Ancient Greek Music - Fragment by Homer!

[alydamarte]

Amazing this is truly beautiful

[extrememark13]

very nice.greetings from greece.do you speak greek as well?

[Klezfiddle1]

@extrememark13 χαιρετισμούς από την Αγγλία!

[lddevo88]

@Klezfiddle1 Thank God for Google Translate!

Χαιρετίσματα από το Δυτικό Κόσμο!

[rattinox]

This piece would make an utterly apropos background tune for playing a game called "The Epic of the Peloponnesian War", a boardgame with Athens and Sparta represented each by one (or more for the Allies) player...............

[italobrasileirinha]

I like it ;)

[kalara75]

Man Homer was an ancient rock star cool

[drillhousen]

Μπράβο!! πολύ ωραίο!

[Pateretfilius]

Απλά αναρωτιέμαι, όπως ο Μέγας Αλέξανδρος είχε μακριά μαλλιά θα είχε να χρησιμοποιήσει τα δικά της τα μαλλιά του για να τσιμπήσει τη λύρα του

[thewritingwriterof89]

how well has your album been selling? It looks like something I need to buy

[ophuichus2012]

can you please post teh text that you'd like to hear sung?

[rodaygh9]

with out sound you have lot of fun. other way you disterb my ears.

any way, makes you a better person, to try to lern more about armony of soul

just only accept that you are not ready yet. you sould samed a litlle more, to expose that, for mystical lyre xaxaxaxaxaxaxaaxaxxaaaaaaa xaaaaaaaxxxxaaaaaa aaaaxaxaxaaxaxa

[shilloshillos]

@rodaygh9 immature. get a life!

[nebraskagirl8989]

um you need to actually make your own music too

[Klezfiddle1]

@nebraskagirl8989 I have done! My new album "Apollo's Lyre"(on iTunes by about May 2010) features original compositions in the original ancient modes/scales used in antiquity, (ncluding some of the ancient Greek modes, ancient Middle Eastern scales, ancient Hebrew scales & an ancient Egyptian scale) arranged for both replica wooden & skin-membraned lyres. All details on my "ancientlyre" website...

[atfatw]

@Klezfiddle1  do you know any ancient Armenian songs? they had the hammered dulcimer so they probably had lyres

[systembreaker13]

@nebraskagirl8989 whats wrong with living inside this kind of music? and letting everyone else do the same.

[jdfox1]

Nice.  :)

[Vertigo3TC]

very nice. thanks for this

[chouriji]

beautiful

[lamedwufnik]

I think Klezfiddle1 means the album by Gregorio Paniagua and Atrium Musicae de Madrid. Paniagua remarks: "we have treated the innumerable lacunae which exist in the papyrus fragments and bits of marble in various ways: either by total silence, like the use of a neutral cement in the restoration of a painting or a sculpture; or, whenever the melodic line could be joined on to the next fragment, by restoring them 'anti-archaelogically', deliberately colouring then with a little, (but not too much)

[lamedwufnik]

imagination; or else by filling the irreparable gap with sounds, noises and disconnected chords, painful and totally dissonant, as in the case of the Oslo papyrus". These are Paniagua's words in his album Musique de la Grèce Antique.

[Klezfiddle1]

In my version of this fragment (which I attempted to learn by ear from the album you mention), I decided to treat this ancient musical fragment in a differnet manner, as I found the silences/percussive noises in "Musique de la Grece Antique" too distracting - I have added brief passages of ornamentation/improvisation to make the perfomance of this pityfully short fragment more musically interesting. It still needs someone to sing the text, though, to give the ryhthm dictated by the syllables...

[indoctus41]

I really doubt this.

I've seen ancient music written out (Ode to Apollo at Delphi) and it is not well understood. There are words without spaces on one line and then at various intervals above the text are letters that seem to indicate pitches.

As far as I know, no one has much of an idea how to interpret them, so it's really a guess.

[Klezfiddle1]

The theories of ancient Greek music were very well documented, and although only a few actual notated fragments of music survive, there is nothing ambiguous about the pitches indicated by this ancient alphabetical form of musical notation. Although the rhythm was not notated (to my knowledge), it can easily be inferred from the syllables of the text. Check out the recording available on Amazon, "Musique de la Grece Antique" - I learnt most of my ancient Greek music repertoire from this album!

