“With the Ear” or “With the Note”: Orality and Notation among the Fiddlers of Cyprus
“With the Ear” or “With the Note”: Orality and Notation among the Fiddlers of Cyprus

Summary/Abstract: This paper discusses how the fiddlers of Cyprus – folk musicians of a professional class that has now all but died out – learned music in the first half of the twentieth century. These musicians’ apprenticeship usually lasted between six months and a year. Within that space of time, men (this was an exclusively male professional class) with no prior knowledge of music had to learn the entire repertoire that accompanied the rituals connected with the traditional Cypriot wedding, as well as several entertainment pieces. Some teachers taught “with the ear” (i.e. by ear, or aurally), while others preferred to teach “with the note” (i.e. by note, using staff notation). Drawing on material from interviews with fiddlers, this paper discusses both these teaching methods, their advantages and disadvantages, and also looks at the effect of notation on the musicians’ practice, after learning “with the note” became the norm.

• Details
• Contents