Music In Ancient Greece: What Was It Like? |
| Date Added: August 24, 2010 07:33:42 PM |
| Author: kennnedy34 |
| Category: Entertainment: Music |
| MUSIC is one of those art forms which act as an accurate mirror of social and cultural processes. If the society or the culture in a certain area is falling in to decline, it will be reflected in the music of that place promptly. Similarly, when the society or the culture is thriving, the music will also flourish. Therefore, music has a major persona in the tracking down the past of a country and its culture. Contemporary music owes much to the Ancient Greeks. In fact, the word "music" is derived from the nine muses of Ancient Greece - goddesses controlling the arts and sciences. Present-day musicians refer to their muse, which is someone who has an impact on another person's creative work. Different musical terms, such as melody, tune, rhythm and others originated from Greek. Yet, with the fall of Ancient Greece and the collapse of the Byzantine and Roman Empires, Greek music stopped its development for several centuries until it was reborn in the Nineteenth century. It is said that Greeks considered music a way of exalting the glory of god. Music was also a part of their social life. It was played on all forms of social occasions. As drama was also quite popular in Greece, they also used music when drama was staged. Greek music is normally believed to have lacked harmony. It was mostly performed by one vocalist and not by a chorus as is usually seen in Greek plays. Ancient musicians stringently stuck to the laws of music and didn't combine one form with another. The rules were so stringent that the viewers or listeners were not allowed to applaud. The aim of musical shows was not to entertain but to teach common people. Pythagoras was the first to use numbers to denote musical scales which he discovered when studying the differences in sound frequencies of varied length strings of a musical instrument. The concept spread to Ancient Greek Music, and Pythagoras became known as the father of music theory. Most musical works, as stated, was monophonic. Hence, they were rather similar. Nowadays Greek music includes traditional folk music and Eastern and Western influences. |
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