Greetings from Greece

[Aris PM]

Hi there! My name is Aris and I ‘m an accordionist from Greece. I have been playing the accordion for almost 20 years now. The last 10 years I play mostly folk music, sometimes with other musicians and sometimes solo. I begun with piano accordion but the last 5 years I switched to CBA B-griff and I am really exited about that. In my personal opinion, this type of keyboard combines a lot of benefits in terms of speed and comfort, while at the same time expands creation levels, due to multiple fingerings that a player could choose.

Concerning my instruments, I have 5 accordions. A Victoria (my first, “student” accordion), 1995 model, 80 bass with two chores at the right hand and one at the left, a collectible Weltmeister, 1953 model, 120 bass with four cores at the right hand and five at the left, a Saturn, 1975 model, chromatic 3 rows (b system), 100 bass with three chores at the right hand (single cassotto, L in the chamber) and one chore at the left, a Guerrini Champion, 1982 model, chromatic 6 rows (b system) 140 bass with four chores at the right hand (single cassotto, L in the chamber) and five at the left hand and a Gallanti, 1976 model, chromatic 5 rows (b system), 120 bass with four chores at the right hand and two at the left hand.

Additionally, and concerning my profession, 4 years ago I directed and produced a feature documentary film called: “The accordion in Greek folk music”. This was a result of my 6 years research, focused in the first period that the accordion showed up in Greece (approx. from 1885 to 1936).

The main reason that I have joined this forum is to ask for information about a technical issue. A guy in my country sells a really nice CBA but this accordion is a C-griff, so I want to convert it to B-griff. I will upload a detailed thread about it on “How do I…?” section. I will not go into details here because this is completely out of topic thread. Nevertheless if someone is interested in answering, kindly join the specific thread:
https://www.accordionists.info/threads/chromatic-accordion-c-griff-to-b-griff-conversion.6995/

Finally the second reason that I choose to present myself here is because I want to meet accordion players from all over the world, exchange knowledge and make new friends. So, enough with the long text. Here is a small sample of my playing and singing. Fell free to subscribe to my YouTube channel and comment if you like my videos.


Thank you for the time you spent to read my thread. I would be more than happy to read your comments.

 

[Glenn]

Welcome to the forum Aris. I look forward to your contributions with the obvious wealth of experience you have.
I enjoyed your video by the way.
Do you have any sources of sheet music for Greek folk music?

 

[Dingo40]

Welcome and well done, Aris!?

 

[Tom]

Welcome Aris, you sound great! Is that documentary available, and/or in English?

 

[Aris PM]

Welcome to the forum Aris. I look forward to your contributions with the obvious wealth of experience you have.
I enjoyed your video by the way.
Do you have any sources of sheet music for Greek folk music?

@Glenn Thank you so much for your kind words. I still have a lot to learn about the accordion and about music in general, but if I can help someone with my knowledge I will be happy to do so. Unfortunately I don't have any sheets for Greek folk music. I had attended conservatory classes from the age of 12 to 14, but since then I have never read a sheet again. I study songs by ear. From the other hand I know a lot of accordionists who have music sheets of Greek folk music and I could find some.

Tip: Apart from the music sheets, if you want to study and play Greek folk music correctly, the key is to learn the ornaments that goes with every phrase. There are a lot of trills which give a unique character to this music. The same goes for Balkan music also, but in this case the ornaments are even more difficult and the speed is higher. I really admire Romanian, Bulgarian and especially Serbian accordionists. In terms of technique, speed and complexity, in my humble opinion they are by far the best!

Welcome and well done, Aris!?

Thank you @Dingo40 It's a pleasure to be here.

Welcome Aris, you sound great! Is that documentary available, and/or in English?

Thank you @Tom. I really appreciate your words. Until recently I was sending the documentary to film festivals and for this reason I could not publish it. But I plan to do it at the beginning of 2021. However, there are two trailers in English. I publish them here in order to have an overview of the documentary.

