Epirus: Greek Roma Music, Sitaria, near Parakalamos; Yiannis Chaldoupis; Moukliomos; Γιάννης Χαλδούπης

Yiannis Chaldoupis and members of Moukliomos, playing at Sitaria, 15 August 2013:

About the Parakalamos Gypsy Musicians

The Romani Dialect of Parakalamos

A summary of a 2012 interview I made with Yianni:

I’ve just returned from Parakalamos, Epirus. I love the region’s traditional clarinet music. I interviewed Yiannis Chaldoupis, an outstanding Gypsy (Rom) klarino player, whom I’d met at a festival, when he was playing with his group Moukliomos, ‘Freedom’ in Romani.

Yiannis plays with “morio”, a term which implies deep feeling, soul, knowledge of the “roads”, modes, modulations and “maqam”, as well as special intonation and embouchure. His music is inspired by nature; the music comes in waves, he says, or like the contours of the mountains around him. Atmosphere is all-important: he prefers playing slow music, in the dark, with his own people. If the atmosphere’s good and people are on his wavelength, the music’s great. If not, “he loses it”.

“You need to be a psychologist to play in Epirus; only in Epirus is it like this, traditions are so strong here”. To earn money (hard to come by in these days of economic crisis), not only do you need to know all the regional dance rhythms, you have to know which notes move different audiences.

Up in the stony Zagori villages, the taste is for harder music. Down in the plains, audiences like a sweeter sound. Six or seven extended family groups of Gypsy musicians live in Parakalamos.

Yiannis is famous for his "fissa" or “fisima”, his breathing, intonation and feeling. He achieves a distinctive low tone, with morio, reaching notes and natural octaves that few others achieve. “It’s all in the mouth and lips, it’s not ‘technical’ or ‘robotic’, the way some people play”. He demonstrated the two ways of playing, the stiff, technically correct way, and his way.

Moukliomos not only perform traditional Epirot demotiki music, but also innovative forms of blues, jazz and rock. Yiannis learnt these styles on the job- but he seemed to have blues and jazz in his blood. He has to feel free and to have his mind on nature, on Mount Kasidiaris in particular.

He also plays the miroloi, the deep lament for the departed, with great intensity. Playing the miroloi is the ultimate kind of therapy. Once he was asked to play a dirge for a Greek who’d died, in Amsterdam.

Relatives had put the body in a coffin on a canal boat. When Yiannis started playing, everyone was weeping and moaning. Before long the music had transformed the collective mood into one of laughter and happiness, as at a panigyri. He’d purged their emotions.

In England we tend to avoid the word “Gypsy”. We prefer the term “Roma”. Yiannis is proud to identify himself as a Gypsy, as a descendant of one of the four groups that originally came from India.

In the past his group had lived in kalyva (huts) and made their living making metal sieves and umbrellas, travelling round the villages in the summer, selling horses, mules and chickens.

Yiannis could well become a travelling international star, but I suspect he would miss the good life in Parakalamos, and nature, the main source of his inspiration. 

LONGER UNEDITED 2012 VERSION:

Yiannis is now 43, he started playing the klarino when he was twelve (some accounts say ten). His teacher was Christo Kaloyianni, now aged 83. Apart from playing music, Yiannis also sells, repairs and restores clarinets, and other traditional instruments, some as old as 150 years. He kindly demonstrated the superb sound of some of them for me.

Yiannis plays in the Parakalamos style, with “morio” an important term which seems to imply deep feeling, deep soul, as well as intonation, knowledge of the “roads”, modes, modulations and “maqam” (there are 72 moria in the Byzantine scale, compared to the 12 semitones of the Western octave) as well as a special embouchure. It contains elements of the Byzantine musical tradition. He likes slow music. His music is inspired by nature, his mind is full of ideas, he says, it comes in waves, or like the contours of the mountains around him.

Atmosphere is very important to him, he prefers playing in the dark, with his own people (not just other Gypsy families, but for people who really appreciate his music). If the atmosphere is good and the people are on his wavelength, he becomes truly inspired and the music is great. If not, he loses it, he says. The night I saw him, it was an unforgettable live performance, full of energy and feeling.

“You need to be a psychologist to play in Epirus- and only in Epirus is it like this, traditions are so strong here”, he says. In order to earn money (hard to come by in these days of economic crisis; he still hasn’t been paid for a number of gigs, including the festival where I heard him play), not only do you need to know all the different regional dance rhythms, you have to know which notes move the different local audiences. If you do, you can (or could) earn a lot.  If he’s with the right people and feeling good- and feeling free- he improvises (as in the live recording of “Blues Liboesda”).

