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MUSIC
Form: Gr. masice, "art of the Muses"

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included among the Greeks everything that belonged to a higher intellectual and artistic education. [Plato in his Republic, p. 136, while discussing education, says: "Can we find any better than the old-fashioned sort, gymnastic for the body and music for the soul?" and adds: "When you speak of music, do you rank literature under music or not?" "Ido."] Music in the narrower sense was regarded by the Greeks not only as an agreeable amusement, but also as one of the most effective means of cultivating the feelings and the character. The great importance they attached to music is also shown by their idea that it was of divine origin; Hermes or Apollo were said to have invented the lyre, Athene the simple flute Pan the shepherd's pipe. Besides these gods and the Muses, Dionysus also was connected with music. Numerous myths, as for instance those concerning Amphion and Orpheus, tell of its mighty power, and testify to the Greeks having cultivated music at a very early epoch. It was always intimately allied to poetry. Originally, epic poems were also sung to the accompaniment of the cithara, and the old heroes of poetry, such as Orpheus and Musaeus, are at the same time heroes of music, just as in historical times the lyric and dramatic poets were at the same time the composers of their works. It was not until the Alexandrian times that the poet ceased to be also a musician. Owing to its connexion with poetry, music developed in the same proportion, and flourished at the same period,, as lyric and dramatic poetry. Of the Greek races, the Dorians and Aeolians had a special genius and capacity for music, and among both we find the first traces of its development as an art. The actual foundation of the classical music of the Greeks is ascribed to TERPANDER (q.v.), of the Aeolian island of Lesbos, who, in Dorian Sparta (about B.c. 675) first gave a truly artistic form to song accompanied by the cithara or citharodice, and especially to the citharodic nomos (q.v.). In the Peloponnesian school of the Terapandridce, who followed his teaching and formed a closely united guild, citharodice received its further artistic development. What Terpander had done for citharodice was done not long afterwards by CLONAS of Thebes or Tegea for aulodice, or song accompanied by the flute. The artistic flute-playing which had been elaborated by the Phrygian OLYMPUS in Asia, was introduced by Clonas into the Peloponnesus, which long remained the principal seat of all musical art. Of the two kinds of independent instrumental music, which throughout presupposes the development of vocal music and always adapts itself to this as its model, the earlier is the music on the flute, aulitice, which was especially brought into favourable notice by SACADAS of Argos (about B.C. 580), while the music on stringed instruments, citharistice, is later. Music was much promoted by the contests at the public festivals, above all, by those at the Pythian games. Its highest point of development was attained in the time of the Persian Wars, which seems to have seen the completion of the ancient system as it had been elaborated by the tradition of the schools. The lyric poets of this time, as Pindar and Simonides, the dramatists, as Phrynichus and Aeschylus, were hold by the critics to be unsurpassable models. What was added in subsequent times can hardly be called a new development of the art. Athens in her golden age was the central city where professional musicians met one another,-Athens the home of Greek dramatic poetry. At this time vocal, combined with instrumental, music largely prevailed over instrumental music alone. The latter was chiefly limited to solo performances. Ancient vocal music is distinguished in one important point from ours: throughout classical times part-singing was unknown, and there was at most a difference of octaves, and that only when men and boys sang in the same choir. Again, in classical times, the music was subordinate to the words, and was therefore necessarily much simpler than it is now. It is only in this way that we can explain the fact that an ancient audience could follow the musical representation of the often intricate language of the odes, even when the odes were sung by the whole choir. Critics regarded it as a decline of art, when, at the end of the Peloponnesian War, the music began to be the important element instead of the poetry. This change took place at first in single branches of the art, as in the solos (monodice) in tragedy, and in the dithyrambic choruses. Thenceforward ancient music, like modern music, raised itself more and more to a free and independent position beside that of poetry. The first place among the various kinds of music was assigned to the indigenous citharodice, which was connected with the first development of the musical art; and indeed stringed instruments were always more esteemed than wind instruments, in part on account of the greater technical difficulties which had to be overcome, and which led to musicians giving particular attention to them. Moreover, playing on the flute was limited to certain occasions, as its sound seemed to the ancients to arouse enthusiasm and passion [Aristotle, Politics, viii 3]. There is evidence that, on the one hand, the ancient theory of singing and of instrumentation (in spite of the primitive nature of the instruments) was brought to a high degree of perfection; and that, on the other hand, the public must have possessed a severely critical judgment in matters of music. The characteristic feature of ancient music is the great clearness of its form, resulting, above all, from the extreme precision of the rhythmic treatment. [In ancient Greece there were certain kinds or forms of music, which were known by national or tribal names, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Ionian, and Aeolian. Of these the Dorian and Phrygian are regarded by Plato as representing the mean in respect of pitch, while the highest varieties of the Lydian (called Mixo-lydian and Syntono-lydian) are contrasted with the Ionian and with the lower variety of the Lydian (afterwards known as Hypo-lydian), the last two being described as "slack," or low in pitch (Republic, p. 398, and Aristotle, Politics, viii 5 and 7). Each of these was regarded as expressive of a particular feeling. Thus, the Dorian was deemed appropriate to earnest and warlike melodies; the Phrygian was exciting and emotional; the Mixo-lydian pathetic and plaintive. The Aeolian was intermediate between the high-pitched Lydian and the low-pitched Ionian (Athenaeus, p. 624 e, f, and 526 The terms Ionian and Aeolian fell out of