Music of ancient Greece

The word music comes from the Muses, the daughters of Zeus and patron goddesses of creative and intellectual endeavours.

Concerning the origin of music and musical instruments: the history of music in ancient Greece is so closely interwoven with Greek mythology and legend that it is often difficult to surmise what is historically true and what is myth. The music and music theory of ancient Greece laid the foundation for western music and western music theory, as it would go on to influence the ancient Romans, the early Christian church and the medieval composers. Our understanding of ancient Greek music theory, musical systems, and musical ethos comes almost entirely from the surviving teachings of the Pythagoreans, Plato, Aristoxenus, Philodemus, Ptolemy, and Aristides.

Some ancient Greek philosophers discussed the study of music in ancient Greece. Pythagoras in particular believed that music was subject to the same mathematical laws of harmony as the mechanics of the cosmos, evolving into an idea known as the music of the spheres. The Pythagoreans focused on the mathematics and the acoustical science of sound and music. They developed tuning systems and harmonic principles that focused on simple integers and ratios, laying a foundation for acoustic science. It can be demonstrated that all surviving music written in ancient instrumental notation can be played with pure intervals of this type. Aristoxenus, who wrote several musicological treatises, was one of multiple theorists who studied music connecting theory and empiricism. Aristoxenus believed that intervals should be both judged by ear and described with mathematical ratios; he was influenced by Pythagoras and used mathematical terminology and measurements in his research. However, playful engagement with musical intervals is documented in music written in vocal notation, which goes beyond the limitations of harmonics.

Music in society and religion

Music played an integral role in ancient Greek society. Damon said, according to Plato in the Republic, "when fundamental modes of music change, the fundamental modes of the state change with them." Music and gymnastics comprised the main divisions in one's schooling. "The word 'music' expressed the entire education".

Instrumental music served a religious and entertaining role in ancient Greece as it would often accompany religious events, rituals, and festivals. Music was also used for entertainment when it accompanied drinking-parties or symposia. A popular type of piece to be played while drinking at these drinking parties was the skolion, a piece composed to be heard while drinking. Before and after the Greek drinking parties, religious libations, or the religious act of partaking and pouring out drink, would be made to deities, usually the Olympic gods, the heroes, and Zeus. The offering of libations were often accompanied by a special libation melody called the spondeion, which was often accompanied by an aulos player.

Music occupied an important role in the Greek sacrificial ceremonies. The Hagia Triada Sarcophagus shows that the aulos was present during sacrifices as early as 1300 BC. Music was also present during times of initiation, worship, and religious celebration, playing very integral parts of the sacrificial cults of Apollo and Dionysus.

Music (along with intoxication of potions, fasting, and honey) was also integral in preparing for and catalysing divination, as music would often induce prophets into religious ecstasy and revelation, so much so that the expression for "making music" and "prophesying" were identical in ancient Greek.

Instruments were also present in wartime, though it may not have been considered music entirely. Specific notes of the trumpet were played to dictate commands to soldiers on the battlefield. The aulos and percussion instruments also accompanied the verbal commands given to oarsmen by the boatswain. The instruments were used mainly to help keep the oarsmen in time with one another.

Popular song types

• Hymn

A hymn is a metric composition whose text addresses a god, either directly or indirectly. They are the earliest formal type in Greek music, and survive in relatively large numbers.

• Paean

Paeans were most commonly sung in honor or worship of Apollo as well as Athena. They usually solemnly expressed the hope for deliverance from a peril, or were sung in thanksgiving after a victory or escape.

• Prosodion

A type of hymn or processional that invoked or praised a god. Prosodions were usually sung on the road to an altar or shrine, before or after a paean.

• Hyporchema

Hyporchema was a dance-song with a marked rhythmic movement, commonly associated with the paean, and often difficult to distinguish from it. For example, the First Delphic Hymn is titled "Paean or Hyporchema".

• Dithyrambs

Usually merrily sung in celebration at festivals, performed especially in dedication to Dionysus, the god of wine. Dithyrambs featured choirs (choros) of men and boys who were accompanied by an aulos player.

Poetry and drama

Whether or not long narrative poetry, or epic poetry like those of Homer, was sung is not entirely known. As in Plato's dialogue Ion, Socrates uses both the words "sing" and "speak" in connection with the Homeric epics, however there are heavy implications that they have been at least recited unaccompanied by instruments, in a sing-song chant.

Music was also present in ancient Greek lyric poetry, which by definition is poetry or a song accompanied by a lyre. Lyric poetry eventually branched into two paths, monodic lyric which were performed by a singular person, and choral lyric which were sung and sometimes danced by a group of people choros. Famous lyric poets include Alkaios and Sappho from the Island of Lesbos, Sappho being one of the few women whose poetry has been preserved.

Music was also heavily prevalent in ancient Greek Drama. In his Poetics, Aristotle links the origins of tragic drama to dithyrambs. The leaders of dithyrambs were the ones who led the song and dance moves, which would then be responded to by the group. Aristotle implies that this relationship between a single person and a group began the tragic drama, which in its earliest stages had a single actor who played all the parts through either song or speech. The single actor engaged in dialogue with the choros. The choros narrated most of the story through song and dance. In ancient Greece, the playwright was expected to not only write the script but also expected to compose the music and dance moves.

