The Ancient Greece

 Our knowledge about ancient Greek music is very limited, as only very few fragments of it survived to our days. The study of the ancient art of music is also difficult due to the scarce notes about its performance. Nevertheless, what we know might be considered quite fascinating, as we discover the contrast between today s music and the roots out of which it developed. Of course, we might also derive some ideas that can inspire our own playing and compositional style.

  Ancient Greeks used music in religious ceremonies, where different gods were glorified by specific kind of instrument. Two characteristic instruments of that period were the lyre and the aulos. The lyre was a string instrument, which could be built with different amounts of strings, often five or seven. It was used as a solo instrument or for accompaniment of poem recitations and singing. A similar but larger lyre-related instrument was the kithara. The aulos was a kind of reed instrument, giving a piercing tone (close to piccolo flute?) and used in recitations in drama entertainment, and also as a solo instrument. Here is one CD with ancient Greek music that I'd recommend to listen to, it is both authentic and artistic in my ears:

  For a guitarist, a solo instrument is often associated with virtuoso soloing skills, and so was the case with the ancient Greek musicians, who engaged in contests, showing off their technical skills. This kind of music development was not appreciated by Aristotle though, who prescribed practice of noble melodies and rhythms  and not music in which every slave or child and even some animals find pleasure  (Aristotle, Politics, Book VIII). Similar reactions arouse within the early Christian Church that condemned complexity and condoned simplicity in music. These attempts to regulate musical praxis might be hard to understand for the people of the 21st century, but the Greeks lived with a very special relation to music, as explained below.

 Probably the most conspicuous ancient thought about music is the doctrine of ethos, which describes the effects of sound on human behaviour and therefore its moral influence. Aristotle, in his Politics, explains how the different kinds of music, imitating specific feelings (anger, kindness, love), can affect a human being with the same kind of feelings. Therefore, says Aristotle, someone who listens to the wrong kind of music will grow up to a bad person, and vice-versa. Consequently, Aristotle (and also Plato) recommended the right kind of music in the education of young citizens.

 Besides the doctrine of ethos and its religious connections, music was also investigated for its relation to mathematics (e.g. intervals) and nature. Also, the spoken word, as used in poetry or tragedy, was intimately coupled with music  the rhythm and the tone of the voice were important qualities in such occasions. Today, many musicians care mostly about the correct rhythmic connection between words and music, but the Greeks went much further.

 What qualities had the music itself? The Greeks probably did not use harmony, but played mostly single-line (monophonic) melodies. The artists also improvised, within the realms that captured the mood of the special occasion. Lastly, as mentioned above, the music was linked to words and dancing, so the rhythm and meter of singing and dancing patterns was in synergy with the music itself.

  If you find some of these ancient ideas attractive, consider incorporating them in your own playing, composition or philosophy of music. Below, I d like to discuss some theoretical aspects of the ancient musical system that might be worth experimenting with.

 As mentioned, the doctrine of ethos was describing the effects of music on the human soul. What makes up the ethos of a single-line, improvised, ancient-style melody?
Firstly, the rhythm, supposed to agree with the text of the recitation, mostly built-up of long and short syllables combined into single verses. Several rhythmic patterns can be discerned in the ancient and later forms of literature, which you might want to research further.
 Secondly, the genus was determined by the type of the tetrachord. A tetrachord is a set of notes, where the lowest and the highest notes are at perfect fourth interval from each other, with other notes (usually two) in between. The inner note(s) could be placed anywhere between the boundaries of the lowest and the highest notes. Such tetrachord could be further combined together with another tetrachord, where the highest note of the first tetrachord was at the same time the lowest note of the upper tetrachord. In such case often an extra note, below the first tetrachord was added, thus making an octave interval with the highest note of the whole construction. Two tetrachords could also be combined without any common note, where the highest tone of the lower tetrachord and the lowest note of the second tetrachord are separated by a whole-note interval.

 The contemporary diatonic scale can be described in terms of such tetrachords. As an example, in C major, our first tetrachord is built up of tones CDEF, where C and F comprise a perfect fourth interval. The second tetrachord is the GABC, where G and C make a perfect foruth interval. The tones in between define the genus of the scale  both tetrachords have major 3rds (C-E and G-B), which make a very happy scale  a major scale. In comparison, a minor scale contains two tetrachords with minor 3rds. As you see, playing with such tetrachord ideas might be a creative way to build your own scales or solos.

 The last aspect of the ethos is the mode of a melody. Once again, a reference to Aristotle suits well here. According to this philosopher, the different modes have different influences on people. The Mixolydian mode conveys a sad feeling, the relaxed modes enfeeble the mind, the Dorian mode produces moderate temper, and the Phrygian mode inspires enthusiasm. It must be remarked however that the Greeks did not ascribed these kinds of feelings to the interval relationships between the tones of different modes, as we do today. The striking part of the discussion is that all modes had the same kind of interval patterns within an octave range (two tetrachords: e.g. EFGA and HCDE), but were distinguished by their highest and lowest tones, essentially a simple transposition of what we call the root of the scale. It seems like the Greeks had some kind of standard pitch to refer to when describing the modes, but the evidence for that is absent. Another hypothesis is that one note of the mode  the highest note of the first tetrachord (in the above example: A)  received a special interest, and thus dominance, during performance. In this way, some special characteristic melodies could be played. Unfortunately, neither of the hypotheses is supported by evidence, and we do not know for sure what the great philosophers like Aristotle and Plato meant by the mode of a melody.

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