Ancient Greek Music

Epigram

Verse wittily contrasting ideas

Where was the epitaph of seikilos inscribed

Southwestern turkey

Protos chronos

One unit of duration (eight note)

Disme (_)

Two units

Trisme: horizontal dash with a stroke

Three units

Patterns of the epitaph

• four phrases following four distinct lines of music

• Each phrase is 12 units

• Follows rhythms of the text

Musical structure

• repeating same interval step lower or higher

• Moving up and down the scale

• Repeating notes

Greek views of music

• music is divinely healing which was why tomfoolery was ill tolerated

• Influence of music came from Christian church after the fall of Rome

• Music was largely improvised

• Monophonic and heterotrophs

• Building blocks of classical music