First Visit

Reflection

I’m glad I didn’t bring anybody with me on the trip here. Just one little joke or laugh would echo through the marble covered hall, and I wouldn’t be able to bear the glaring eyes of everyone there. The moment I tried to find the small library in the maze of a building, I wished I didn’t show up with an untied du-rag, beaten shoes, and Adidas tracksuit. Underdressed doesn’t come close to how I felt. Still, running around in circles and asking every official looking person for directions finally landed me to the front desk of the library.

As soon as I requested works on Lyrical poetry, the librarian asked for my name. She knew exactly who I was and had already started looking for contacts to help me with the progress. Frantically out emails to every person around Athens that I thought could did serve in my favor. Maria began making calls to figure out why the professor she had found me hadn’t contacted me yet and explained the way the library worked. Essentially, there are the reading rooms and the archives. Most of the materials are hidden away in the Archives. So, I needed to look through the full catalog and find all the pieces that could help me with my project. The pieces available in the reading room could readily be used by me and those in the Archives would have to be picked up at a separate appointment.

Navigating the clunky keyboard computer was a major throwback to elementary school library days, and yielded a plethora of books and audio recordings that will help me but Ancient Greek music into context. I have an understanding of the instruments used, but I’d like to understand the sonic qualities and social impact Ancient Greek music had. All the books I chose will give me a holistic understanding of those things.

For now, I’ll be delving into Music and Musicians in Ancient Greece by Warren D. Anderson. But in my next appointment, I will get materials that will clarify my murky understanding of Ancient Greek music. I’ll also get out my smart shoes and a nice button down while I’m at it.

Music and Musicians in Greece by Warren D. Anderson

• Main focus is on the way the lyre and kithara as well as the aulos, harp, percussion and voice influenced Greek daily life
• Beginnings to Dark Age
  • Bronze age marked beginning of music in Greece in the Cycladic (3000 B.C), Minoan (2000-1400 B.C), and Mycenaen (1600-1100 B.C)
    • Lyre development and triangular harp
    • Music was mostly focused on religion in early periods
      • During the final Minoan age, music became more recreational
    • After the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization, a dark age began
    • The real lyre with the shell called chelus appears in 700 B.C.
      • The Kithara appears soon after
      • It finished it’s main development by around 625 B>C
    • Oldest wind instrument was a pip without finger holes and had appearances throught art
    • The only idiophones was a seistrum really
    • Depictions show that the instruments and music had cultist/ritualist associations
      • Singing would happen in unison with sacred dances
      • Hymms to honor people
      • There may have been solo singing with lyre accompaniment
      • Court poetry was short stuff used for people to have fun at events
• Orpheus to Homeric Hymns
  • Orpheus was a famous lyre player and singer who sing sang after Thracian maenads cut his head off
    • Though he has a huge place in music when people talk about him, he might not hav ebeen that famous since he doesn’t appear in anything until the 6th century
    • He was known to charm natural creation and is sometimes sheen as a shaman
  • In the Odyssey Bards are seen as having god-given gifts and technical ability
    • They had a nice place in society
  • In Homer’s world, singing took place on hymns and triumph songs with the phorminx. Besides like sirens women don’t sing together unless they were like goddesses in which case the would sing along
  • Homer’s poems where always recited and never sung in the Hellinic period
  • Of course. there is the legend of Hermes finding out how to create the lyre Hermes is considered the first musical prodigy but the only master is Apollo
• Early Lyric Poets
  • By definition lyrical poetry was accompanied sometimes by the lyre or the aulos
  • Eumelus’ processional was a yearly festival for all greeks where skilled musical professionals would come together and play
    • Common musical language developed
    • They remembered melodies year until the 4th century BC
      • Poet-composers would amke songs for a specific occasion so there was no need to write anything down
    • Greek lyrical began with Terpander, a native of Lesbos born around 730 B.C
      • He won a musical competition
    • Lesobos had a lot of Asia minor influence on their music
    • Spartans where known for their music, especially aulos marching tunes for battle
    • There were essentially two types of lyric: Solo song which was less formal in terms of meter and language and choral poetry which was much more complex
    • Sappho did Solo song for sumposias

Second Visit

Ancient Greek Music Reconstruction Conrad Steinmann

Argos

• Okay so we’re starting off with wind (water organs)
• Then there’s a pretty soprano to alto type voice sing in a way that isn’t necessarily western but not eastern