Ethnomusicologist Panayotis “Paddy” League blends culture and music into an intoxicating new sound from Tallahassee. Catch him at Wonderful Wednesday at Goodwood Museum & Gardens on September 20.
A legacy of harmony
Music lives at the heart of Greek culture. The sounds emitted by the traditional Greek goatskin tsambouna bagpipes, combined with the plucked chords on the long-necked bouzouk, constitute a form of social anthropology and musicology that studies the role of music in the human experience. Although the relationship with music can be personal and inexplicably moving, it is a connection meant to be shared.
For centuries, Greek tradition has blended storytelling with music and poetry to connect and uplift the community socially, spiritually, and artistically. For League, a musician, educator and ethnographer, music and his Greek heritage have always been central to his life.
His mother and maternal grandfather were professional musicians and music teachers in Tarpon Springs, home to the largest Greek-American community in the country. League’s family cultivated his love of music when he was a child, immersing him in traditional Greek and Irish music and the tantalizing rhythms of rhythm and blues, funk, rock and jazz of the ’60s, 70s and 80s.
After his first drum lesson, taught by his mother, League began a lifelong journey as a versatile instrumentalist. What began as a relationship with drums led to a romance with guitars, violins and Greek lutes. At the age of 20, he became familiar with the sounds of a tsambouna bagpipe and his higher studies introduced him to the button accordion.
As he tells his story, League leans in with an aside: “WARNING: If you’re reading this and considering going to graduate school for the humanities, learning the accordion is not an uncommon side effect.”
Although the idea of playing the bagpipes may seem incongruous with learning the accordion, League insists that they are all linked in his approach to music for two main reasons: his foundation as a percussionist and his ability to use multiple instruments in different musical genres.
“For example, I play Greek music on bouzouki, guitar, percussion, mandolin, violin and many other things. But I play them all analogously, in terms of what really matters in music: tone, effect and time,” League explains. “It’s much more manageable than ‘just’ playing guitar and trying to learn ten different styles of music.”
Additionally, League credits his lifetime of experiences across genres and instruments for his success as a composer and performer of his original music.
Excavations of ethnographic elements
By his early twenties, League was playing acoustic and traditional music in various touring bands while also teaching music at festivals and summer camps. During this period, League’s personal and artistic connection to Greek music and oral poetry flourished.
Combined with what League calls “severe road exhaustion from almost non-stop travel,” he gave up most of his possessions and moved to Greece. His immersion in Greek, then Brazilian, musical culture influenced his artistic talent and would ultimately become his academic and professional guidance.
After touring for nearly a decade, League yearned for a more intellectually fulfilling and politically stimulating purpose for his music. His curiosity about the world and his “desire to make a positive, dynamic and lasting contribution to peace, love, joy and all the other good things of human social life” brought him back to studies superior.
Although he initially earned a master’s degree in classical and modern Greek studies, the universe introduced him to the world of musicology, combining League’s community value and intellectual vigor. Eventually, League earned a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology and earned a professorship at his grandmother’s alma mater, Florida State University.
Ethnographic work allows the researcher to explore art and the people who create it in a personal and experiential way. League expands on its research: “My ethnographic work – which, for me, essentially means spending a lot of time with particular musicians, dancers and poets, interviewing them about their lives and taking their ideas and actions very seriously – directly informs my creative mind. artistic work because I only look for musical universes of which I am part, of which I participate.
League extends this thinking into the classroom, where its goal is to give students the analytical, methodological, and theoretical tools to explore their own relationship with the world through music.
Surf scales
Like his students, League continues to explore music in unexpected ways. The sounds of “surf rock” transport us to a beach in southern California, surrounded by hundreds of tanned teenagers dancing with Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalons. Rightfully so, as this form of music featured catchy melodies, electric guitars, and loud backbeats made famous in the 1960s by artists like Dick Dale and The Beach Boys.
This musical genre has evolved but remains grounded in the way it plays with melodic and harmonic patterns. It was this music that fascinated League during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and inspired him to take up electric guitar. League composed several demos and began their search for bandmates.
He was attracted to the sounds of a local band, The Intoxicators!, so he contacted lead guitarist, Gary Evans, and drummer Brian Crum about playing together. They found their fourth in bassist Jose Reyes and eventually began their journey as Echolocator.
“At this point, we’ve been rehearsing pretty regularly for about a year and a half,” League says. “Gary and I wrote about two dozen songs. Our music is quite diverse in terms of influences and references, but it’s full of energy and designed for dancing.
League concludes that all of his life experiences and musical encounters have coalesced and composed a complete version of himself that values music, intellect, and community.
“They are inseparable. I’m a musician — to me that means I play music, I compose music, I’m a music archivist,” League explains. “All these aspects of my life as a musician, of my relationship with music, inform each other.”
He found his place in his band and the ability to play fun, energetic music. Echolocator will grace the stage on Goodwood Museum & Garden’s Wonderful Wednesday, where the evening will be filled with soaring melodies, dueling guitars, a bass drum that’s sure to shake your seat and lots of dancing!
If you are going to
What: Wonderful Wednesday: Echolocator
When: 6 p.m.-8 p.m. September 20
Or: Goodwood Museum and Gardens, 1600 Miccosukee Road
Cost: $5 general admission
Contact: goodwoodmuseum.org
Tickets: eventbrite.com
Dr. Christy Rodriguez de Conte is the Features Editor for the Culture and Arts Council. COCA is the capital’s umbrella agency for arts and culture (tallahasseearts.org).
