Masel
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The music of ancient greece
Arabic, turkish and armenian (amongst others) have survived for centuries, and we can play more or less the same music that was written hundreds of
years ago, I believe - correct me if I'm wrong.
Why has ancient greek music not survived? They had a marvelous civilisation, amazing architecture, art (poetry, sculpture), a rich mythology, science
and philosophy. Yet we hardly know what their music sounded like. It probably resembled other middle-eastern music, but the greeks had the medium of
theatre which I think back then was unique. Is there any information about the kind of music that could be heard during the preformance of a tragedy?
The effect of watching the plays that have survived to this day, combined with hearing the music which unfortunately didn't would be a great thing.
I am asking in the broadest sense: instruments, scales (maqams?), composition, anything you can think of.
Thank you.
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Microber
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For your information :
http://www.harmoniamundi.com/usa/album_fiche.php?album_id=33
and
http://www.harmoniamundi.com/usa/album_fiche.php?album_id=978
Robert
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mavrothis
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Hi there,
I think you have to consider that Byzantine music was a continuation of Ancient Greek and Roman music, with plenty of Eastern influences (mostly
Persian). Byzantine music greatly influenced Turkish (Ottoman), Armenian, and probably Arabic music as well (in the Levant especially).
Because Greek civilization did not disappear or end, but just continued along with the ups and downs of history, it's only logical that the music
would evolve the same way, like language.
My belief is that there is no specific music to any nationality, especially among cultures that are not only close to each other, but often were mixed
in with each other not over centuries, but millenia. Nationalism has tried to make us believe that each country is specific in every way (or
completely influenced by "us") to make people do things they otherwise wouldn't do.
How can Turkish or Arabic music be only Turkish or Arabic, when so many of the most loved pieces are written by Greeks and Armenians? How can
Byzantine music be only Greek, when the Byzantine Empire was a continuation of the Roman Empire, and was in such close contact with Persia for over a
thousand years?
Look at the names and lingo in all these musics, you'll see Persian everywhere, along with all other influences.
So, I guess what I'm saying is, all our cultures and musics overlap, and it's simply the regional preferences and choices that dictate what we feel
today is "Greek" or "Turkish" or "Armenian," etc.
Ancient Greek music no longer really exists, because Ancient Greeks have been replaced with modern Greeks, with all the history in between to boot. I
challenge anyone to find out what the Ancient Armenians sounded like (not just what we think they sounded like), or the Turks in Asia, or what Ancient
Arabic music sounded like in the Gulf. We have ideas for all the ancient cultures, but we really don't know what anything really sounded like more
than 100 years ago, before the invention of the recording.
Anyway, sorry for the long response, but this is a topic that interests me also. I always feel a connection to our ancestors when I play oud, but I
don't feel the need to say I'm only connected to my Greek ancestors. I feel honestly that musicians are our own breed of people, and that by not
focusing on nationality we can actually get a more honest view of history and our musical heritage.
Take care,
mavrothis
Edit - By the way, more related to the original post, a lot of ancient Greek/Roman culture was done away with by Christianity's influence over daily
life. Just look at the burning of the Library of Alexandria as a reminder of how extreme some people were in doing away with "pagan" ideas and
culture. Unfortunately, these waves of extremism probably caused the loss of a lot of music and theatre traditions. You can see similar situations
in the Mideast, where music and other arts are suffering due to their "secular" nature.
There are modern day reproductions of ancient theatre and music, but of course they are only modern estimations, nothing more. There is written music
that has survived from the ancient Greek times, but not much. The instruments are also hard to recreate, as are the sounds they produced (pitches,
etc). It is definitely a subject worth exploring, as are the ancient tombs of Greece and the Near East. They are full of musical instruments and
paintings/carvings of them. Music was definitely a huge part of our ancient ancestors' cultures.
I wish I could offer more on this, but I do know there is a lot of study going on out there on these subjects...  I hope you are able to find more information on this and share it with us.
