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Humbled by this instrument - Posted - 10/26/2013: 13:43:01
So it seems we know little about the actual modes used? We know they played harps (or verisimilitudes) and tubas and such, but can we really know what Boethius was saying in his treatise on music of the time? The vielle wasn't yet around, so the Romans couldn't have been fideling around with their music; they were serious.
Swing - Posted - 10/26/2013: 14:30:29
- Nero played the fiddle if you remember
play happy
swing
GeeDubya - Posted - 10/26/2013: 15:09:46
The only thing (musical) Nero could have fiddled with was most likely a lyre. No fiddles in ancient Rome.
groundhogpeggy - Posted - 10/26/2013: 17:35:46
No fiddles? Well then, no wonder Rome fell apart!
withnall - Posted - 10/26/2013: 19:08:20
So my curiosity is killing me-what makes you ponder this question on a Saturday afternoon?
Ellie
Humbled by this instrument - Posted - 10/26/2013: 20:17:34
quote:
Originally posted by withnall
So my curiosity is killing me-what makes you ponder this question on a Saturday afternoon?
Ellie
For whatever reason, withnall, I was looking up "Earliest modes in Western music" or some such thing, as I had been playing Dorian tunes a lot lately, and I thought, "Well now, did folks play this mode around Alfred the Great's campfires or did they prefer a Phrygian afore their feast?" I mean...doesn't everyone wonder about these things? (And, no, from what we know about King Alfred, you did not want to be at one of his feasts, for he suffered seriously from Crohn's and would eat only curdled goat cheese and oatmeal gruel sans any salt or seasoning.) So... what was the question? Oh...so by and by I came upon Ancient Roman Music and the rest is...history.
fiddlepogo - Posted - 10/26/2013: 22:32:00
Roman in the Gloamin'!
Centurion's Joy!
Hannibal's Retreat!
The Red Haired House Slave.
Off to the Coliseum.
The Galley I Left Behind Me.
Greasy Toga.
Shakin' Down the Olives!
Edited by - fiddlepogo on 10/26/2013 22:33:51
fiddleiphile - Posted - 10/27/2013: 05:05:49
Nothing like an up-tempo Greasy Toga to get your orgy on!
Fiddler - Posted - 10/27/2013: 05:41:25
And don't forget that tune that was so crooked, no one could figure it out. The legend is that an oracle at Telmissus decreed that the next man coming into the city carrying a lyre should be king. Well, so happens a guy named Gordium showed up. Everyone loved the music that he made. He tied his cart to a tree and played and played. People of Telmissus learned these tunes and played them at every occasion. But there was one that no one could master. Everyone called it "Gordian's Revenge." It was so crooked that no one could find the beginning or the end. It was so crooked and tangled that it made unraveling the knot that Gordian used to tie his oxcart to a tree a simple task. That knot that no one could undo.
That's when Alexander showed up with his fiddle. With one mighty draw of his bow across the strings, he found the ends and played that tune. And he played it with vigor the rest of the day. There was much celebration. Zeus was so enthralled and happy that he sent a great storm. A lightning bolt struck the bow as Alexander was playing. This was a sign that he was to become the greatest fiddler of all time and would rule the entire Asian continent. And, that ox cart that was tied to the tree - Alexander just cut it with his sword. Why no one thought of that is a mystery, but everyone now says derisively that is was "Alexander's Solution." But this is another story.
No one knows the exact tune, having been lost to history. Only the name remains - "Alexander's Discovery." The only reference to the tune itself is contained in the legend. It is said it was in Phygrian mode, for Telmissus was in the land of Phygria,
Fiddler - Posted - 10/27/2013: 07:02:34
The tunes pogo listed above are but a mere sampling of those Gordium played.
Roman in the Gloamin'!
Centurion's Joy!
Hannibal's Retreat!
The Red Haired House Slave.
Off to the Coliseum.
The Galley I Left Behind Me.
Greasy Toga.
Shakin' Down the Olives!
