Music in Ancient Greece: Melody, Rhythm and Life (Classical World)

Life in ancient Greece was __musical__ life. Soloists competed onstage for popular accolades, becoming centrepieces for cultural conversation and even leading Plato to recommend that certain forms of music be banned from his ideal society. And the music didn't stop when the audience left the theatre: melody and rhythm were woven into the whole fabric of daily existence for the Greeks. Vocal and instrumental songs were part of religious rituals, dramatic performances, dinner parties, and even military campaigns. Like Detroit in the 1960s or Vienna in the 18th century, Athens in the 400s BC was the hotspot where celebrated artists collaborated and diverse strands of musical tradition converged. The conversations and innovations that unfolded there would lay the groundwork for musical theory and practice in Greece and Rome for centuries to come. In this perfectly pitched introduction, Spencer Klavan explores Greek music's origins, forms, and place in society. In recent years, state-of-the-art research and digital technology have enabled us to decipher and understand Greek music with unprecedented precision. Yet many readers today cannot access the resources that would enable them to grapple with this richly rewarding subject. Arcane technical details and obscure jargon veil the subject - it is rarely known, for instance, that authentic melodies still survive from antiquity, helping us to imagine the vivid soundscapes of the Classical and Hellenistic eras. __Music in Ancient Greece__ distills the latest discoveries into vivid prose so readers can come to grips with the basics as never before. With the tools in this book, beginners and specialists alike will learn to hear the ancient world afresh and come away with a new, musical perspective on their favourite classical texts. "Life in ancient Greece was musical life. Soloists competed onstage for popular accolades, becoming centrepieces for cultural conversation and even leading Plato to recommend that certain forms of music be banned from his ideal society. And the music didn't stop when the audience left the theatre: melody and rhythm were woven into the whole fabric of daily existence for the Greeks. Vocal and instrumental songs were part of religious rituals, dramatic performances, dinner parties, and even military campaigns. Like Detroit in the 1960s or Vienna in the 18th century, Athens in the 400s BC was the hotspot where celebrated artists collaborated and diverse strands of musical tradition converged. The conversations and innovations that unfolded there would lay the groundwork for musical theory and practice in Greece and Rome for centuries to come. In this perfectly pitched introduction, Spencer Klavan explores Greek music's origins, forms, and place in society. In recent years, state-of-the-art research and digital technology have enabled us to decipher and understand Greek music with unprecedented precision. Yet many readers today cannot access the resources that would enable them to grapple with this richly rewarding subject. Arcane technical details and obscure jargon veil the subject - it is rarely known, for instance, that authentic melodies still survive from antiquity, helping us to imagine the vivid soundscapes of the Classical and Hellenistic eras. Music in Ancient Greece and Beyond distills the latest discoveries into vivid prose so readers can come to grips with the basics as never before. With the tools in this book, beginners and specialists alike will learn to hear the ancient world afresh and come away with a new, musical perspective on their favourite classical texts"-- Provided by publisher Cover page 1 Halftitle page 2 Series page 3 Title page 4 Copyright page 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 Figures 10 Timeline 11 1 Introduction: Origins and Beginnings 14 What this book is about 14 Influences 17 What’s next 22 Some further reading 29 2 How Music Was Made: Instruments and Songs 32 Strings 33 Pipes 37 The real thing 41 Strike up the band 44 World music 45 Some further reading 49 3 Where Music Happened: Venues 52 Whistle while you work 53 The music of the gods 58 Music on the stage 59 Old material in new venues 63 Some further reading 65 4 Education 68 Old standards and new styles 69 The partheneion 73 Unreliable narrators: the case of Spartan music 76 Putting it together 78 Some further reading 81 5 Politics 84 The ethics of music – ēthos and mimēsis 84 Music in society 92 Some further reading 96 6 The Cosmos 98 Numbers in the sky: Pythagoreanism and mathematical cosmology 99 A short history of the entire universe: Pythagoreanism according to Plato 102 The Unified Field Theory of everything 104 Planetary sheet music 106 Some further reading 110 7 Tunes 112 How scales work 112 How we got here 117 The motley crew: musicians, theorists, and everything in between at Athens 120 Writing things down 122 What’s the point? 126 Some further reading 130 8 Rhythms 132 What is rhythm? 132 From words into music 136 Mixing it up 141 Writing it down 144 Appendix: vowel lengths 147 Some further reading 148 9 Beyond Greek Music 150 World music: Greek thinking goes abroad 152 Some further reading 156 Notes 158 Glossary 166 Index 170