Notes

• Bouzouki and baglamas venture to use eastern scales without microtones, as well as common western scales
  • Rebetika has a lot of Ottoman influence and Asia minor influences due to influx of refugees in the 1920s
• Improvisation, or taximis, used to be very important in early rebetika times, but became less important as the genre became more commercialized and focused on songs
  • It started off in taverns with people just playing for the sake of playing, but quickly grew into a standardized genres with composers, virtuosos, etc.
• Trios tended to include bouzouki, baglamas, and guitar
  • Bouzouki would do solos, baglamas and guitar would mostly accompany with rhythm and harmony
• There are a lot of common scales used in Rebetika music
  • Major Scales
    • Rast
      • Houzam
    • Hijaz
  • Minor Scales
    • Niavent
    • Nigridz
    • Bouselik
    • Ousak
    • Sabach
• There are a few common rhythms in Rebetika music
  • Hasapiko
  • Zeimpekiko
  • Tsifteteli
• I’d like to now know when to use specific scales (for which type of music)

Videos and Audio

Full Lesson

Baglamas & Rebetika Lesson 1.m4a

Improvisation on Ousak with Tsifsteteli

Organizing my Learning