Mar 9, 2009 General Information
THE TAMMURRIATA
by Luca De Simone
http://www.youtube.com/user/echeaggiascriver
What is the tammurriata? To answer the central question of an article that is looking to inform people with a vague if some knowledge of this term, and of the connected rite , is certainly not an easy task(1). When Chris asked me to write this article, he actually made this task more easy. All I have to do is simply describe my experience. This allow me to do not quote the eminent anthropologists and ethnomusicologists who observed and in some case tried to decode this characterizing phenomenon of the Campania’s region (2). So…what’s the Tammurriata? Living it as an insider, as drummer, when it comes the night or it is already dawn when I put my drum in its bag, I questioned myself, trying to reflect on the experience just made. This is my explanation: the tammurriata is an “event”. Clearly I must explain what does it mean for me this term. It is simple, it is exactly what you can find on a dictionary, it is something that happens in a certain place, on a certain time. But it is necessary to add something to this definition, and it is that tammurriata is a “complex event”, made by elements to which it is intimately connected. Without them, even just one of them, this event cannot exist. Am I confusing you? I’ll try to make myself more clear, describing one tammurriata, better The Tammurriata, starting with the key terms previously used, i. e. the place, the time, the elements and/or the actors of the ritual.
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