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Antiquity - music in the ancient world (36,000 BCE to 5th century).
The Harmony of the Spheres
The idea that there is actually music happening in the cosmos (the universe)
When we are on earth, we make music to resemble heaven’s music when we knew it before we were on earth.
The Temple of Music - Robert Fludd, (1574-1637). Robert Fludd was a musician and composer, physician, writer and philosopher. He wrote a book in 1617-1619 called Utriusque Cosmi maioris salicet et minoris metaphysica meaning basically, a history of the universe. There is a picture included called “The Temple of Music” which is a famous breakdown of how music works and its extensiveness. The Temple of Music includes the work of Pythagorus who came up with the musical ratio of frequencies.
Microcasm/macrocasm
gammut - (gamma + ut = gammut) - all the white notes between low G to high G with exception of Bb. The only pitches that were considered ‘real’ were in the span of the human voice. G2-G5 These notes were musica rechta or real music.
hexachord - six note patterns in music used frequently. All solfege notes except ‘ti.’ There were only three hexachords allowed - tonic, subdominant and dominant.
ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la
Apollo/Dionysius -
Apollo was the God of music - the lute was given to him from his younger brother, Hermes
Dionysius was the God of drinking and being merry. He would say that music is emotion and not just study.
We technically do not have information before 2300 BCE. From 2300 and on, we can piece together ideas of what music was to ancient cultures. The invention of writing assures many assumptions.
Mesopotamia (Sumer, Akkad, Babylon - today Iraq)
This holds our earliest information of music. These cultures used many instruments that were later found.
Four Ways We Know of Ancient Music
-1. Fragments of instruments have survived
-1. iconography - cave paintings, vase paintings, sculptures
-1. writings about music that have survived. Consisted of rituals and ceremony traditions
-1. Notated scores. Not many have made it into modern times.
Quick discrepancy of genres: a genre is a type or classification: each genre has it’s own form.
Ex. Fruit - 2 genres of fruit are apples and oranges.
Egypt
Particular Egyptian genre is the hymn. A Hymn is a song in praise of a god or gods. Early Christian writers took this genre, erased the definitive word ‘gods‘ and applied it to Christianity. This goes back about two millennia BCE. A certain woman wrote hymns to her moon goddess. She was the first known hymn composer.
Greece, Rome, Judea - Main cultures because the three fused musical ideas which moved into medieval period and have formed our musical culture.
Rome - contributed the least and borrowed from ancient Greece. The Romans used music for
propaganda and prestige
Judea - Psalms - 150 approximately. Some were cheerful, some contrite. Fundamental words that
were borrowed from the Jews. Later became a big part of Western Christian liturgy.
psalmody - the practice of singing songs
antiphonal - two choirs, opposing choirs - became popular in Western Music (2 choirs or solo v.
choir)
Greece - good at writing down their ideas about music. HIGHLY developed musical culture.
Greeks codified musical information and cultured it.
Boethius - wrote a lot about Greek music. The theory of ancient Greece that he documented
became the theory we use today (ex. scales and intervals).
Instruments - used mostly percussion, harps, horns, lyre, and kithara (large lyre), aulos (wind
instrument with double tubes and one reed. Each tube had holes. Either move fingers, vary air
speed or move reed in/out of mouth to change pitch. Instrument has a plangent or nasal sound).
Anyone was allowed to play instruments but women could never compete and public
performance was discouraged.
virtuosos - slaves were often the best performers. The best performers were those who could
improvise.
Musical theater - the aulos was a favorite instrument of musical theater. Euripides wrote many
plays with aulos parts to accompany the actors.
Theory - the Greeks liked to divide by 4 note scales called tetrachords. All tetrachords are a
perfect fourth apart. Three ways to do it:
•Diatonic genus - for people without intellectual understanding
•Chromatic
•Enharmonic - E C Cb B - used quarter tones
The significance is that the music sounds and means something different. Written for
audiences.
Ancient Greece had great ideas about music but only 45 texts survived. Music was often taught
by rote or created through improvisation.
Perfect melos - The most meaningful spiritual music - it wasn’t only sound but good text and dance. This was done to honor the gods. The music has disappeared because the monotheists
destroyed it in trying to spread Christianity to the Greeks. They burned many songs, books,
documents because these documents were created to honor the non-Christian God.
Music in the Middle Ages - Themes and Main Concepts
(c. 5th century to 11th century CE) - AKA the Dark Ages
Ideas that Westerners borrowed:
-1. Music is a terrific accompaniment for religious rite.
Litergy/rite - anything that one does, says, sings, wears in the celebration of a person’s religious beliefs.
By 1000 CE, music becomes a fixed liturgy in religion and is very important to religion.
-1. Music is a great form of entertainment
-1. Music is essential to education
Aristotle and Plato both defended music education. Plato said that in order to be fully educated, you need music and physical training.
-1. Music has a strong effect on our souls. Different music alters our behavior. It affects our ethical status.
monophonic - a musical texture used where the emphasis is on the melody.
-1. the melody and words are CLOSELY linked
-1. the system of musical modes is used (borrowed from the Greeks)
DARK AGES -
Rome eventually collapsed - the North crushed Roman civilization. When Rome fell, so did its essentials to having a successful civilization.
Rome did have:
•education
•centralized government
•money
•art
•culture
•peace
These all disappeared when Rome fell. Tribal centers were set up in Rome. There was a lot of war, starvation, pestilence, declining population, cold, agricultural failure.
Tribes were French, English, Italian, South Italian/Greeks, Spanish (Islam), Milan
Because of this, people sent their sons to monasteries to learn and become educated. They ‘belonged’ to the church.
