Ancient music

Last updated

Bishapur zan, AO 26169.jpg
Hu Bei Bo Wu Guan Ceng Hou Yi Bian Zhong .jpg
Bonampak painting+contrast.jpg
Clockwise, from top left:

Ancient music refers to the musical cultures and practices that developed in the literate civilizations of the ancient world, succeeding the music of prehistoric societies and lasting until the Post-classical era. Major centers of ancient music developed in China (the Shang, Zhou, Qin and Han dynasties), Egypt (the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms), Greece (the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods), India (the Maurya, Shunga, Kanva, Kushan, Satavahana and Gupta dynasties), Iran/Persia (the Median, Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Empires), the Maya civilization, Mesopotamia, and Rome (the Roman Republic and Empire). Though extremely diverse, the music of ancient civilizations is frequently characterized by monophony, improvisation, and the dominance of text in musical settings. [1]

Contents

Overview

Written musical notation was the first advent of a literate society. During the time of prehistoric music, people had a tendency to primarily express their music and ideas through oral means. However, with the rise of social classes, many European and Asian societies regarded literacy as superior to illiteracy, which caused people to begin writing down their musical notations. This made music evolve from simply hearing music and transmitting it orally, to keeping records and personal interpretations of musical themes. [2] [3] [4]

Regions

Egypt

Egyptian lute players. Fresco from the tomb of Nebamun, a nobleman in the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt (c. 1350 BCE). Egyptian lute players 001.jpg
Egyptian lute players. Fresco from the tomb of Nebamun, a nobleman in the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt (c. 1350 BCE).

Music has been an integral part of Egyptian culture since antiquity. The ancient Egyptians credited the goddess Bat with the invention of music; though she was later syncretized with another goddess, Hathor.[ citation needed ] Osiris used Hathor's music to civilize the world. The earliest material and representational evidence of Egyptian musical instruments dates to the Predynastic period, but the evidence is more securely attested in tomb paintings from the Old Kingdom (c. 2575–2134 BCE) when harps, end-blown flutes (held diagonally), and single and double pipes of the clarinet type (with single reeds) were played. [5] [6] [7] [8] [ page needed ] Percussion instruments, and lutes were added to orchestras by the Middle Kingdom. Bronze cymbals dating from the Roman period (30 BCE–641 CE) have been found in a tomb on a site near Naucratis. [9] [10] [ page needed ] Although experiments have 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 and some percussion instruments yield any secure idea of how ancient Egyptian instruments sounded. [11] [ page needed ] None of the many theories that have been formulated have any adequate foundation. [5] [12] [ page needed ]

Mesopotamia

In 1986, Anne Draffkorn Kilmer, [13] professor of ancient history and Mediterranean archaeology at the University of California, Berkeley, published her decipherment of a cuneiform tablet, dating back to 2000 BCE from Nippur, one of the most ancient Sumerian cities. She claimed that the tablet contained fragmentary instructions for performing and composing music in harmonies of thirds, and was written using a diatonic scale. [14] The notation in the first tablet was not as developed as the notation in the later cuneiform Hurrian tablets from Ugarit, dated by Kilmer to about 1250 BCE. [15] The interpretation of the notation system is still controversial (at least five rival interpretations have been published), but it is clear that the notation indicates the names of strings on a lyre, and its tuning is described in other tablets. These tablets represent the earliest recorded melodies, though fragmentary, from anywhere in the world. [16]

Harps of Ur

In 1929, Leonard Woolley discovered pieces of four different harps while excavating the ruins of the ancient city Ur, located in what was Ancient Mesopotamia and what is now contemporary Iraq. The fragments have been dated to 2750 BCE and some are now located at the University of Pennsylvania, the British Museum in London, and in Baghdad. Various reconstructions and restorations of the instruments have been attempted, but it was observed by many that none have been completely satisfactory. Depending on various definitions, they could be classified as lyres rather than harps, [17] the most famous being the bull-headed harp, held in Baghdad. However, the Iraq War in 2003 led to the destruction of the bull-head lyre by looters. [18]