Up in the stony Zagori villages, the taste is for a harder type of music, they like the Byzantine style with elements of the tsamiko.

Down in the plains around Parakalamos, the taste is for sweeter music.

There are six or seven extended family groups of Gypsy musicians who live in Parakalamos.

Many people from Parakalamos now live on the outskirts of Ioannina in the Nea Zoi area. Yiannis draws a distinction between racist stereotypes associated with the words “gifti” and “tsigani”. As I understand it, the word gifti is often used to refer to the settled gypsies, many of whom specialise in music making. The tzigane are more often seen as the commercial traders, who travel round selling their wares. It’s probably a lot more complex and subtle than that.

Yiannis is well known for his amazing and very special technique, his “fisima”, his breathing and intonation, his way of blowing with feeling. He achieves a distinctive low tone, with morio. He reaches notes and natural octaves that few others can achieve. It’s all in the mouth and lips, he says, the embouchure. It’s not “technical” or “robotic” the way some people play. He demonstrated the two ways of playing, the stiff, technically correct way, and the way he plays. It all became clear when I listened and compared, although I’m not able to analyse it with precision. He adjusts instruments to make them sound right.

“The gypsies in Albania are the first in music”, he admits.

Although Yiannis has played in Chicago, the Netherlands (where he lived for ten years), France, all over Europe, in fact, he says it doesn’t pay to travel abroad. His group consists of six or more musicians. His van had broken down the day I visited. Although he wanted to get underneath it before the daylight faded, he very generously played a slow blues, as well as some extraordinary videos of the band in performance, playing many different types of music.

That’s what first interested me about Moukliomos. Not only does the band play all the traditional Epirot demotiki music, it also plays fantastic blues, jazz and rock music.

“Gypsy Blues” or “Parakalamos Blues” might be a good term for it. Yiannis started playing jazz/blues at the Stoa Louli in Ioannina, when the owner said one day “play some jazz!” Yiannis learnt on the job- but he seemed to have blues and jazz in his blood. He also has that sense of personal freedom, as well as musical freedom and soul, or “morio”. He only has to have his mind on nature, on the waves and contours of the mountains, of Mount Kasidiaris in particular.

He plays the miroloi , the deeply blue lament or dirge for the departed, with great passion and intensity. That is a type of music that needs to be heard in the dark.

He has been involved with music therapy. Playing the miroloi is the ultimate kind of therapy. Once he was asked to play a miroloi for a Greek who’d died in Amsterdam.

His friends and relatives had put him in a coffin on a canal boat. When he started playing, everyone was weeping and moaning, but before long the music had transformed the collective mood into one of laughter and happiness, as at a panigyri or party. He had purged their emotions.

In England we tend not to use the word “Gypsy”. For many years it’s been more correct to use the term “Roma”. Yiannis is proud to identify himself as a Gypsy, to be a descendant of one of the four groups that originally came from India.

In the past his group had lived in kalyva and made their living making metal sieves and umbrellas, and travelling round the villages in the summer, selling horses, mules and chickens.

Yiannis and Nellie and their children live in a spacious house at the end of Parakalamos, surrounded by nature in that part of the town inhabited by gypsy families. They’re very attached to their village. He spent ten years in Holland and married Nellie there. She loves life in Parakalamos but she has to work hard as she is both his PR manager and an assistant in a large-scale local greenhouse business. She has extensive knowledge of plants and herbs and their curative properties. They’d been out collecting “mountain tea” the day before.

Yiannis Chaldoupis could become an international star of jazz-blues, fusion and Greek “world-music”, but I suspect he would miss the good life he has in Parakalamos, and Nature, above all, the main source of his inspiration. As Menelaos Sikovelis has written, it’s Music that is the ultimate winner.

Note: For detailed scholarly studies of the Gypsies and Gypsy musicians of Parakalamos, on issues like “marginality”, “belonging” and “authenticity”, the publications of Aspasia Theodosiou (University of Arta) are a rich mine of information and theory. She conducted extensive field research in Parakalamos.


The Nomads of the Balkans, Alan Wace and Maurice Thompson (1913), page 58:


"At weddings and festivals and other important occasions itinerant musicians are employed. It is worth noting that among the Vlachs such musicians whatever their race, and they are now usually Greeks, are invariably spoken of as Gipsies, just as the Greeks call all shepherds Vlachs".