St. Benedict established the “Rule of St. Benedict” which said that Humanity will survive by and because of the church communities. Benedict laid out his ground plan - Place students in private or secluded areas. Clothes and food would be provided and planned. (Ex. certain clothes worn, food was rationed by when and what would be eaten).
This was thought of not as a haven but as employment. Their jobs were to pray all day for the salvation of mankind. Schedules were even established. At certain times, one would sing certain prayers. This is the creation of the MASS.
MASS was held every day. It consisted of:
PSALMS - Celebrate the diving offices
MATINS - Midnight mass
LAUDS - Break (though sometimes mass would be held anyway)
PRIME - (9am - 9:15)
TERCE - (noon)
SEXT - (3pm)
NONE - (6pm)
VESPERS - (Sundown)
COMPLINE - (9pm or before bed)
*Psalms usually were learned by rote or oral transmission.
Proper and Ordinary - proper - main musical events the music and chant that change every single day. For each day of the year there are different propers) and are divided by things that are the same for every single mass (ordinary, where the words stay the same every day).
Proper Chants - beautiful and different actions that happen in the mass. Proper
Byzantine rite - Orthodox East - Has its own music (Greeks, later Russians, Serbians, Poles) have their own liturgy. Started in the middle ages and continues to the present.
Gregorian Chant - That music that is sung in the liturgy of the Roman Church. First major genre. There are different names but they all mean Gregorian Chant (ex. chant, plain chant).
Western Rites - WHY CHANT?? Around the year 800 CE. Some important and unknown person decided it would be a great idea for everyone to sing the same thing at the same time, every single day. This is a basic understanding of Gregorian Chant.
WHY GREGORIAN? What’s in a name?
Pope Gregory the Great - He was well known for saving Rome from the dark ages. He started sanitation. Gregory was the pope for 14 years and worked hard on standardized singing. Because he was such a well known and respected pope, people in the Middle Ages assumed that Gregory wrote the chants.
“One day a little white dove (Holy Spirit) sat on Gregory’s shoulder and sang to him the thousands of chants”
Solesmes - French monastery - At the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century, the monks wanted to look at every chant that existed in Europe, look at all the different versions and decide which were the best. They published the Liber Visualis - it had the most frequently used chants - they repeat the story of pope Gregory in this book.
TRIBES WHO TOOK OVER ROME: These tribes became Christians with their own Separate rites, saints, prayers, music. There was no uniformity whatsoever. The rites were:
Gallicam Rite - French - Loved dramas and plays
Sarum/Celtic Rite - English
Old Roman Rite - Italian
Beneventien Rite - S. Italian/Greeks
Mozarabic Rite - Spanish (Islam)
Ambrosian Rite - Milan
Music for these no longer survive and are only alive because of oral transmission.
Legend of St Agustum:
There is a church in Milan where St. Ambrose was singing Ambrosian Chant. A pagan man walked by and just by listening, he feels a deep conviction and converts to Christianity. This man was St. Agustum. Because the chant converted him, the Ambrosian chant is allowed to stay and to this day, it is still used in Milan.
The rest of these chants were destroyed. Gregorian chants were then made universal.
Charlemagne - From the Holy Roman Empire. Becomes emperor of Italy in 800CE. His job is to bring these Rites/populations into one order. Because of him, music lost a lot of diversity and variety. Individual genres that were once gems were disposed of. It was a 200 year project.
Church Modes: Example is Key of C
Medieval Name / Final Note / Reciting Tone / Renaissance NameProtus:
Authentic - D to D
Plagal - A to A / D / Authentic - A
Plagal - F / Dorian
Hypodorian
Deuterus:
Authentic - E to E
Plagal - B to B / E / Authentic - C
Plagal - A / Phrygian
Hypophrygian
Tritus:
Authentic - F to F
Plagal - C to C / F / Authentic - C
Plagal - A / Lydian
Hypolydian
Tetrardus:
Authentic - G to G
Plagal - D to D / G / Authentic - D
Plagal - C / Mixolydian
Hypomixolydian
The authentic mode of any of these will have the final at the bottom. The range will be about 9 notes above the final.
In plagal mode, you can go under the final by about four notes but you can only go up four notes. The mode feels different.
Range tells us which mode we are in.
Reciting Tone - Look at the final note and see if the music you’re singing has a lot of it - Ex. If the final note is F and there are many F’s sung throughout the piece, then the mode is hypodorian.
When composers wrote Renaissance music, they would make the musician aware of what mode it was in.
Franco-Roman - This is Gregorian Chant.
Charlemagne sent French singers to Rome to learn new chants. The chants were minutely changed due to the fact that the singers were learning by rote. This is when they decided that written music is essential to have accurate music passed on.
850CE - Musica Enchiradis - handbook written about music - like a method book. Teaches one how to sing chant, rhythm, modes, and more. This is the earliest kind of polyphony - it teaches parallel organum.
Development of Music Notation - (800 CE - 1000 CE) - dealing only with pitches right now, not rhythm.
1. Early 9th Century - Musical Symbols- Called neumes (notes), would write unheighted music on the page - the text would be written and the melodic contour would be written above the text. Rhythm was not distinguished by neumes, only melody. It was not exact but was used to jog the singer’s memory after having learned a piece.
-1. First half of 11th Century - heighted neumes were established. One to two lines that the neumes travel around. There were two colored lines, like a staff.
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Yellow line indicates C, Red line indicates F
-1. Second half of 11th Century - 4 line staff is established - the beginning of real melodic notation
-1. Somewhere around 1050 CE, Guido d’Arezzo created the Guidonian hand - he was a musician and teacher of choir boys. He figured out a way for them to sing melodies without them ever knowing the melody before.
-1. 12th Century - neumes are at square notation - everyone has accepted this form of notation, but there is still no rhythmic orientation