[indoctus41]

Klezfiddle1:

What documentation? First of all you are playing chords out of rhythm. Since the texts are in metric verse, I would at least expect to hear a rhythm that matches the meter of the text. Secondly, how did you conjure up chords from single letters above the text? Thirdly, there are no ancient treatises that interpret the notation, probably because 90% of the ancient literature has been lost. I'm sure there are a lot of modern theories.

I think your interpretation is a guess.

[Klezfiddle1]

Well, for example, the detailed musiclal treatises of Pythagoras. I am a self-taught musician, not a musicologist - I learnt this piece by ear from the recording I heard of it on "Musique de la Grece Antique", and added a little measured improvisation to make it more musically interesting...I can't sing, & certainly can't sing the text in ancient Greek to which this melody accompanies! Tonality ie basic harmony, is clearly implied in the melodic line.

[indoctus41]

Johnson and Brunelle, Classics profs, have tried to perform some fragments. You can see the letters above the text that seem to indicate musical pitches. Many say the music is monophonic, but who knows.

We are shackled by our own concept of scales divided into 12 equal pitches, or diatonically speaking, 8 pitches. It could have been that scales were divided into 6, 9, 12, or even 15 equal or unequal divisions. We need an ancient treatise that explains this, and we don't have any.

[indoctus41]

Klezfiddle1:

Correction.

There is one treatise, Introduction to Music by Alypios (360AD). I have not looked at it, but bear in mind that this document was 700 years after the Golden Age of Greece, so the possibilities that this version relates definitively to the music of Ancient Greece is already suspect.

[lamedwufnik]

Hi, what about Aristides Quintilianus' On Music?

[indoctus41]

lamedwufnik:

Thanks for the reference.

Does this work actually explain the notation and how it should be played? It's absolutely certain that the notation could not be supplying chords, as most experts agree the music was likely monophonic. And the performance here uses chords throughout and is out of rhythm. Isn't it more likely to hear music that is monophonic and in a rhythm that matches the meter of the text, as in the performances by classics profs Johnson and Brunelle?

[lamedwufnik]

Hi. Unfortunately, I do not know the performance you mention. Aristides Quintilianus was supposed to have written On Music in the II A.D. or in the IV A.D., according to different sources. About rhythm, Quintilianus says: "Among rhythms, the ones starting from the Théseis are quieter, because they lead people to order, and the ones starting from the Árseis are agitated, when adding the rhythmic tap, Kroûsis, to the voice." I don't know if this fragment asnwers your question.

[indoctus41]

lamedwufnik:

You can search ancient vocal music first entry.

[CameronP1987]

Impressive playing... It is so great to go back in time by listening to these pieces.

[kjavadi]

thank you for replying. I had a feeling that would be the answer. Its too bad that so much history has been lost through the ages. Keep up the good work and keep doing what you love.

[kjavadi]

what about music from Ancient Persia? Is there any surviving fragments?

[Klezfiddle1]

Not that I know of - as far as ancient music goes, the problem is how it was seldom if ever actually notated. The ancient Greek method of musical notation is unique, in that it is totally unambiguous - letters denoting pitch were writtten above the text of the songs, and the rhythm can easily be inferred from the syllables of the text of the the song.

[hawkyeagle7]

Nice~

[ProphetCassandra]

all your videos are on my favourites! well done!!

[hardcorechicano]

thats sounds wonderful....

[BlacK40k]

Very nice, when i listen this you make my greek proud bigger ;)

[Rasengan779]

woah kool, i wanna learn

[tmafkap]

Great balls of fire! That's almost Rock'n'Roll...

[OmegaAlfaDelta]

impressive

thank you for sharing the knowledge

[FunnyByDefinition]

This is cool. I really like it. After watching your vids, I really want to learn how to play the lyre ^^

[Klezfiddle1]

Thanks! Check out my series of "HOW TO PLAY KING DAVID'S LYRE" lessons, also to be found on my Youutube Channel ;o)

[amjPeace]

You know how much I enjoy your playing. Bravo!

[salman5748]

Nice! =)

[PuckMedia]

Great music, thanks for sharing it.