Pinocchio's figure is allegorically expressed through the microtonal tuning of piano, as a puppet doll that's half living. The echoes serve  as a tool to create the ambience inside the beast's belly and also as musical motifs that run throughout the whole piece, as a reminiscence of "will I ever make my way out of this place?". The scales I use are a combination of the Indonesian Pelog pentatonic and makam Hizaz.

Pinocchio inside the Whale's stomach

Javanese and Balinese traditional music is divided into two major scale categories: Slendro and Pelog. In this improvisation I explore the sounds of a less usual pelog scale called "Sunaren"; starting from D we get:  D -Eb - F- Ab- Bb. I end up with a glissandi upon the "sibling" slendro scale in F.

Piano Improvisation No.3

This improvisation is dedicated to some people I feel it expresses individual parts of their soul:  my uncle and poet Giannis Kyriazis, to the composer, guitarist and fellowstudent Giorgos Karoumpalos, to Emilia Velianiti whose voice runs the veins of dusk, to the eccentric and unique poets  Kostas Katevainis and Stefania Krokida and last but not least to Alex Makellarakis who has a fragile heart for piano music....

All in all I am moving across various musical paths of western art music, focusing mainly on elements from he Renaissance and Romantic period. By utiling the aiolian scale, and a bit of phrygian, I aim to bridge the past and present modal music in Europe, in both secular and art music forms. The use of harmonic minor is to bring over a darker eastern sound that still sounds "allowable" withn the  western context.

Piano Improvisation No.4

This is a poem I wrote for solo voice. In particular, Emilia Velianit is the mezzo soprano who's  singing this. The story behind this poem is that Death the Almighy god, is  but a gatherer and in fact, a very lonesome one. Death just makes his everyday duty, collecting the mortal souls merely for the purpose of having someone on his side. From this point of view, his act may be interpreted as a more pathetic one, rather than a cruel and harsh towards 
man kind...he just feels lonely, just like everyone of us...

Poem lyrics:

Walk into the mirrored darkness
cross the narrow path of eternity
and reach the twillight's glade

Loneliness commands me
and therefore I command you
- we're both slaves in fate's will

A touch of tenderness may it be
a gloomy kiss upon my bloody altar
Dreadful this scene may appear
- but it's not

Rest n my friend
my love

For it is my duty to acquire your soul
a task that I never chose

Only because my heart is bleeding too
from solitude's torrid tears
 you have to kneel before me

Embrace my scythe now
for I am Death! the Almighty!
- the lone...


                                                                                  poem by   NIKOS KYRIAZIS

A Lone Gatherer

Compostion, poetry, tin whistle, classical and electric guitars are performed by me, Emiia Velianiti sings and plays the piano.

  This song referes to a man who narrates his feelings and moments afar from his beloved; for death did take her away from him. The story is ejected in the bleak surrounding of some north-european land during post Medieval era. This north-european ambience is expressed through the elements of celtic music tradition; thus I mainly use the aiolian and dorian mode for this musical tale. The meter is in 6/8, referring also to the tradition of the medieval trobadours.  
  
  Poetically, the lyrics follow the trochaic meter, creating 6 stanzas and a tailpiece.  The 1st, 3rd and 6th stanza are based on a Α-Β-Α-C while the 2nd, 4rth and 5th on that of Α-Β-C-Β. Everyone of these capital letters reffers to a couplet, with the last of the stanza creating always a rhyme with the previous.  

Poem lyrics:

Tailor, tailor weave thy spell              

Tailor,tailor                                  Α
weave thy spell
Harken groans that                     Β                         
dwell beneath
Tailor,tailor                                   Α
weave thy spell
For I am locked                             C
inside this cell

Smell the fragrance                      Α
of her tomb
I left there a                                   Β                         
bloom of dew
Other stones have                         C
no such hue
I left there a                                   Β
bloom of dew

Light me please a                        Α
path to dead 
Hollow are the                              Β                          
years herein
Light me please a                         Α
path to dead
Crave to kiss                                  C
her crimson hair

Since she left a                               Α
sigh for tune
Seals do sing my                             Β                         
lament's rhymes
Who's to blame for                          C
such dread crimes
Seals do sing my                              Β
lament's rhymes



Foggy days are                                    Α
now live in
Gulfs and shores the                          Β                         
phantom's lair
Beacon's eye have                              C
seemed to blur
Gulfs and shores the                          Β                       
phantom's lair
 
Groves have emptied                          Α                                
fays have gone
Nature strolls in                                   Β
grief alone
Groves have emptied                          Α
fays have gone
May the old gods                                 C
keep her warm



Tailor,tailor
weave thy spell
Let me go to
her again


                                                                  poem by NIKOS KYRIAZIS

Tailor Tailor Weave Thy Spell

In this improvisation I tried to include some of the  fundamental components of Chinese music like pentatonic scales and modes, intervals of fourths and fifths e.t.c No matter if I play with a classical guitar that costs only 60 eu., this instrument Is more comfortable than one of 1000 eu (so always trust your ears and hands). The musical instruments I am greatly influenced from, are two major instruments of Chinese tradition: Guzheng and Guqin.

Chinese Guitar

An improvisation in C lydian scale: C D E F# G A B. Lydian mode is placed on the IV degree of the ionian (major) scale.

