, websites and many more). Altheide (1996) uses the term ‘format’ to distinguish this factor in the discourse from others such as themes and frames. In terms of the model for discourse analysis proposed in the Introduction (see Figure formats are part of the media component, themes are part of the concept component, and frames are part of the context component.

Ifwe accept the notion that frames form a background to the conception and interpretation of individual themes, then it is quite easy to see that formats, in turn, provide an even more general background of principles that guide the communication of the resulting ideas, thoughts, feelings etc. Hence the subsequent discussion of some central themes, frames and formats of the rebetiko debate progresses from the particular, concrete and explicit towards the general, abstract and implicit.

For analytical purposes, the ‘content’ or meaning of a theme can be defined as that which remains invariant when the theme is expressed in different frames or formats. The problem is that in practice, any idea (theme) must of necessity be communicated within a certain context (frame) and in a certain language (format). Outside the analyst’s mind there are no such things as separate themes, frames or formats which could be studied in isolation. These are different aspects of the discourse, rather than distinct parts of it. Therefore, it might be difficult to clearly distinguish between them when analysing the terms in which rebetiko has been cast.

There is, in addition, one further point to make. Progressing from the particular to the general, this chapter surveys the ‘discourse’ on rebetiko in order to shed light on its underlying ‘mythology’ – i.e. a comparatively static framework of concepts, ideas and premises. Moreover, it is aimed at giving an idea of the laws governing the dialectical interplay between discourse and mythology. To this end, I have proposed a discourse-analytical model combining the interrelated notions of ‘concept’, ‘theme’, ‘frame’ and ‘format’. In summary, concepts are formed on the basis of what debaters experience, observe and imagine; themes are explicit metaphorical statements connecting two or more concepts; frames guide the interpretation of individual themes, and formats involve specific restrictions and conventions affecting the way individual statements are framed. Now, the question arises as to whether we can go a step further and formulate rules explaining the behaviour of debaters at format level as well. In other words, which factors may guide a debater’s choice of particular formats for expressing their views on rebetiko?

Most formats discussed above can be classified into two main categories: those wherein themes are chiefly expressed through ‘narrative’ (song texts, personal communication, press articles, biographies, lectures etc.), and those that centre on themes being ‘acted out’ (live performances in private and public spaces, film and stage productions, in a sense also pictorial presentations of performances such as photographs or drawings). The findings of this chapter suggest we call the first category ‘myth’ and the second ‘ritual’. Looked at from that point of view, myth and ritual do not appear as sequentially emerging opposites in an assumed thought–action dichotomy, which implies either that rituals are the purely physical enactment of pre-existing mythical ‘scripts’, or vice versa, that myths are stories rationalizing pre-existing ‘irrational’ magic rites (for a critique of such dualistic theories of myth and ritual, cf. Bell 1992, 30–46). Instead, the terms ‘myth’ and ‘ritual’ denote here distinct but complementary discursive modes, each of which involves an emphasis on specific formats. No claim is made about their being causally related. Rather, they can be called ‘consubstantial’ in that they communicate the same conceptual substance in different ways. The discourse on rebetiko is constructed of patterns of interlocking narrative and performative statements. Despite their interpenetration, however, I think that distinguishing between discursive modes or classes of formats helps one better understand how myth and ritual are grounded in – and shape – what we call ‘reality’.

A concrete example may help us to pin down the foregoing ideas more precisely. The story begins on a Monday afternoon, 31 January 1949. A young composer named Manos Hadjidakis lectures on rebetiko to a full auditorium at the Athens Art Theatre, then housed at 7 St George Karitsis Square, a place where lovers of avant-garde stage plays and chamber music recitals feel at home. Admission is free. Among the audience are many young women of society, who would probably never set foot in one of the cheap tavernas down in Piraeus and other less reputable districts where rebetiko is normally performed. Have they come not to hear what Hadjidakis has to say, but to see the legendary buzuki player Markos Vamvakaris who will spice up the lecture with a short live intermezzo, accompanied by the female singer-guitarist Sotiria Bellou?

Nightlife in the capital, it seems, has regained its pre-war vibrancy, although the countryside is still haunted by the spectre of civil war, which broke out in December 1944 after a mass demonstration in downtown Athens by members of the Greek Communist Party (KKE) and the National Liberation Front (EAM), an underground resistance movement during the Axis occupation of Greece, had turned into a riot. Since its foundation in 1948, the Central Radio Station of the Greek Armed Forces keeps broadcasting music programmes which owe their popularity to the high proportion of rebetiko songs they comprise (cf. Kliafa 2004, 104). In the daily and periodical press of the time, however, articles with rebetiko-related content are anything but abundant. Perhaps under the circumstances there are more important (or appropriate) things to write about. Those who do publicly comment on rebetiko, however, are often prominent composers, musicologists and music critics of various political colours (e.g. Varvoglis 7 VII 1946; Anoyanakis 28 I 1947; Xenos 4 II 1947; Spanoudi 13 I 1949; Kokkinos 21 II 1949; Theodorakis 1949). Their texts leave one with the impression that rebetiko is very popular among ordinary people, probably not only of the lower social classes (in his lecture, Hadjidakis himself talks about ‘the outspread of rebetiko in the last two years’), whilst its cultural and ethical value, and especially its representativeness of ‘the Greek people’, are bones of contention among the connoisseurs of serious music.

