GREEK MUSIC, the theory and practice of melody and harmonics among the ancient inhabitants of Hellas. The subject of Greek music is an obscure and difficult one, but there are enough data extant to afford us a general idea of the Greek musical scale, of the use of instruments, and employment of the voice in solo and chorus among the Greeks. The earliest notion of music was derived from the necessity of keeping time in the dance. This at first would be effected by merely clapping the hands. The use of instruments of percussion would follow, and the drum and cymbal came into use. The cymbal originated in Egypt, and reached Greece as a permanent element in the practice of music. The rustle of the wind through the reeds, sometimes with a shrill whistling vibra tion, suggested the application of the human breath to hollow pipes, and what is still called the Pan's pipes was invented. Wind instru ments of various kinds came afterwards into vogue, the flute, and the double flute were em ployed, and seem generally to have been blown as accompaniments to the elegy and the love song. These pipes were of various kinds and were considered as good accompaniments to the recitations of the poet, as well as for regu lation of movement in a dance. They were employed in the ceremonies of the mysteries,, and Plato speaks of an often recurring thought as resembling °the sound of the flute in the ear of the mystic?' Instrumental music attained its highest de velopment in the invention of the lyre. The Egyptians attributed this invention to their god Thoth. In Greece Hermes is celebrated as the inventor of the lyre, which became henceforth the instrument of the epic poet and the rhapsode or reciter. It had originally four strings, which it is said were suggested by the tendons stretched over the shell of a tortoise. The first Greek philosopher to attempt a scientific theory of musical scales and intervals appears to have been that profound and versatile man Pythag oras (585 D.c.). The Greeks did not use the word music in application to the art which we so name. Music to them comprised everything which the Muses inspired, and even history and astronomy as well as poetry were music. What we mean by the term was called by the Greeks harmonics, which means the art of fitting, that is, adjusting the intervals in a scale, in the strings of a lire. The scale of Pythagoras had seven notes, corresponding with the seven strings of his lyre, and he professed to derive his idea of music from the music of the spheres. The sun revolving round the earth was to him the chief planet, and was represented by the middle string of the lyre which was considered the key note, corresponding with A in the modern scale.
On one side were strings representing Mercury, Venus and the Moon, on the other side three more corresponding with Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. It is said that Pythagoras discovered the ratios of the perfect intervals from hearing blacksmiths striking an anvil with hammers of different weights. Aristoxenus (a.c. 300) dis covered the difference between the major and minor tones and has been called °the father of temperament.° Claudius Ptolemy (B.c. 150) demonstrated the musical axiom which obtains in modern times that the major tone should be below the minor.
The Greeks had four modes or scales, the Dorian, the Phrygian, the Lydian, and the Mito Lydian. The Dorian was set in the key of F natural, and the rest were distinguished by analogous differences.
The ancient Greeks were passionately fond of music, and elaborate treatises were written by them on the science and art. They did not understand harmony, and Aristotle (384 speaks of the only chorus singing known as that of men singing a melody an eighth lower than it was sung by boys, which of course would be unison. Music was employed at Athens by wandering epic minstrels; it was also common in religious ceremonies, and to regulate the movements of the army. It formed part of the drama. We are told that lEschylus, the father of tragedy, composed the music for his own dramas and that Sophocles accompanied on the lyre the performance of one of his plays. Ex amples of ancient Greek music haye been pre served. One fragment contains 6 lines of a chorus in the 'Orestes) of Euripides. Two hymns to Apollo, composed in the 2d cen tury a.c., 'prize winners in musical contests, were discovered at Delphi in 1893 and have been published in modern form by Novello of London and New York. In 1899 a concert of ancient Greek music was given at Bremen, Ger many, and examples are frequently included in programs of historical music. (See MODE; TEM PERAMENT). Consult Ambros, 'Geschichte der Musik' (Leipzig 1888) ; Crusius, O., 'Die delphischen Hymen' (Gottingen 1894) ; Gevaert, 'La musique de l'antiquite (Ghent 1875), a standard work; 'La melopee (1895-96) ; Jan, K. von, 'Musici Scriptores' (Leipzig 1895) ; Johnson, 'Musical Pitch and the Measurement of Intervals among the Ancient Greeks' (Bal timore 1896) ; Monro, 'The Modes of Ancient Greek Music' (Oxford 1894) ; Reinach and Well (in the Bulletin de Correspondence Hellen ique, Paris 1894-95) • Romagnoli, E., 'La mu sica green' (Rome 1905).