Uniting Through Traditional Music (UTTM) is a project which has been conducted by Dr Panikos Giorgoudes, an ethnomusicologist, in the laboratory of the Cyprus Music Network with members of the Cyprus Musicological Society. Its aim is to unite those interested in Cypriot music regardless of ethnicity. The combination of Cypriot songs and the establishment of a common archive is the result of systematic and methodological research and analysis using the ethnomusicological approach. We have only chosen some of the material to be included on this website therefore making it possible for anyone interested in Cypriot music to have access . The complete original recordings are located in the laboratory at Intercollege, Nicosia.

The project began on 1 January 2004 and has been supported with a grant from the Bi-communal Development Programme, which is funded by USAID and UNDP and is executed by UNOPS. The first part of the project was to contact people who could be key players in the research. In order to do this, we prepared a question sheet (not a questionnaire), which would help us identify people who would be willing or capable of helping. This enabled us to determine which villages would be used in the fieldwork. However, this was not the only method used. In villages where we did not know anyone we went to coffee shops and/or sport clubs, both being cultural centres of the villages, to ask our questions.

We created two research groups, one for the villages in the Turkish Cypriot community (2 researchers headed by the project assistant coordinator) and one for the villages in the Greek Cypriot community (3 researchers headed by the project coordinator). The fieldwork period began in February and since then the research teams have covered more than 150 villages. We have not only collected music, we have been able to gather information on the context in which the music was created.

We proceeded with transcriptions, analysis and classification of the collected data, music, songs and texts in the laboratory at Intercollege, Nicosia.