I’ve noticed that Vamvakaris never played tsalkatzes (τσαλκατζές), unless I’m missing something. Who started this? When did it become established? And why was such a nice technique taken so far that, in modern songs, you usually hear repeated tsalkatzes in the intro, to the point where it becomes boring?
*By tsalkatzes, I mean when you play, for example, A and then B♭ quickly, but don’t play the B♭ cleanly. I think you know what I mean; if the word means something else and I’ve got it mixed up, forgive me.
You’re talking about trills and ornaments. In Turkish, they’re called çarpma. In their basic form, they’re a type of musical embellishment that imitates the human voice. Just as the voice can use vibrato and add expressive ornaments, the instrument makes similar allusions. Of course, over the years voices and instruments began to diverge from one another, but that’s another matter.
As for what you’re asking: I don’t know, but I assume Markos didn’t use many ornaments because he didn’t use them in his singing either. He was Dorian and unadorned, so how could he have played differently from the way he sang?
@Koulis.T do you mean ornamenting the note with light hammer-ons, the so-called legato (I’ve also heard the onomatopoeic “tai-tai!”). As Alexandros @alk also says, Markos had a Dorian style of playing and singing (inextricably linked). Nevertheless, this technique was not unfamiliar to him, although he preferred using double notes on the accented notes for ornamentation (e.g. Blue Windows or Vergoules). @roukou I listened to Tsachpina by Markos and didn’t hear anything special.
A classic example is the very first recording of The Expatriate’s Lament (The Outcast), where, as early as 1950, Tsitsanis overuses this technique, despite otherwise using it very beautifully—and perhaps even establishing it.
Tsitsanis played in a much more “mandolin-like” style than Markos, perhaps even than most of the pre-war generation. It was very evident in that documentary with Theodorakis, where they both play a song each on their bouzoukis.
Dionysis is right: there’s a bit of a tsalkantza (τσαλκαντζά) there, or whatever we call it. But it isn’t characteristic of Markos’s sound, nor does he use them systematically in this particular track.
