Music

Cretan music is wild and unpredictable. Quite a different thing to the disciplined bouzouki music of the Greek mainland. Endless melodies, one after the other in complicated 7/8 or 9/8 time, sometimes monotonous and archaic, sometimes almost ecstatic. The oriental influence cannot be missed.

Cretan traditional music is very complex due to the fact that many civilizations, at various periods of time, have intruded and inhabited the island: Venetians, Saracens, Turks...

The main role is taken by the lyra. It resembles a violin, but is played - like the classic guitar- by grazing the strings with a fingernail and plays the main melody. The laouto and the tambouras (bouzouki) serve as accompanying instruments.

There is often singing with verses mostly consist of Mantinades , which are 15-syllable couplets with a lot of humour and spirit. They are often created spontaneously and deal with love, nature or worldly affairs, often spoofing members of the audience.

The cretan music is very old. It is known that about 1500 B.C. people already played instruments resembling the 'lyra', which took the name 'Phorminx'. The Phorminx is believed to derive from outside Greece, probably Mesopatamia. Some say it comes from Atlantis...