DIMOTIKA – FROM VERSES TO SONGS

The song, as a sonic creation, predates the lyrics. When the song became text, i.e., it was converted to image, it ceased to be polished, filled, to adapt, to be perfected. Unfortunately… This is how the demotic folk song grew, how it spread. One would start it, another would continue, and from place to place it would change sonically in meter, in speech, in rhythm. As the product of a long collective creation, the initiator, the one who put the first stone – the first word, the first verse, has been forgotten. Nobody cared to put his name on it, because the work belonged to everyone, that is, to the people – the demos, hence the name demotic songs. The author brings us in touch with 353 demotic songs, examples of an art that has now passed, of an ancient culture based on the longings, desires and yearnings of the people of this land. He analyzes them, classifies them, lists them with the plumes of all their art. It is an ambitious and thorough project, with love and years of research behind it.