use, and the following names were generally applied to seven forms of music, beginning with the highest in pitch and ending with the lowest:-Mixo-lydian, Lydian, Phrygian, Dorian, Hypo-lydian, Hypo-phrygian, and Hypo-dorian. These seven forms were known as harmonice (harmonia meaning literally a "fitting" or "adjustment," hence the "tuning" of a series of notes, or the formation of a "scale"). They were afterwards known as tonoi, or tropoi, the Latin modi and our moods or "modes." But the term "modes" is ambiguous. According to some authorities (Westphal and his followers) the ancient "modes" differed from one another as the modern major mode differs from the minor, namely in the order in which the intervals follow one another, the difference in the "modes" thus depending on the place of the semi-tones in the octave. Others suppose that the terms Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian and the rest, were applied to different scales of the same "mode" in the modern sense of the term. Thus, Mr. D. B. Monro, in his Modes of Ancient Greek Music, 1894, maintains that, in the earlier periods of Greek music, (1) there is no distinction between "modes" (harmonice) and "keys" (tonoi or tropoi); and (2) that the musical scales denoted by these terms were primarily distinguished by difference of pitch (p. 101). To the passages quoted by Mr. Monro, from Plutarch (De Mutica, cc. 6, 8,15-17, 19), in support of the identity of the Greek "modes" and "keys" may be added Plutarch, de E apud Delphos, c. 10, where the "keys" (tonoi) are regarded as synonymous with the "modes" (harmonice).] As the basis of every melodic series of sounds the ancients had the tetrachord, a scale of four notes, to which according to tradition the earliest music was limited. The heptachord consisted of two tetrachords the central note was at once the highest of the first and the lowest of the second tetrachord. The heptachord was certainy in use before Terpander, who is said to have given to the lyre seven strings instead of four. [Strabo, p. 618. He really increased the compass of the scale from the two conjunct tetrachords of the seven-stringed lyre to a full octave, without increasing the number of the strings. This he did by adding one more string at the upper end of the scale, and taking away the next string but one. Aristotle, Problems, xix 32.] Thus arose the octachord or octave, and at last, after various additions, the following scale of notes was formed: From the lowest b onwards, this scale was divided into tetrachords in such a way that the fourth note was always also regarded as the first of the following tetrachord; [the intervals between the sounds of the tetrachord were, in ascending order, semi-tone, tone, tone]. This sequence was called the diatonic genus. Besides this there was also the chromatic, the tetrachords of which were as follows, b c d e e f g a [the intervals in this case were semi-tone, semi-tone, tone and a half]. Thirdly there was the enharmonic, the tetrachord of which [had for its intervals 1/4 tone, 1/4 tone, 2 tones, and accordingly] cannot be expressed in modern notation. [See also p, 707.] With regard to the musical instruments it may be mentioned that only stringed instruments (cp. especially CITHARA and LYRA) and the flute (q.v.), which closely resembled our clarionet, were employed in music proper; and that the other instruments, such as trumpets (see SALPINX), Pan's pipes (see SYRINX), cymbals (cymbala), and kettledrums (see TYMPANUM), were not included within its province. In proportion to the amount of attention paid to music by the Greeks, it early became the subject of learned research and literary treatment. The philosopher PHYTHAGORAS occupied himself with musical acoustics; he succeeded in representing numerically the relations of the octave, the fifth, and the fourth. For representing the symphonic relations the Pythagorean school invented the monochord or canon, a string stretched over a sounding board and with a movable bridge, by means of which the string could be divided into different lengths; it was on this account known as the school of the Canonici as opposed to the Harmonici, who opposed this innovation and continued to be satisfied with a system of scales ("harmonies") sung by the sole guidance of the ear. Amongst the Canonici were philosophers such as PHILOLAUS ARCHYTAS, DEMOCRITUS, PLATO, and ARISTOTLE. LASUS of Hermione, the master of Pindar, is mentioned as the first author of a theoretical work on music. The "harmonic" ARISTOXENUS (q.v.) of Tarentum, a pupil of Aristotle, was held by the ancients to be the greatest authority on music; from his numerous works was drawn the greatest part of subsequent musical literature. Of other writers on music we may mention the well-known mathematician EUCLID, and the great astronomer CLAUDIUS PTOLEMAeUS, who perfected musical acoustics. Among the Romans, a native development of music was completely wanting. They had, indeed, an ancient indigenous musical instrument, the short and slender Latian flute with four holes; but their national art of flute-playing was, at an early period, thrown into the background by the Etruscan, which was practised as a profession by foreigners, freedmen, and people of the lowest classes of the Roman population. Among the nine old guilds, said to have been instituted by king Numa, there was one of flute-players (tibicines), who assisted at public sacrifices. With the Greek drama, Greek dramatic music was also introduced; it was, however, limited to flute-playing (cp. FLUTE). Stringed instruments were not originally known at Rome, and were not frequently employed till after the second Punic War. Indeed, as Greek usages and manners in general gained ground with the beginning of the 2nd century, so also did Greek music. Greek dances and musical entertainments became common at the meals of aristocratic families, and the younger members of respectable households received instruction in music as in dancing. Though it was afterwards one of the subjects of higher education, it was never considered a real and effective means of training. Entertainments like our concerts became frequent towards the end of the Republic, and formed part of the musical contests instituted by Nero, a great lover of music, in A.D. 60, on the model of the Greek contests. Domitian had an Odeum built on the Campus Martius (Field of Mars) for the musical entertainments of the Agon Capitotinus, instituted by him in A.D. 86, and celebrated at intervals of four years to the end of the classical period. -Passages bearing on music in Roman literature have no independent value, as they are entirely drawn from Greek sources.-For Roman military music, see LITUUS (2) and TUBA.
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