Piano Improvisaton No.5

Composition: Nikos Kyriazis
Poetry: William Shakespeare
Soprano: Ilia Stamboli
Baritone: Paris Dimatsas

It is - possibly - the most popular poem by the most important person in the history of English poetry. The main thematic pillars of this poem are the triptych: love, death and time. The poet celebrates the beauty of youth in the face of a young man (although the gender of the person in the poem is not clearly understood, most scholars converge on this view). The prime of beauty in a man's life is equated with summer while old age and death are equated with the fierce wind before it.  However, the highest form of beauty is presented as the poet's own art, which can grant him eternal life and overturn his perishable fate as a human being.

   In setting this particular poem to music, I wanted to paint a sonic background that embraced the verse; retaining musical elements from the Renaissance period (such as the imitations in the introductions of the two voices) in which the poem was written, but also giving it additional elements from the later chronological period of European Romanticism, especially with regard to the harmonic language in the piano accompaniment. 

Lyrics of the poem:

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
   So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
   So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Sonnet 18

Composition: Nikos Kyriazis
Poetry: William Shakespeare
Soprano: Ilia Stamboli
Baritone: Paris Dimatsas 

  Although this sonnet is dedicated to an erotic person for the poet, it does not follow the expected glorification of his beauty...as Shakespeare chooses to thematically unite each verse (or couplet) based on its contrasting "mood". However, the poem's concluding couplet removes the ambiguous relationship between poet and muse, affirming the rarity of her beauty as the fairest of many that win the primacy in the "beauty pageant"...

  To set this quirky embellishment of the poetic muse to music, I chose an equally "playful" musical style...and what better way to do so than in swing music! The lyrics that follow the well-trodden glorification of beauty are the ones that also press more firmly on a tonal center, compared to their complementary ones that "demolish" the previous ones and for this reason they are set to music in a more unstable and indeterminate tonal manner. The element of mimicry between the two voices is present here as a musical outgrowth of the poet's time. 

Lyrics of the poem:

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
   And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
   As any she belied with false compare.

Sonnet 130

Here is my electric guitar cover (played by me) of "In diebus illis", a 4 voice motet written by Luigi Palestrina, one of the greatest Italian Renaissance composers. I've used the technique called “violin swell” for each of the melodic lines, in order to create a more ethereal vibe, imitating the sound of a choir. 
  The lyrics I recite are drawn from the Bible (7:37-38;Rheins version 1582), describing the time when Maria Magdalena met Jesus and washed his feet with her tears and anoint them with her hair.
  The painting in the picture was made by James Tissot: https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/13461

In Diebus Illis (electric guitar cover)

This improvisation is based upon the phrygian mode, known as makam ousak in Turkish music. Phrygian is also considered to carry the musical essence of Greek music and it is typically used in theatrical compositions for reviving ancient Greek tragedy in 20th century. Plus, it's roots lie in many folk musical regions/genres of Greece, like Pontos, Smyrnae and Crete. Phrygian scale is also found in the Spanish music of Andalusia, unraveling the great influence of the old Arab world in forming genres like the flamenco.

Piano Improvisation No.6

World music has been defined as the pop genre in which elements from Western musical culture (usually rock, pop and jazz) are combined with non-european ones. In this piece in particular,
I’ve mixed musical motifs (in melody, rythm and texture) from Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and Far Eastern traditions in the sound of my electric guitar. Konnakol and poetry recitation is also performed by me. 

  The poem I recite (in Greek) “All through eternity” was written by Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi, a renown Persian poet and philosopher lived in Anatolia in the 12th century. Among his many deeds throughout his life Rumi formed the Mevlevi order of Sufi mysticism, which came to be known today as the “whirling dervishes”. The photo you see depicts his mausoleum in Konya, a region in central Anatolia of Turkey: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tomb_of_Jalal_ad-Din_Muhammad_Rumi_at_the_Mevl%C3%A2na_mausoleum.jpg . 

  Sufism is also found as a religion in India today. This is why I chose the background drone to be taken by the Indian instrument “tambura”. Plus, solkattu syllables, known as konnakol, along with an inverted Greek rhythm of “karsilamas” in 9/8 (2nd part) serve as a link between the worlds of Middle East and Far East. 

Poem lyrics (in English):

All through eternity
Beauty unveils His exquisite form
in the solitude of nothingness;
He holds a mirror to His Face
and beholds His own beauty.
he is the knower and the known,
the seer and the seen;
No eye but His own
has ever looked upon this Universe.
His every quality finds an expression:
Eternity becomes the verdant field of Time and Space;
Love, the life-giving garden of this world.
Every branch and leaf and fruit
Reveals an aspect of His perfection-
They cypress give hint of His majesty,
The rose gives tidings of His beauty.

Whenever Beauty looks,
Love is also there;

Whenever beauty shows a rosy cheek
Love lights Her fire from that flame.
When beauty dwells in the dark folds of night
Love comes and finds a heart
entangled in tresses.
Beauty and Love are as body and soul.
Beauty is the mine, Love is the diamond.

They have been together
since the beginning of time-
Side by side, step by step.

All Through Eternity -World Music For Electric Guitar, Konnakol and Poetry

I am an independent artist mainly involve with music and poetry. Currently I am studying Ethnomusicology and Cultural Anthropology in the University of Athens. I earn my living from teaching music lessons: tonal and modal harmony, counterpoint, electric guitar, improvisation and theory. As an artist and music composer I draw my inspiration from the traditional music of different cultures, mostly from Middle and Far Eastern countries. Generally speaking, my main influences derive from the musical cultures of: Celtic, Spanish, Bulgarian, South African, Turkey, India, Tibet, China, Java and Japan. Approaching the ritualistic elements of all these traditions with a postmodern attitude meet my high goal as an artist and human being.

Nikos Kyriazis

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