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billkilpatrick
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i remember listening - briefly - to a bbc radio broadcast of korean court music from the ?'th cent. and being completely lost - it didn't relate at
all to what i know as music - more like instrumental cat calls with intermittent thuds.
wondering what music sounded like in ancient greece or rome or even to know for certain what it sounded like in medieval europe is just too
fascinating to give way to common sense and a little immagination.
having said that, i think it makes sense to consider music from europe, the middle-east and north africa - music closer to home - to be broadly
mediterranean and less specific to one region or nation - especially when played by ordinary "folks" like merchants, sailors, soldiers, camp
followers, etc.. too often discussions like this get hijacked by academics, high on nomenclature.
as english appears to be the lingua franca here on site, it might be helpful to refer to "maqams" as "modes" etc., etc. and leave the tedium of
renaming all that's familiar to musical etymologists.
... just like a'ringing a bell - bill
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Brian Prunka
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Nice post, Mav. I think you make a lot of really good points. it's easy to get so focused on what music "belongs" to what people and forget that we
are all part of the same human race. All music is part of everyone's shared heritage. And national boundaries are arbitrary, rarely reflecting
actual ethnic divisions. So many empires and colonial forces have shaped the political structure of the mediterranean region, drawing state lines
without regard for ethnic identities, but also spreading culture and ideas from one area to another.
We can't really know what music sounded like before recording technology (or even with recordings, because there are technical limitations to the
length or sensitivity of early recordings, and because people were choosing to record certain things and not others). Recording processes themselves
shaped the music in subtle ways.
Cultures that developed music notation give us a better idea of what that music sounded like, but it's not a perfect picture.
It's interesting to speculate about, though.
Bill, it seems to me that the music is MORE regionally diverse when played by "ordinary folks" and that it's among the professional musician class
that music begins to have more international characteristics. I attended a series of lectures by Jihad Racy on regional folk music in the middle
east, and it was amazing the amount of variety to be found throughout the region.
Also, maqams are not equivalent to modes . . . you can refer to Arabic modes, but that's not the same as maqam. We don't have a word for maqam in
English.
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billkilpatrick
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what i had in mind were the supposed differences between "old time" and "mountain" music in the appalachian area of the u.s. - much ado about not all
that much, really. there are differences in all styles of music of course - quite noticeable, i dare say, when comparing what you can accomplish on
your oud and what i do on mine (tongue firmly in cheek ... ) but i'm closer to the idea that music in ancient greece had much more in common with that
of its neighbors and trading partners than differences.
the music to "zorba the greek" sounds greek to me. the fact that it was composed to accompany a dance called "sirtaki" from crete is neither here nor
there. (i just looked that up, by the way ... don't think i carry this information around.) to a musicologist, this would be a tremendous difference
- to a 20th cent. movie goer or a 10th cent. mediterrean mariner, i don't suppose it would.
i understood "maqam" to mean "scales in the key of ..."
- bill
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Brian Prunka
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"maqam" is a much more invloved concept than "scale". There are terms in Arabic & Turkish for "scale". If I recall, the Arabic term is "diwan"
though there are probably others as well.
There's a number of pretty involved threads on this board about the differences already, so I won't get into that.
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billkilpatrick
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i'll check them out but would the more involved concept you mention involve subjective interpretation of the maqam - color, mood, time of day, etc. -
whereas, objectively, it - they - can described as above: scales in the key of ... ?
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Brian Prunka
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No, that's not what it means. It has to do with specific melodic ideas, structures, development, ornamentation, intonational inflections, leading
tones, multi-octave differences (i.e., cannot be condensed into a 7-note scale within an octave, since different octaves are treated differently),
tessitura (range), and other characteristics.
Key is secondary, though some differences are related to different keys.
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billkilpatrick
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... that's much, much more than i imagined. thanks teach' - bill
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