Greece’s Last Laterna Maker, the Iconic Instrument of Greek Street Musicians

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Greece’s Last Laterna Maker, the Iconic Instrument of Greek Street Musicians
Laterna_Panos Ioannidis laterna Greece
As the last remaining laterna craftsman in the country, Ioannidis laments its glorious past while keeping the tradition alive by painstakingly creating the musical instrument that for Greeks was once the only means to listen to music. Credit: Greek Reporter

Sitting at his vast workshop in a small village outside Thessaloniki in northern Greece, Panos Ioannidis can’t stop talking about two things: his unwavering love for the laterna (barrel organ), the iconic instrument of Greek street musicians, and the bygone era when it was a major part of Greece’s musical tradition. As the last remaining laterna craftsman in the country, while he laments its glorious past, he keeps the tradition alive by painstakingly creating the musical instrument that for Greeks was once the only means to listen to music.

“I’m doing this because I always loved the sound,” Ioannidis tells Greek Reporter. “I believe that the musical tone is a complicated action and the raw material to make our lives better and on which singers, craftsmen and the entire music world are based on.”

Barrel organs, which were first invented in Europe in the early nineteenth or late eighteenth century, quickly became extremely popular amongst Greeks when the instrument was adapted by Italian Giuseppe Turconi and Greek Armaos, both of whom lived in Constantinople. The Greeks in the city took to the laterna immediately, and the instrument soon became ubiquitous in the homes of middle-class Greeks in Constantinople. It later became popular throughout Greece around the 1830s and for the next hundred years. In the first decade of the 1900s, Ioannidis estimates that there were anywhere between 10,000 to 20,000 laternas across Greece. It was one of the primary forms of entertainment during the time, as it long predated radios, gramophones and televisions.

Ioannidis says barrels organs died out in Greece in the 1920s. But until then, “music was available to few people,” he says. “You must have been white, rich and a male in order to go to a cafe or a place where professional musicians played music. There was nothing massive for the people and the women. We see the laternas in the streets in old photographs and we see half-opened windows with women peeking from the inside and listening to the music coming from the street. And then they would drop the coin (to the barrel organist). This is the shocking thing, that the laterna was the means through which the masses could listen to music.”

Laterna_workshop Greece
A laterna takes a total of 800 hours to make, according to Panos Ioannidis. It’s six months of intensive work he says, that sometimes takes even longer. Credit: Greek Reporter

The demise of Greece’s iconic musical instrument

The laterna is a mechanical musical instrument operated by turning a crank on the side of the instrument. It is portable, usually with four wheels on the bottom of its case. Later, the barrel grinders added straps so they could strap it on and carry it around.

Like much smaller music boxes, it works by a crank turning a cylinder fitted with metal pegs which pluck individual strings, producing music. The pieces of music (or tunes) are basically encoded onto the barrel using metal pins and staples. Pins are used for short notes and staples of varying lengths of longer notes. Since the music is hard-coded onto the barrel, the only way for a barrel organ to play a different set of tunes is to replace the barrel with another one. Barrels are unwieldy and expensive, so many organ grinders have only one.

A traditional Greek laterna usually has a repertoire of nine songs that Ioannidis says each lasts for a minute or less. However, he adds that there are ways to connect the beginning to the end of the song so that it can last for up to ten minutes and the people can keep dancing since, he says, the laterna is a musical instrument mainly used for dancing.

“Through time, the cost of a laterna became very high,” Ioannidis recalls. “Then the radio, and the gramophone came along, through which people could massively listen to music. So slowly, the laterna died down because to listen to nine songs, it cost as much as a car costs today. Its conservation was also expensive and long-term. And then it was very difficult to find good songs. There were few of them who could encode the music onto the cylinder and drive everyone crazy and made them get up and dance, no matter where they were.”

Laterna_workshop Greece
Ioannidis describes the process of making a laterna as something that’s “alive” as well as “a big adventure.” Credit: Greek Reporter

Greece’s last laterna craftsman keeping the tradition alive

Ioannidis still remembers the first time he saw a laterna up close. Someone had brought it to him to fix it. He was intrigued by it and thought he could do it in a few months. Instead, it took him ten years.

“Within these ten years, I learned how to make both the instrument and the songs. And the reason I keep doing it is because [through the laterna] I met a wonderful world of music, technology and tradition and what touched me the most is that the story of the laterna  stayed alive because of Greek craftsmen who lived in Constantinople,” he tells Greek Reporter.

Ioannidis describes the process of making a laterna as something that’s “alive” as well as “a big adventure.” He says a laterna is a “high-tech item,” because “you have to be a mathematician, a physicist and a carpenter, and you also must be a composer to compose beautiful songs.”

“It starts with a design, from what the client wants, the nature of the sound, the aesthetics and what kind of songs he wants encoded onto the cylinder. And when we finally tune all these parameters together, a laterna takes a total of 800 hours to make. It’s six months of intensive work that sometimes takes even longer. The best I can do now is to make one laterna per year, so that I’m satisfied first and then the client,” Ioannidis says, who besides the laternas, also works on player pianos.

While he says he feels very lonely as Greece’s last remaining laterna craftsman, his worldwide clientele of almost 30 years is very much alive. And through them, Ioannidis helps keep one of Greece’s biggest parts of musical tradition also alive.

“It’s mostly second and third generation Greeks, who talk about Greece and cry, who ask for laternas, who ask for Greek songs, they ask for that niggling sound and to me, this is the greatest joy and recognition to be able to give this joy that these people get through the laterna,” he notes.

Laterna_Piano_workshop Greece
“The best I can do now is to make one laterna per year, so that I’m satisfied first and then the client,” Ioannidis says, who besides the laternas, also works on player pianos. Credit: Greek Reporter

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