Hadjidakis’s lecture fits tightly into this conceptual framework. With youthful enthusiasm, the 23-year-old but already well-known composer goes into raptures over Vasilis Tsitsanis’s pre-war hit ‘Archóndissa’ (‘Gentlewoman’), whose ‘melodic line of an amazing concision and simplicity’ he finds to be ‘akin to Bach’. Apparently his audience is familiar enough with the music of the German master to grasp the meaning of the comparison. The speaker’s aim, however, is not to suggest Tsitsanis should be accorded a place in the pantheon of European music history, but to link his songs to the great cultural tradition called Hellenism. ‘Rebetiko songs’, he proclaims, ‘are genuinely Greek, uniquely Greek.’ There are common features in ancient Greek drama, Byzantine hymnody and rebetiko, the composer goes on to assert, for they all are ‘based on clarity, simplicity of form and, above all, an endless sostenuto that presupposes strength, conscience and substance’. It is these qualities, concludes Hadjidakis, which constitute ‘the principal, the grandest element that characterizes the Greek race’ (2002, n.p.).

The lecture triggered off several reactions in the press, most of them unsympathetic. The problem is that Hadjidakis’s original manuscript was ‘lost’ (until its recent rediscovery in a private archive), so that these comments have long remained the only source of information on the composer’s ideas about rebetiko. In the last pages of the March issue of Ellinikí Dhimiuryía, a literary journal committed to Hellenocentric views on national culture, the anonymous ‘B.’ (1949) quoted selected passages from Hadjidakis’s lecture verbatim, occasionally commenting on them in a tone between genuine interest and mild criticism, sometimes with a trace of irony. The article is illustrated with a sketch undersigned by Minos Aryirakis (a noted painter and caricaturist) which immediately evokes the atmosphere of a rebetiko performance. It depicts Sotiria Bellou and Markos Vamvakaris, both of them seated on chairs as they accompany on their instruments a male dancer standing between them. The illustration reveals what this debater thought to be the most important aspect of the evening: not so much what was said about rebetiko, but that rebetiko was talked about – and above all performed – at this particular place. This would perhaps explain why the text makes no reference to the aforesaid passages on the Greek characteristics of clarity, simplicity and sostenuto, that is, to one of the main themes of the lecture.

Hadjidakis’s central thesis – the essential unity of Greek civilization from antiquity to modern popular culture – was saved from oblivion, though, because the young composer shared it with other influential debaters. Several writers and poets of the so-called ‘Generation of 1930’, particularly George Seferis and George Theotokas, had promoted the idea that what they perceived to be the simplicity, naturalness and authentic Greekness of folk culture provided a way out of the identity crisis of contemporary Greek literature (cf. Tziovas 2006, 95–112; Yannoulopoulos 2004, 54–152). And the assertion that the Anatolian-style Greek popular song, too, was beyond doubt a product of Hellenism, as it was ultimately derived from the music of ancient Greece and Byzantium, had been formulated already in a 1934 issue of the liberalist newspaper Athinaïká Néa (9 November) by the composer Manolis Kalomiris and the musicologist Konstantinos Psachos.

In the final analysis, then, the ideas Hadjidakis expressed verbally at the Art Theatre seem to have been neither new nor did they reach many people. Nevertheless, his lecture gained enormous symbolic significance. It earned Hadjidakis the status of a hero of modern Greek mythology whose feat was being ‘the first to present the exponents of rebetiko to the general public’ (Triandafillidis 1998, 117, emphasis added), thereby initiating the acceptance by the upper middle classes of rebetiko as a national cultural asset. The meaning of the underlying frame activated here both in the performative discursive mode – by a stage performance of rebetiko songs as well as its depiction, the newspaper caricature –and by means of an oral exposition of specific themes might be translated as ‘rebetiko is art’. It seems that such abstract ideas are most effectively communicated when they are simultaneously presented through ritual and formulated in mythical narratives.

The Rebetiko Discourse – Themes, Frames and Formats

The meaning of any contribution, verbal or otherwise, to the discourse on rebetiko is thus a function of the themes, frames and formats it employs and intermingles. I am well aware that the following selection of themes, frames and formats is rather subjective. Other analysts would pick out different items or would name those that I found differently. What follows is inevitably an arbitrary select...