Musical erasPrehistoricAncient (before 500 AD)Early (5001760)Common practice (16001900)Modern and contemporary (1900present)

Egyptian lute players. Fresco fromthe tomb of Nebamun, a nobleman inthe 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt(c. 1350 BC).

Ancient musicFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ancient music is music that developed in literate cultures,replacing prehistoric music. Ancient music refers to thevarious musical systems that were developed across variousgeographical regions such as Mesopotamia, India, Persia,Egypt, China, Greece and Rome. Ancient music isdesignated by the characterization of the basic notes andscales. It may have been transmitted through oral or writtensystems.

Contents1 Egypt2 Mesopotamia

2.1 The harps of Ur2.2 Hurrian music

3 Ancient India4 Ancient China5 Ancient Greece6 Ancient Rome7 See also8 References9 External links

EgyptMusic has been an integral part of Egyptian culture since antiquity.The ancient Egyptians credited one of the powerful gods Hathorwith the invention of music, which Osiris in turn used as part of hiseffort to civilize the world. The earliest material and representationalevidence of Egyptian musical instruments dates to the Predynasticperiod, but the evidence is more securely attested in tomb paintingsfrom the Old Kingdom (c. 25752134 BC) when harps, end-blownflutes (held diagonally), and single and double pipes of the clarinettype (with single reeds) were played (Anderson, Castelo-Branco,and Danielson 2001; Anon. 1999). Percussion instruments,and luteswere added to orchestras by the Middle Kingdom. Cymbals (Anon.2003). Egyptian folk music, including the traditional Sufi dhikrrituals, are the closest contemporary music genre to ancient Egyptianmusic, having preserved many of its features, rhythms, andinstruments (Hickmann 1957,; Anon. 1960,). Although experimentshave been carried out with surviving Egyptian instruments (on the spacing of holes in flutes and reed pipes,and attempts to reconstruct the stringing of lyres, harps, and lutes), only the Tutankhamun trumpets andsome percussion instruments yield any secure idea of how ancient Egyptian instruments sounded. None ofthe many theories that have been formulated have any adequate foundation (Anderson, Castelo-Branco,

and Danielson 2001).

MesopotamiaIn 1986, Anne Draffkorn Kilmer from the University of California at Berkeley published her deciphermentof a cuneiform tablet from Nippur dated to about 2000 BCE. She demonstrated that they representfragmentary instructions for performing music, that the music was composed in harmonies of thirds, andthat it was also written using a diatonic scale (Kilmer 1986). The notation in that tablet was not asdeveloped as the notation in the later cuneiform tablet dated to about 1250 BCE (Kilmer 1965). Theinterpretation of the notation system is still controversial, but it is clear that the notation indicates the namesof strings on a lyre, and its tuning is described in other tablets (West 1994). These tablets represent theearliest recorded melodies, though fragmentary, from anywhere in the world (West 1994).

The harps of UrIn 1929, Leonard Woolley discovered pieces of four harps while excavating in the ruins of the ancient cityof Ur, located in what was Ancient Mesopotamia and is contemporary Iraq. Some of the fragments are nowlocated at the University of Pennsylvania, in the British Museum in London, and in Baghdad. They havebeen dated to 2,750 BCE. Various reconstructions have been attempted, but none have been totallysatisfactory. Depending on various definitions, they could be classed as lyres rather than harps. The mostfamous is the bull-headed harp, held in Baghdad. The second Iraqi War led to the destruction of the bull-head lyre (Anon. 2005).

Hurrian musicAmong the Hurrian texts from Ugarit are some of the oldest known instances of written music, dating fromc.1400 BCE and including one substantially complete song. A reconstruction of this hymn is presented atthe Urkesh webpage (http://128.97.6.202/urkeshpublic/music.htm).

Ancient IndiaMusical instruments, such as the seven-holed flute and various types of stringed instruments have beenrecovered from the Indus valley civilization archaeological sites.

The Samaveda consists of a collection (samhita) of hymns, portions of hymns, and detached verses, all but75 taken from the Rigveda, to be sung, using specifically indicated melodies called Samagana, by Udgatarpriests at sacrifices in which the juice of the Soma plant, clarified and mixed with milk and otheringredients, is offered in libation to various deities. In ancient India, memorization of the sacred Vedasincluded up to eleven forms of recitation of the same text.

The Ntya Shastra is an ancient Indian treatise on the performing arts, encompassing theatre, dance andmusic. It was written at an uncertain date in classical India (between 200 BCE and 200 CE). The NatyaShastra is based upon the much older Natya Veda which contained 36000 slokas (Ghosh 2002, 2).Unfortunately there are no surviving copies of the Natya Veda. There are scholars who believe that it mayhave been written by various authors at different times. The most authoritative commentary on the NatyaShastra is Abhinavabharati by Abhinava Gupta.

While much of the discussion of music in the Natyashastra focuses on musical instruments, it alsoemphasizes several theoretical aspects that remained fundamental to Indian music:

1. Establishment of Shadja as the first, defining note of the scale or grama.

A famous Tang Dynasty (618907)qin, the "Jiu Xiao Huan Pei"

Symposium scene, c. 490 BCE

2. Two Principles of Consonance: The first principle states that there exists a fundamental note in themusical scale which is Avinashi (") and Avilopi (") that is, the note is ever-presentand unchanging. The second principle, often treated as law, states that there exists a naturalconsonance between notes; the best between Shadja and Tar Shadja, the next best between Shadjaand Pancham.

3. The Natyashastra also suggests the notion of musical modes or jatis which are the origin of thenotion of the modern melodic structures known as ragas. Their role in invoking emotions areemphasized; thus compositions emphasizing the notes gandhara or rishabha are said to be related totragedy (karuna rasa) whereas rishabha is to be emphasized for evoking heroism (vIra rasa).