Mythology

The ancient Greek myths were never codified or documented into one form; what exists are several different versions from several different authors, across multiple centuries, which can lead to variations and even contradictions among authors and even the same author. According to Greek mythology, music, instruments, and the aural arts are attributed to divine origin, and the art of music was gift of the gods to men.

Although Apollo was prominently considered the god of music and harmony, several legendary gods and demigods were purported to have created some aspect of music as well as contributed to its development. Some gods, and especially the Muses, represented specific aspects or elements of music. The 'inventions' or 'findings' of all ancient Greek instruments were accredited to the gods as well. The performance of music was integrated into many different modes of Greek story-telling and art related to mythology, including drama, and poetry, and there are a large number of ancient Greek myths related to music and musicians.

In Greek mythology: Amphion learned music from Hermes and then with a golden lyre built Thebes by moving the stones into place with the sound of his playing; Orpheus, the master-musician and lyre-player, played so magically that he could soothe wild beasts; the Orphic creation myths have Rhea "playing on a brazen drum, and compelling man's attention to the oracles of the goddess"; or Hermes [showing to Apollo] "... his newly-invented tortoise-shell lyre and [playing] such a ravishing tune on it with the plectrum he had also invented, at the same time singing to praise Apollo's nobility that he was forgiven at once ..."; or Apollo's musical victories over Marsyas and Pan.

There are many such references that indicate that music was an integral part of the Greek perception of how their race had even come into existence and how their destinies continued to be watched over and controlled by the Gods. It is no wonder, then, that music was omnipresent at the Pythian Games, the Olympic Games, religious ceremonies, leisure activities, and even the beginnings of drama as an outgrowth of the dithyrambs performed in honor of Dionysus.

It may be that the actual sounds of the music heard at rituals, games, dramas, etc. underwent a change after the traumatic fall of Athens in 404 BC at the end of the first Peloponnesian War. Indeed, one reads of the "revolution" in Greek culture, and Plato's lament that the new music "... used high musical talent, showmanship and virtuosity ... consciously rejecting educated standards of judgement." Although instrumental virtuosity was prized, this complaint included excessive attention to instrumental music such as to interfere with accompanying the human voice, and the falling away from the traditional ethos in music.

Mythical origins

• Lyre

According to the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, after stealing his brother Apollo's sacred cattle, Hermes was inspired to build an instrument out of a tortoise shell; he attached horns, and gut-string, to the shell and invented the first lyre. Afterwards, Hermes gave his lyre to Apollo, who took interest in the instrument, in repayment for the stolen cattle. In other accounts, Hermes gave his newly invented lyre to Amphion, a son of Zeus and a skilled musician.

• Aulos

According to Pindar's Twelfth Pythian Ode, after Perseus beheaded Medusa, Athena 'found' or 'invented' the aulos in order to reproduce the lamentation of Medusa's sisters. Since the same Greek word is used for 'find' and 'invent', it is unclear; however, the writer Telestes in the 5th century states that Athena found the instrument in a thicket. In Plutarch's essay On the Restraint of Anger, he writes that Athena, after seeing her reflection while playing the aulos, threw the instrument away because it distorted her facial features when played, after which Marsyas a satyr, picked up her aulos and took it up as his own.

• Syrinx / Pan flute

According to Ovid's Metamorpheses, the original Syrinx was a Naiad, a water nymph, who ran away from Pan after he tried to woo her. While she fled, she came upon an uncrossable river and prayed to her sisters to transform her so that she may escape Pan. Her Nymph sisters transformed Syrinx into a bundle of reeds which Pan found and fashioned an instrument out of, the Pan flute or syrinx.

Orpheus myth

Orpheus is a significant figure in the ancient Greek mythology of music. Orpheus was a legendary poet and musician, his lineage is unclear as some sources note him as the son of Apollo, the son of the Muse Calliope, or the son of mortal parents. Orpheus was the pupil and brother of Linus. Linus, by some accounts, is the son of Apollo and the Muse Urania; Linus was the first to be gifted the ability to sing by the Muses, which he passed to Orpheus. Other accounts state that Apollo gave Orpheus a golden lyre and taught him to play, while the muses taught Orpheus to sing.

Orpheus was said to be such a skilled musician that he could charm inanimate objects. According to the Argonautica, Orpheus in his adventures with Jason and the Argonauts, was able to play music more beautiful and louder than the bewitching sirens, allowing the Argonauts to travel safely without being charmed by the sirens. When Orpheus' wife, Eurydice, died, he played a song so mournful that it caused the gods and all the nymphs to weep. Orpheus was then able to travel to the underworld, and with music, softened the heart of Hades enough that he was allowed to return with his wife; however, under the condition that he must not set eyes upon his wife until they finished their travel out of the underworld. Orpheus was unable to fulfill this condition and tragically, his wife vanished forever.

Marsyas myth

According to Pseudo-Apollodorus in Bibliotheca, Marsyas the Phrygian satyr once boasted of his skills in the aulos; a musical contest between Marsyas and Apollo was then conducted, where the victor could do "whatever they wanted" to the loser. Marsyas played his aulos so wildly that everyone burst into dance, while Apollo played his lyre so beautifully that everyone cried.

The muses judged the first round to be a draw. According to one account, Apollo then played his lyre upside down, which Marsyas could not do with the aulos. In another account Apollo sang beautifully, which Marsyas could not do. In another account, Marsyas played out of tune and accepted defeat. In all accounts, Apollo then flayed Marsyas alive for losing.