Music of the Mediterranean
For thousands of years, various civilizations have developed in southern Europe, North Africa, and western Asia, the cradle of different cultures and artistic representations.
The music is one of these representations with common characteristics between countries such as embellishments and vibratos, but the structures of Mediterranean music differ.
Many of these types of music also share a religious origin, but they also had an important role as transmitters of sociopolitical and cultural issues.
Among the music of the Mediterranean coast we can identify, among others:
– Algeria (rai music): with origins are inserted in Muslim religious traditions and Bedouin folk music.
– Turkey: with tints between East and West and the Byzantine lyre as a distinctive instrument.
– Greece: the typical genre of this area is rebetiko and rizitika, typical of the island of Crete.
– Spain: with airs highly influenced by Arab culture and instruments such as the Spanish guitar, they have very different rhythms.
The history of the various currents that have met the Mediterranean has been constantly attacked to determine the forms of expression of each people.
That today we can know and listen to this enormous variety of sounds has been thanks to thousands of anonymous musicians who have fought to keep their tradition alive.
This fight must be ours today as well to defend a common culture that, after all, is nothing more than the mixture of all the previous ones.
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