There was also:
Cleopatra's Tune
Banks of the Nile
Edited by - Fiddler on 10/27/2013 07:03:26
GeeDubya - Posted - 10/27/2013: 07:38:24
Let's not forget:
All the Way to Gaulway
Caesar Crossing the Alps
boxbow - Posted - 10/27/2013: 08:50:14
Chariot Wheel
Vandal On a Stump
Fire on Olympus
OBS......(That dang thing has been around for, like, forever!)
Connie Williams - Posted - 10/27/2013: 15:28:07
Don't know much about ancient Roman melodies..
I am reasonably sure that HBO recycled the theme of Rome for
Carnivale. Or maybe the other way around, since I don't know
much about the chronology of miniseries either.
Edited by - Connie Williams on 10/27/2013 15:29:40
tonyelder - Posted - 10/27/2013: 16:38:29
quote:
Originally posted by GeeDubya
The only thing (musical) Nero could have fiddled with was most likely a lyre. No fiddles in ancient Rome.
Nope. I saw it in a movie. He was definitely playing a fiddle.
oldtimestrings - Posted - 10/27/2013: 19:14:21
Boethius, who lived at the very end of the Roman era, collated and transmitted most of what's in his musical treatise from ancient Greek sources. We actually know quite a bit about the ancient Greek modal system, but less about what the music really sounded like in performance. The ancient Greek modes corresponded to our modern concept of modes only in a vague way. Really they thought of most constructs in terms of tetrachords (four-note groups), which they divided up in various intervallic ways (one way included quarter tones). Furthermore, the names of the ancient Greek modes, which did derive from regions and ethnic groups in that part of the world (Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian), were mistranslated by Medieval scholars so that Dorian in the ancient world is not the same scale that we call Dorian today.
This is a really complex topic, but there is a lot of info out there if you're really curious. Cleonides is really a much more important figure in terms of modal theory in the ancient world than Boethius.
Humbled by this instrument - Posted - 10/27/2013: 20:13:20
quote:
Originally posted by oldtimestrings
Boethius, who lived at the very end of the Roman era, collated and transmitted most of what's in his musical treatise from ancient Greek sources. We actually know quite a bit about the ancient Greek modal system, but less about what the music really sounded like in performance. The ancient Greek modes corresponded to our modern concept of modes only in a vague way. Really they thought of most constructs in terms of tetrachords (four-note groups), which they divided up in various intervallic ways (one way included quarter tones). Furthermore, the names of the ancient Greek modes, which did derive from regions and ethnic groups in that part of the world (Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian), were mistranslated by Medieval scholars so that Dorian in the ancient world is not the same scale that we call Dorian today.
This is a really complex topic, but there is a lot of info out there if you're really curious. Cleonides is really a much more important figure in terms of modal theory in the ancient world than Boethius.
Cleonides's March to the Forum
Cold Phrygian Morning
Polly Put the Lydian on the Kettle
Humbled by this instrument - Posted - 10/28/2013: 04:28:08
quote:
Originally posted by oldtimestrings
Boethius, who lived at the very end of the Roman era, collated and transmitted most of what's in his musical treatise from ancient Greek sources. We actually know quite a bit about the ancient Greek modal system, but less about what the music really sounded like in performance. The ancient Greek modes corresponded to our modern concept of modes only in a vague way. Really they thought of most constructs in terms of tetrachords (four-note groups), which they divided up in various intervallic ways (one way included quarter tones). Furthermore, the names of the ancient Greek modes, which did derive from regions and ethnic groups in that part of the world (Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian), were mistranslated by Medieval scholars so that Dorian in the ancient world is not the same scale that we call Dorian today.
This is a really complex topic, but there is a lot of info out there if you're really curious. Cleonides is really a much more important figure in terms of modal theory in the ancient world than Boethius.
Okay okay, Oldtimestrings, I got off my duff and looked up Cleonides and was thusly directed to Aristoxenus. He talks about proper intervals (whatever they are--are they thirds or fourths or four and a halfs, the latter in some Indian music--I don't know) within the Iambic or Phrygian modes, but are these modes mentioned the ones we now know? Moreover, what were considered "good" intervals? Do we even know. I'm told Indian music features minor seconds, for instance, an interval which most of us consider entirely cacophonic--unless used as a passing motif (or if one is "off his rocker" and likes modern Classical music, of course.) Yet the biggest problem with what we know about Boethius or Cleonides or Aristoxenus is that outside of some names for our children, what practical info have they given us? Performance wise we know nothing! For all we know did they sound like the Carpenters when they broke out the harp and started singing?
fiddlepogo - Posted - 10/28/2013: 11:19:37
How could I have forgotten "Caesar Crossing the Rubicon" and "Waitin' for the Carthaginians"?
