The Music of Ancient Greece

Music had a very strong presence in ancient Greece. It was incorporated into almost all important events in Greek life. Singing lyric poetry accompanied by music was a major part in most celebrations, processions, rites, and funerals. Even though music had a confirmed popularity in ancient Greece, there is not many pieces that have survived over time. Only about forty authentic complete pieces or just fragments of music from ancient Greece have been recovered, ranging from a time period of seven centuries.

In the mythology of ancient Greece, music was believed to have been created by the gods and demigods, including Apollo, Amphion, and Orpheus. It was also believed that music had magical powers and was thought to heal people from sickness, purify the body and soul, and work miracles throughout nature. From the earliest of times, music was inseparable from religious ceremonies, as gods often had strong ties with music. The characteristic instrument of Apollo was the lyre and that of Dionysus was the aulos.

Both the lyre and the aulos most likely came from Asia Minor into Greece. The lyre and the larger equivalent of it, the kithara, both had five to seven strings (later, up to eleven) and were played either alone or with the accompaniment of singing or the recitation of epic poems. The aulos was a single-reed or double-reed instrument that was often played with twin pipes. It was used to worship Dionysus along with the singing of specific poems (dithyrambs). The great tradgedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and others all had portions that included the playing of the aulos. After the fifth century B.C., contests of playing the kithara and the aulos, along with festivals of vocal and other instrumental music, became increasingly popular. Also, as instrumental music became more independent, the music itself seemingly became more complex. After the classical age, there was a strong reaction that emerged against the technical complexity, and both Greek music and its theory, became, once again, more simplified.

The little surviving music of ancient Greece comes from relatively late periods. From the pieces that survived, however, and from what was written about Greek music, it is inevitable that we can see that this music resembled that of the early Middle Ages. It primarily had melody without harmony or counterpoint, but the instruments often enriched the melody as a soloist or an ensemble sang along to it. The melody and the rhythm were closely entwined with the melody and the harmony of poetry.

Greek theory affected the music of western Europe very much so. There is so much more that we know about the theory of ancient Greece than about the music itself. There were two kinds of theoretical writings. There were doctrines on music's nature, its place in the universe, its effects, and its uses in human society. There were also orderly descriptions of the patterns and materials of musical composition.

The word music had a much broader meaning to the Greeks than it does to us today. Pythagoras and his followers taught that music and numbers were inseparable, and they thought that the two were to be the key to the whole physical universe along with the whole spiritual universe. The system of musical rhythms and sound, put into order by the numbers, depicted and was in accordance with the harmony of the universe. This was thoroughly researched by Plato during the Middle Ages. His views on nature and the uses of music highly influenced medieval and Renaissance ideas on the place of music in education.

For some of the great thinkers of Greece, music and astronomy had a close relationship. As an example, Claudius Ptolmey, one of the most profound theorists of music, was also a leading astronomer of the time. The laws of mathematics were believed to govern both the systems of music and the heavenly bodies. Certain notes were believed to coincide with the specific planets, the distances between them, and their movements. This idea was shown in Plato's myth of the "music of the spheres." This stated that there was unheard music produced by the rotations of the planets.

More proof of the ancient Greeks' wide views of music is seen in how closely music and poetry were united for them. For the people of this time, they were practically interchangeable. Plato's definition of song was that it was made up of speech rhythm, and harmony. "Lyric" poetry originally meant poetry that was to be accompanied by a lyre. The base of the word tragedy means "the art of singing." There were also many Greek words to indicate the different kinds of poetry, such as hymn, that were also musical terms. The Greeks were guilty of not even having any word for creative speech that did not include music in some way.

Music obviously plays an integral part in cultures all around the world today, and it will most likely continue to intrigue its performers and audiences for centuries to come. We can be appreciative of the many ideas and aspects of music that we know of today thanks to the philosophers of ancient Greece. Although the surviving evidence is not plentiful, it is evident that music from the ancient Greeks was very influential.

Works Cited:

A History of Western Music (Fifth Edition) by Grolt and Palisca

http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Music.htm

http://www.geocities.com/hellenicmind/byzantium.html?200514