Trailer 1:

Trailer 2:

Additionally, here the official short description of the film:

The accordion is a musical instrument that played an important role in the early sound recordings of Greek folk music. Through in depth research and personal experiences, Panagiotis Kounadis, researcher of “rebetiko”, Albert Kententzian, musical instruments' technician, Iraklis Vavatsikas and Lazaros Koulaxizis, skillful Greek accordion players, bring to the spotlight the early period when the accordion showed up in Greece. The unknown story of the harmonika (a small diatonic accordion) and the transition to the piano accordion is presented through a distinct music trip.

 

[dunlustin]

Welcome!
What a brilliant project you have achieved!

 

[donn]

I study songs by ear.

For those of us who do likewise, where would one find other examples of the musical tradition you were coming from in that sample? Like key words.

From what little I've been able to dig out of Greek music, it seems a little like Pontic, which if I remember right is a sort of eastern remnant of an earlier musical scene. For all the ornamentation, there's a chord structure to it that while distinctively Greek seems closer related to western music, including Balkan, than do some common musical styles in Greece today. So for that example, I've used "ΠΟΝΤΙΑΚΑ" as a search term on youtube (for example, ΠΟΝΤΙΑΚΑ ΑΚΟΡΝΤΕΟΝ (ΚΟΝΙΑΛΙ-ΤΟ ΚΟΡΙΤΣ' ΤΟ ΑΓΑΠΩ-ΚΑΡΑΛΑΖΟΣ).)

What search terms would lead to your sort of Greek music? (Which I like very much!)

 

[JIM D.]

"kalos IRTHATE" Aris

 

[Tom]

Thanks for the trailers, Aris. The documentary looks really interesting, please let us know when it is available.

 

[Aris PM]

Welcome!
What a brilliant project you have achieved!

@dunlustin Thank you! It was a really difficult procedure. Nowadays I'm planning to create the "part II". I hope the second part will be way better than the previous one.

For those of us who do likewise, where would one find other examples of the musical tradition you were coming from in that sample? Like key words.

From what little I've been able to dig out of Greek music, it seems a little like Pontic, which if I remember right is a sort of eastern remnant of an earlier musical scene. For all the ornamentation, there's a chord structure to it that while distinctively Greek seems closer related to western music, including Balkan, than do some common musical styles in Greece today. So for that example, I've used "ΠΟΝΤΙΑΚΑ" as a search term on youtube (for example, ΠΟΝΤΙΑΚΑ ΑΚΟΡΝΤΕΟΝ (ΚΟΝΙΑΛΙ-ΤΟ ΚΟΡΙΤΣ' ΤΟ ΑΓΑΠΩ-ΚΑΡΑΛΑΖΟΣ).)

What search terms would lead to your sort of Greek music? (Which I like very much!)

The genre that I'm playing is called "rebetiko" (you will also find it as rempetiko or rebetico). Pontic is also 100% Greek music but a completely different subcategory of folk music. The only thing that both kinds have in common is the folk music scales. I could write a dedicated thread about this if there will be requests from many members.
Also, in modern Greece there are a many bands with this style of sound. Some of them are making covers of the old songs and some of them are creating their own music based on this style. It makes sense not to know this because this kind of bands are not commercial this era. The global trend nowadays is trap. The rebetiko style is a little bit old fashion compare to modern music.

I'm posting some bands that play this style of music (which has a lot of variants):

"kalos IRTHATE" Aris

@JIM D. Oh, nice! "Kalos sas vrika"!

Thanks for the trailers, Aris. The documentary looks really interesting, please let us know when it is available.

Thank you! I will let you know, I promise!

 

[Alans]

Hi Aris, are you in Athens by any chance? My teacher is in Athens, she's wonderful.
I have started following on line a trio-mandolin, guitar and accordion-the accordionist is a young woman. Their music,especially the
mandolin and accordion is so beautiful. Since I have no understanding of Greek I asked my teacher what they are singing about. She
said it is mostly songs of the exile of Greek people when Turkey took over at the start of the past century-something like that. Their
music is very beautiful.

 

[knobby]

I have started following on line a trio-mandolin, guitar and accordion

@Alans Who are they?

 

[Alans]

@Alans Who are they?

The only information on the group in English is PoZavli. Of course I have no idea what that means and all of their other information is in Greek.