Well, I DON'T think they sounded much like the Carpenters.
It's just a guess, but all kidding aside, I'm guessing that much of the music the Romans listened to sounded more like Balkan or Greek music.
The Romans were great borrowers from the Greeks when it came to religion, and I suspect they were borrowers when it came to music as well.
I also think Balkan music is more conservative than innovative, so it's probably pretty ancient stuff. Anything from the Adriatic coast would have been very accessible to the Romans.
Culture areas tend to be progressive near the center (usually the capital and commercial centers) and conservative around the periphery. And the Balkans were more the periphery for the Roman culture area.
I think the reason Balkan music sounds so exotic is precisely because it's so ancient.
Edited by - fiddlepogo on 10/28/2013 11:30:23
kindascratchy - Posted - 10/28/2013: 16:53:28
One more...
Italian Washer Woman.
:)
bsed - Posted - 10/28/2013: 18:24:03
Appenine (spelling?) Highway Blues
Fiddler - Posted - 10/28/2013: 18:24:20
Cassius, Does Your Dog Bite?
Olympia Hornpipe
Don't Your Hear Olympia Moan?
Run, Mercury, Run
Waltz of the Nymphs
Humbled by this instrument - Posted - 10/29/2013: 06:22:55
quote:
Originally posted by bsed
Appenine (spelling?) Highway Blues
Prolly a lot of cross tuned tunes along the Appian.
oldtimestrings - Posted - 10/29/2013: 20:02:26
Ah, Aristixenus. Author of the oldest surviving treatises on music theory in the Western world. There's one on pitch, and another on rhythm. They survive as fragments of papyrus. I haven't looked at Aristoxenus's writing since graduate school (yes, I'm a musicologist), but the best I remember is that the "good" intervals are the perfect ones as defined by Pythagoras and his followers. Those intervals are the ones generated by simple ratios, 2:1 for the octave, 3:2 for the perfect 5th, and 4:3 for the perfect 4th.
Cleonides takes most of the credit in the ancient world for dividing up the gamut (spectrum of pitches) into useful modes (or tonoi), using what he called species: the number of possible ways to divide up a perfect interval. Essentially, his species-based tonoi were generated the same way we generate diatonic modes through a rotation or permutation of pitches. C-C all natural is Ionian; D-D all natural (the same notes) is Dorian because the intervals get rearranged; E-E all natural is Phrygian, and so forth. Yes, the Greeks had Lydian, Phrygian, Dorian, but they weren't the same scales that we call by those names today. To oversimplify, Medieval scholars made faulty translations from the ancient languages and got everything jumbled up.
As I wrote in my first post above, the ancient Greeks really thought about intervallic divisions over the span of a perfect 4th, the tetrachord. They had three ways to divide up the P4: the diatonic genus, the chromatic genus, and the enharmonic genus (these, too, are terms that we still use, but in very different ways). All three genera had semitones in them, but the enharmonic genus has quartertones (i.e., half of a half step).
Keep in mind, though, that there was almost certainly no sense of harmony in ancient Greece. Their word for music as a performed, sounding art (as opposed to the science and theory of music) was melos, from which we get the word melody. Greek music was entirely driven by melody. If there were accompaniments at all, they were probably either static drones or heterophonic variations on the melody sounding simultaneously.
We do have a fairly good idea of what the music may have sounded like, bearing in mind that it was probably played in a variety of ways back then. The real problem is that there's very little notated music that survives (and the notation is nothing at all like modern notation). There are about 40 fragments of music from ancient Greece, not a single one of them complete. Performances are reconstructions, and often fascinating.
OK, if you want to know any more, you'll have to take my class. ;-)
Fiddler - Posted - 10/29/2013: 20:48:27
Thanks, oldtimestrings! Great info. Having been a mtn dulcimer player for years, I delved in the world of modes, including some of the ancient history. Etymology of our language is fascinating to me and very interesting how so much of it has roots in Greek and Latin. Helps to know a little Greek and Roman and Egyptian mythology, too.
