URBAN FOLK SONG

Article by Anti Strofadi

The urbanization of rural populations, either through “national-local” displacements or through “international” immigration (mainly to the USA since the end of the 19th century), in combination with the socioeconomic upheavals and the emergence of nations-states, fueled large-scale developments in folk music traditions as well. From about the middle of the 19th century, the change in lifestyle and social behavior that entailed the integration of a large part of the rural population into the melting pot of urban centers resulted in the creation of new modes of entertainment, expression and divertissement, and in the emergence of a new cultural construct, the one of urban culture.

... Of course, in its musical aspect, the origins of this cultural product can be traced back to elements of older forms which include the various ethno-topical traditions of dimotiko (folk) music and idioms from across the geographical and cultural spectrum. For this reason, after all, many scholars include under the term “urban folk song” various individual and sometimes seemingly diverse genres (smyrneiko, serenade, elafro [light style], rebetiko, etc.), which nevertheless constitute various aspects of the music production that was developed within urban areas. That said, and cognizant of the problems that arise from all sorts of categorizations, we include here, under this “term”, only the part of the folk songs of urban origin which move on the verge of transition from rural to urban life before they were crystallized (from today’s point of view) into the somewhat more distinct genre called rebetiko. Their ambiguous character, multifaceted in several cases, derives from the reconstruction and denaturation of older forms by incorporating new elements in the entire range of musical/poetic-dance characteristics (form, theme, rhythm, instrumentation, scales, interpretation, accompaniment, harmony, etc.). These songs, which have a significant presence mainly in early 78 rpm discography, assimilating and merging, under the new economic, social, and mainly multicultural urban environment, individual musical peculiarities-identities in a continuum, simultaneously produced new supra-local entities and new forms of expression. The diverse framework of performance, the professionalization of musicians and the dynamic emergence of the music industry gradually co-formed a commonly accepted “homogeneous” new artistic mass product that was more or less addressed to the “community”. This artistic product in turn fed, inspired and partially transformed the continuously evolving music production of the 20th century.