Music and Dances From Crete

It is common for all cultures to have music and dance unique to them. This goes the same with Crete. People of Crete have songs that are accompaniments to events such as holidays, births, weddings and harvestings. Music is where the Cretans express their feelings such as love and fears and is an important part for the tradition of Crete.

It is common to see a stringed instrument known as Iyra which is modified by the Cretans. It has a long history and it was used in Cretan music since the Minoan period. Other than Iyra, lute and mandolin is also played. Other musical instruments are askompantoura, mpantoura, mpoulgari, ntaoulaki and habioli, a wooden flute. Apart from these old instruments, the Cretans also use violin in their music.

Their famous traditional songs are the Rizitika which originated from the foothill villages of the White Mountains. This type of song is rebel song. It was speculated that Rizitika may be derivations of songs from the border of Byzantine Empire. Rizitika is divided into two categories; table songs which accompany feasts and round songs for travellers. Mantinades are a famous type of musical expression with the expression of concerns of the old in love, death and fate using rhyming couplets of 15 syllables.

Dances in Crete originated from the Minoan period where dancing begun in ancient Greek temples. The graceful and slow sirtos style of dance is the most famous type among the Cretans. However, generally, their dances are warlike, fast and dynamic. Another famous dance is the pendozali which has a pace characteristic of starting off in an average speed and this will increase steadily into wilder dance. This type of dance originated from armed warriors. Other Cretan dances include Anogianos Pidihtos which is danced by the men, Mikro Mikraki which is a round dance and Ntames which as danced by men and women.

Generally, Cretan traditional music is very complicated. The main reason for this is the number of cultures introduced into Crete. In the past, Crete was repeatedly inhabited and colonized by different civilization such as the Venetians, Turks, Romans, Saracens and Byzantine Empire. strange events and phenomena that happened to them.