So, how does one register for your class?
mudbug - Posted - 10/30/2013: 02:47:30
Sure they had lyres and flutes, but it really didn't matter what they played. The floor show was the big hit. Young ladies in diaphanous clothing tinkling away on finger cymbals while they girated..............oh......I guess popular music really hasn't progressed that far after all.
Humbled by this instrument - Posted - 10/30/2013: 03:25:21
quote:
Originally posted by mudbug
Sure they had lyres and flutes, but it really didn't matter what they played. The floor show was the big hit. Young ladies in diaphanous clothing tinkling away on finger cymbals while they girated..............oh......I guess popular music really hasn't progressed that far after all.
Diaphonously clad dancers
Flailing 'cross the floor,
Tinkling on finger cymbals,
Gyrating all the more....
MikeyBoy - Posted - 10/30/2013: 04:35:50
I'm pretty sure it was all just I, IV, and V.
Fidleir - Posted - 10/30/2013: 06:35:59
Oldtimestrings - thank you for this! I love facts - as a history major, why wouldn't I? - anyway - really felt the need to tell you that along with Fiddler, I am most grateful you took the time to answer this seriously.
withnall - Posted - 10/30/2013: 06:55:25
quote:
Originally posted by oldtimestrings
OK, if you want to know any more, you'll have to take my class. ;-)
Ah, now if only I COULD!
youtube.........??
EggerRidgeBoy - Posted - 10/30/2013: 12:10:01
quote:
Originally posted by oldtimestrings
We do have a fairly good idea of what the music may have sounded like, bearing in mind that it was probably played in a variety of ways back then. The real problem is that there's very little notated music that survives (and the notation is nothing at all like modern notation). There are about 40 fragments of music from ancient Greece, not a single one of them complete. Performances are reconstructions, and often fascinating.
About seven or eight years ago I went to one such performance, at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC., which featured a reconstructed "water organ" (based on the hydraulis excavated at Dion in 1992). It was indeed quite fascinating, even if there was no way to really know exactly how close the music was to what one would have heard in ancient Greece. The person leading the show said in his introduction that we have a pretty good idea of the rhythm of the music, but not the melodies - or the exact opposite. I can't recall accurately now. Any idea which it would have been?
Edited by - EggerRidgeBoy on 10/30/2013 12:12:03
boxbow - Posted - 10/30/2013: 17:18:05
quote:
Originally posted by Humbled by this instrument
quote:
Originally posted by mudbug
Sure they had lyres and flutes, but it really didn't matter what they played. The floor show was the big hit. Young ladies in diaphanous clothing tinkling away on finger cymbals while they girated..............oh......I guess popular music really hasn't progressed that far after all.
Diaphonously clad dancers
Flailing 'cross the floor,
Tinkling on finger cymbals,
Gyrating all the more....
Progress is overrated. Gyrating nymphs, on the other hand, are timeless. Hence the finger cymbals, to help them keep the beat.
Fiddler - Posted - 10/30/2013: 19:59:59
Reminds me of the nursery rhyme:
- Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross
- To see a fine lady upon a white horse
- Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes
- She shall have music wherever she goes.
And, although not about a nymph, the hit song of 1909 about this Irishman, Jim O'Shea, who is stranded on a island in the East Indies, befriended by the natives because of his red hair and smile. He's got bells on his toes among other wondrous things. He then writes to his girlfriend, Rose McGee, trying to get her to join him. Is she seduced by such ornaments on men?
youtube.com/watch?v=2ATIlXGfLE8
oldtimestrings - Posted - 10/30/2013: 20:46:16
quote:
Originally posted by EggerRidgeBoy
About seven or eight years ago I went to one such performance, at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC., which featured a reconstructed "water organ" (based on the hydraulis excavated at Dion in 1992). It was indeed quite fascinating, even if there was no way to really know exactly how close the music was to what one would have heard in ancient Greece. The person leading the show said in his introduction that we have a pretty good idea of the rhythm of the music, but not the melodies - or the exact opposite. I can't recall accurately now. Any idea which it would have been?