Jatis are elaborated in greater detail in the text Dattilam, composed around the same time as theNatyashastra.

Ancient ChinaLegend has it that the qin, the most revered of all Chinese musicalinstruments, has a history of about 5,000 years. This legend statesthat the legendary figures of China's pre-history Fuxi, Shennongand Huang Di, the "Yellow Emperor" were involved in itscreation. Nearly all qin books and tablature collections publishedprior to the twentieth century state this as the actual origins of theqin (Yin n.d., 110), although this is now presently viewed asmythology. It is mentioned in Chinese writings dating back nearly 3,000 years, and examples have beenfound in tombs from about 2,500 years ago. The exact origins of the qin is still a very much continuingsubject of debate over the past few decades.

Ancient GreeceAncient Greek musicians developed their own robust system ofmusical notation. The system was not widely used among Greekmusicians, but nonetheless a modest corpus of notated musicremains from Ancient Greece and Rome. The epics of Homer wereoriginally sung with instrumental accompaniment, but no notatedmelodies from Homer are known. Several complete songs exist inancient Greek musical notation. Three complete hymns byMesomedes of Crete (2nd century CE) exist in manuscript. Inaddition, many fragments of Greek music are extant, includingfragments from tragedy, among them a choral song by Euripides forhis Orestes and an instrumental intermezzo from Sophocles' Ajax.

Some fragments of Greek music, such as the Orestes fragment, clearly call for more than one note to besounded at the same time. Greek sources occasionally refer to the technique of playing more than one noteat the same time. In addition, double pipes, such as used by the Greeks and Persians, and ancient bagpipes,as well as a review of ancient drawings on vases and walls, etc., and ancient writings (such as in Aristotle,Problems, Book XIX.12) which described musical techniques of the time, all indicate harmony existed.

Ancient RomeThe music of ancient Rome borrowed heavily from the music of the cultures that were conquered by theempire, including music of Greece, Egypt, and Persia. Music was incorporated into many areas of Roman

life including the military, entertainment in the Roman theater, religious ceremonies and practices, and"almost all public/civic occasions."

The philosopher-theorist Boethius was one of the best known musicians of the time, although he wasn't amusician at all, with his work being regarded as a stepping stone during the Latin Middle Ages and theMedieval period. His work The Principles of Music (better-known under the title De institutione musica)divided music into three types: Musica mundana (music of the universe), musica humana (music of humanbeings), and musica instrumentalis (instrumental music). Additionally, his work the Quadrivium was usedto understand dissonance and consonance in music (Anon. 2001).

See alsoPrehistoric musicRavanahatha

ReferencesAnderson, Robert, Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco, and Virginia Danielson. "Egypt, Arab Republicof (Jumhuriyat Misr al-Arabiya)". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, secondedition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001.Anon. "Rythme, mtre et mesure de la musique instrumentale et vocale des anciens Egyptiens." ActaMusicologica 32, no. 1 (JanuaryMarch 1960): 1122.Anon. "Music in Ancient Egypt(http://www.umich.edu/~kelseydb/Exhibits/MIRE/Introduction/AncientEgypt/AncientEgypt.html)".Music in Roman Egypt: An Exhibition at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology 19 March19December 1999 (accessed 28 June 2014).Anon. "Music of Ancient Rome" (http://www.aug.edu/~cshotwel/2001.Rome.htm). Georgia RegentsUniversity Augusta (2001). Retrieved 2013-05-28.Anon. "Cymbals: UC 33268 (http://www.digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk/metal/uc33268.html)". UniversityCollege London website, 2003 (accessed 28 June 2014).Anon., 'Ancient Iraqi Harp Reproduced by Liverpool Engineers(http://web.archive.org/web/20100701185936/http://www.liv.ac.uk/news/press_releases/2005/07/lyre_of_ur.htm)'. University of Liverpool website (28 July 2005). Archive from 1 July 2010 (Accessed 21May 2013).Ghosh, Manomohan (ed.), Natyasastra: Ascribed to Bharata-Muni [II,]1 Translation. Chapters I-XXVII: A Treatise on Ancient Indian Dramaturgy and Histrionics, completely translated for the firsttime from the original Sanskrit with an introduction, various notes, and index. The ChowkhambaSanskrit Studies 118 [part 3] (Varanasi: Chowkhambha Sanskrit Series Office2002). ISBN 81-7080-076-5.Hickmann, Hans. "Un Zikr Dans le Mastaba de Debhen, Guzah (IVme Dynastie)." Journal of theInternational Folk Music Council 9 (1957): 59-62.Kilmer, Anne Draffkorn, 'The Strings of Musical Instruments: their Names, Numbers, andSignificance', Studies in Honor of Benno Landsberger = Assyriological Studies xvi (1965), 26168.Kilmer, Anne Draffkorn, and Miguel Civil. 'Old Babylonian Musical Instructions Relating toHymnody', Journal of Cuneiform Studies, xxxviii (1986), 9498.West, M. L., 'The Babylonian Musical Notation and the Hurrian Melodic Texts', Music & Letters,lxxv, no. 2 (May 1994), 16179.Yin, Wei. n.d. Zhongguo Qinshi Yanyi .

External links

Reconstructed bone flutes, sound sample and playing instructions.(http://www.ancientinstruments.co.uk)International Study Group on Music Archaeology (http://www.musicarchaeology.org/)Musica Romana: Ensemble for ancient music (http://www.musica-romana.de/)Ancient Greek music on original instruments : Daimonia Nymphe(http://www.myspace.com/daemonianymphemyspace)Ensemble Krylos (http://www.kerylos.fr/index_en.php), a music group led by scholar Annie Blisand dedicated to the recreation of ancient Greek and Roman music.

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Categories: Ancient music

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