Items list
The accordion through its technical approach but also the search for its character through the aesthetic and interpretive differences of other musical instruments.
The Balkan region and its various motifs, studied via the keyboard technical approach. Analysis and coding of ornaments, with the construction of practical tables and examples.
Repertoire, improvisation and role within the orchestra.
Comparison and differences of Balkan and Greek way of playing. The different arrangement systems in the accordion, bandoneon, harmonica and the results in practice.
- Left part as geometry layout and orientation, basic position, partial displacement, extension and borrowing
- Right part as a linear arrangement of displacement and movement probabilities
- Blower perceived as an accordion lung, cold and warm sound
- Durations clarification
- Ornaments, categories and codιng
- Scales, "dromi", improvisation (taksim)
- Orality
- Chords 1 - 4 - 5 and harmonization on the keyboard
- Alternating bass, motion and probabilities
- Repertoire and musical pronunciations
- Antonis Amiralis technique, code, the materials of interpretation
* This lesson will be taught primarily in Greek. Terminology will be explained in other languages as well, according to the teacher’s disposal.
Full interpretation will not be provided.
Iraklis Vavatsikas has a versatile career in the Greek artistic field: recordings, productions all around the music industry, as well as academic repertoire and teaching. The core of his work is pioneering and researching the various instrument systems, depending on the construction and musical genre.
1992 was the start of a renaissance for the accordion in Greek music production, one that Iraklis Vavatsikas was a great part of. His constant need to improve and develop his artistic and teaching horizons led him to start practicing the diatonic bandoneon. At the same time he encouraged a group of young musicians (among them Kostas Raptis and Vangelis Papageorgiou) to start practicing the bayan, or concert accordion. Through teaching for 17 years in the Filippos Nakas Conservatory and numerous music arrangements, a new generation of accordionists was formed, one that is still impactful in the music world in Greece.
At the same time, he has conducted a complex and still unresolved research concerning the "Armonika", an ancestor of the accordion that was leading instrument in th first Greek recordings from 1904 to 1940. The Armonika had disappeared for over 80 years and was considered a "ghost instrument". After researching the possible parameters, in 2018 Emanuel Pariselle was able to reconstruct the instrument, after I.V. travelled to Quinte, France. We now have 2 next generation Armonika instruments.
Vavatsikas has switched and experimented on various accordion systems and, especially for Greek repertoire, he now prefers the Quint System for the left hand, which allows accompanying with extra octaves and fifths, something necessary for all modal music genres.
He is a music teacher, arranger and director in a folk music orchestra called Pfizer Hellas Band. In 2021, Pfizer Hellas Band was awarded for " act or action of social virtue and benevolence", from the Academy of Athens