We know more about the pitches than the rhythm. Pitches are precise, and there's a lot of written info from ancient Greece about pitches, intervals, etc. The rhythmic notation varies from one fragment to another, but it's all kind of vague. One thing is certain, though, that since basically all ancient Greek music was vocal, the musical rhythms were determined by the poetic meter and its stress patterns.
Thanks to those who enjoyed my post. I'm glad it was helpful. It's just the tip of a fascinating but complex iceberg -- and not my specialty as a scholar. I teach at a music conservatory, so if you want to enroll, you'll have to audition first, then cough up about $30K per year in tuition. 
No, I don't set the rates, and no, I certainly ain't getting rich in this line of work. [Please, please, please, let's not turn this thread into a discussion of college costs. Believe me, it's as distressing to those of us in higher education as to anyone. And I'm a parent, too.]
lrhamp - Posted - 11/01/2013: 10:47:17
Oh Yes--- there was also "Going up Cannae" that Bill's tune is derived from.
boxbow - Posted - 11/01/2013: 13:44:45
quote:
Originally posted by GeeDubya
Caesar Crossing the Alps
AKA Julius Crossing the Rubicon
Lee Mysliwiec - Posted - 12/08/2013: 10:16:33
quote:
Originally posted by fiddlepogo
Roman in the Gloamin'!
Centurion's Joy!
Hannibal's Retreat!
The Red Haired House Slave.
Off to the Coliseum.
The Galley I Left Behind Me.
Greasy Toga.
Shakin' Down the Olives!
You are Nuts.. Do you realize that? (wink)
DeamhanFola - Posted - 12/08/2013: 11:49:10
quote:
Originally posted by oldtimestrings
Ah, Aristixenus. Author of the oldest surviving treatises on music theory in the Western world. There's one on pitch, and another on rhythm. They survive as fragments of papyrus. I haven't looked at Aristoxenus's writing since graduate school (yes, I'm a musicologist), but the best I remember is that the "good" intervals are the perfect ones as defined by Pythagoras and his followers. Those intervals are the ones generated by simple ratios, 2:1 for the octave, 3:2 for the perfect 5th, and 4:3 for the perfect 4th.
Cleonides takes most of the credit in the ancient world for dividing up the gamut (spectrum of pitches) into useful modes (or tonoi), using what he called species: the number of possible ways to divide up a perfect interval. Essentially, his species-based tonoi were generated the same way we generate diatonic modes through a rotation or permutation of pitches. C-C all natural is Ionian; D-D all natural (the same notes) is Dorian because the intervals get rearranged; E-E all natural is Phrygian, and so forth. Yes, the Greeks had Lydian, Phrygian, Dorian, but they weren't the same scales that we call by those names today. To oversimplify, Medieval scholars made faulty translations from the ancient languages and got everything jumbled up.
As I wrote in my first post above, the ancient Greeks really thought about intervallic divisions over the span of a perfect 4th, the tetrachord. They had three ways to divide up the P4: the diatonic genus, the chromatic genus, and the enharmonic genus (these, too, are terms that we still use, but in very different ways). All three genera had semitones in them, but the enharmonic genus has quartertones (i.e., half of a half step).
Keep in mind, though, that there was almost certainly no sense of harmony in ancient Greece. Their word for music as a performed, sounding art (as opposed to the science and theory of music) was melos, from which we get the word melody. Greek music was entirely driven by melody. If there were accompaniments at all, they were probably either static drones or heterophonic variations on the melody sounding simultaneously.
We do have a fairly good idea of what the music may have sounded like, bearing in mind that it was probably played in a variety of ways back then. The real problem is that there's very little notated music that survives (and the notation is nothing at all like modern notation). There are about 40 fragments of music from ancient Greece, not a single one of them complete. Performances are reconstructions, and often fascinating.
OK, if you want to know any more, you'll have to take my class. ;-)
What I really want to know is if the Aeolian harp played in Aeolian mode.
fiddlepogo - Posted - 12/08/2013: 18:32:00
quote:
Originally posted by leemysliwiec
quote:
Originally posted by fiddlepogo
Roman in the Gloamin'!
