Rebetiko Era / Book

Tuesday 27 November 2018

NIKOS ORDOULIDIS
THE EASTERN PIANO PROJECT
'THE REBETIKO ERA'
Book & CD

Nikos Ordoulidis’s new book, published by ‘Prigipessa Editions’, is the first album/CD of The Eastern Piano Project. The book, accompanied by the CD, includes the musical transcriptions of the recorded pieces, as well as an analysis not only of the pieces but also of the whole project.

Summary
The realization of this first album came about through the programme of The Eastern Piano Project as a contemporary musicological approach, which concerns not only the musical subject matter, with its particular characteristics regarding style and form, but also the production process, from composition to recording. Even though the points of reference are the specific recordings, the analysis refers to The Eastern Piano Project as a whole, since the most comprehensive overview of the musical subject matter and its trajectory through time dictates its course through many and diverse paths, such as form and style, psychology, historical documentation, performance as well as recording technology, the music industry environment, economic factors, sociology and aesthetic. Twelve pieces are presented in the ‘Rebetiko Era’, in which equal efforts are made to comprehend the aesthetic world of the rebetiko. In the present edition, nine of these musical transcripts are included; leaving out the three improvisation recordings. The most important basis of the transcription of these nine pieces lies in the present need to probe the focal complex of orality and literacy, and their overlying entities of popular and scholarly. The comprehension of their interaction and interdependence leads to the redefinition not only of their relationship, but also of their very substance, and generates a series of queries.