Centurion's Joy!
Hannibal's Retreat!
The Red Haired House Slave.
Off to the Coliseum.
The Galley I Left Behind Me.
Greasy Toga.
Shakin' Down the Olives!
You are Nuts.. Do you realize that? (wink)
Quirky? Yes!
Eccentric? Yes!
Nuts? Probably not!
My PSAT test (skills test taken at age 14 in the US... preparation for the better known SAT test)
clued me in that I was going to have an interesting life.
Verbal Reasoning was 99th percentile, Spelling was 99th percentile, and History Reading was 98th percentile.
And Math was 15th percentile and Clerical Speed and Accuracy was 20th percentile!!!
None of my classmates whose results I could see had scores even resembling mine.
A few years back, I discovered I matched most of the Dyscalculia (also known as Math Disability) checklist, which explains the abundant language skills and the dearth of math related ones.... and a few other things as well... like musical giftedness.... chronic tardiness, and two left feet!
At some point, I realized it's impossible to fit in with the crowd.... given my combo of skills and disabilities, I either excel at something, or I'm UTTERLY HOPELESS!
So.... I might as well cultivate my eccentricities a bit, especially since some find it entertaining.
For instance, the list you commented on can be easily explained by the high Verbal Reasoning coupled with the high History Reading, no?
Oh yeah... I have ANOTHER syndrome going on that contributes to my idiosyncratic ways:
I'm an Adult Child of an Alcoholic Dysfunctional Family.
They say "Children of Alcoholics don't know what normal is!"
And I've pondered why that seems to be the case. Both my parents were FUNCTIONING alcoholics, so Dad went to work, and "brought home the bacon", but he did so aided by martini lunches, and a martini or two on the way home, and beer before dinner and maybe a martini later in the evening. And my mom kept house... and was similarly aided by visits to the liquor cabinet (In hindsight I think a lot of the Coca Cola she drank was spiked with somethingorother alcoholic). Anyway, a lot of major bases managed to get covered, and we maintained some veneer of normalcy, but what I think happened was that they often missed teachable moments because they were too pleasantly pickled to recognize them... and fueled by alcohol, disagreements often meant Dad going ballistic. In people with more normal family backgrounds, there seems to be a lot more subtle social negotiating going on, and my family's dynamics left me TOTALLY unprepared for that.
So.... if I seem to "march to the beat of a different drummer".... there are some significant reasons for that!
Edited by - fiddlepogo on 12/08/2013 18:35:37
amwildman - Posted - 12/08/2013: 19:25:14
How do we know some form of bowed instrument wasn't around back then? Pretty sure the working class was illiterate, and as such very little written material would have survived. Personally, I find it hard to believe that mankind has been on the planet for thousands of years and the only two instruments that were developed until medieval times were drum and harp. Folk music has always been a separate tradition from the music of the nobility. At least the upper class was literate so that some things survived. Unfortunately, you have to get close to the end of the 19th century to know much about most traditional music. Heck, even in America, anything before the mid-19th century seems to be pretty sparse.
kindascratchy - Posted - 12/11/2013: 17:41:06
Flutes? I would have guessed drums would be the oldest.
Humbled by this instrument - Posted - 12/12/2013: 06:32:29
quote:
Originally posted by kindascratchy
Flutes? I would have guessed drums would be the oldest.
Flutes and drums came about almost simultaneously. First we had Flautius Cacophonus developing a wooden flute, overlooking Rome in its early days. He played--or tried to--"Roman in the Gloamin'"--but sounded so bad that Flavius Flatulaticus grabbed the wooden flute and began pounding it about, trying to smash it; however, Flaulaticus serendipitously hit the flute upon a hollowed table covered with a taut skin of some sort and bam bam da da dum a din din...'twas the birth of rock and roll.
With a strict, heartfelt attention to historical accuracy,
Humbled
Edited by - Humbled by this instrument on 12/12/2013 06:42:31
Larry Rutledge - Posted - 12/12/2013: 07:12:31
You folks need to RUN to Sam's and buy a roll of that heavy duty aluminum foil, and start making new hats!
Swing - Posted - 12/12/2013: 08:33:22
Two points for Larry!
Play Happy
Swing