Hurrian music

Among the Hurrian texts from Ugarit are some of the oldest known instances of written music, dating from c. 1400 BCE and including one substantially complete song. [19]

India

The Samaveda consists of a collection (samhita) of hymns, portions of hymns, and detached verses, all but 75 taken from the Rigveda, to be sung, using specifically indicated melodies called Samagana , by Udgatar priests at sacrifices in which the juice of the soma plant, clarified and mixed with milk and other ingredients, is offered in libation to various deities. [20] [ page needed ] In ancient India, memorization of the sacred Vedas included up to eleven forms of recitation of the same text. [21]

The Nātya Shastra is an ancient Indian treatise on the performing arts, encompassing theatre, dance and music. It was written at an uncertain date in classical India (200 BCE–200 CE). The Natya Shastra is based upon the much older Natya Veda which contained 36,000  slokas. [22] [23] There are no surviving copies of the Natya Veda. There are scholars who believe that it may have been written by various authors at different times. The most authoritative commentary on the Natya Shastra is Abhinavabharati by Abhinava Gupta. [24]

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

  1. Establishment of Shadja as the first, defining note of the scale or grama. [25] [ page needed ]
  2. Two Principles of Consonance: The first principle states that there exists a fundamental note in the musical scale which is Avinashi (अविनाशी) and Avilopi (अविलोपी) that is, the note is ever-present and unchanging. The second principle, often treated as law, states that there exists a natural consonance between notes; the best between Shadja and Tar Shadja, the next best between Shadja and Pancham.
  3. The Natyashastra also suggests the notion of musical modes or jatis which are the origin of the notion of the modern melodic structures known as ragas. Their role in invoking emotions are emphasized; thus compositions emphasizing the notes gandhara or rishabha are said to be related to tragedy (karuna rasa) whereas rishabha is to be emphasized for evoking heroism (vIra rasa). [20] [ page needed ]

Jatis are elaborated in greater detail in the text Dattilam, composed around the same time as the Natyashastra. [25] [ page needed ] [20] [ page needed ]

China

Most guqin books and tablature written before the twentieth century confirm that this is the origin of the guqin, although now it is viewed as mythology. In Chinese literature, the guqin dates back almost 3,000 years, while examples of the instrument have been found in tombs that date back to about 2,000 years ago. Although the ancient literature states its beginnings, the origin of the guqin has still been a subject of debate over the past few decades.[ citation needed ]

Greece

Symposium scene, c. 490 BCE Banquet scene Louvre G135.jpg
Symposium scene, c. 490 BCE

Ancient Greek musicians developed their own robust system of musical notation. The system was not widely used among Greek musicians, but nonetheless a modest corpus of notated music remains from Ancient Greece and Rome. The epics of Homer were originally sung with instrumental accompaniment, but no notated melodies from Homer are known. Several complete songs exist in ancient Greek musical notation. Three complete hymns by Mesomedes of Crete (2nd century CE) exist in manuscript. In addition, many fragments of Greek music are extant, including fragments from tragedy, among them a choral song by Euripides for his Orestes and an instrumental intermezzo from Sophocles' Ajax . [26]


Rome

The music of ancient Rome borrowed heavily from the music of the cultures that were conquered by the empire, including music of Greece, Egypt, and Persia. Music accompanied many areas of Roman life; including the military, entertainment in the Roman theater, religious ceremonies and practices, and "almost all public/civic occasions." [26] [27]

The philosopher-theorist Boethius translated into Latin and anthologized a number of Greek treatises, including some on music. 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 human beings), and musica instrumentalis (instrumental music). [28]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Musical notation</span> Visual representation of music

Musical notation is any system used to visually represent music. Systems of notation generally represent the elements of a piece of music that are considered important for its performance in the context of a given musical tradition. The process of interpreting musical notation is often referred to as reading music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hurrians</span> Historical ethnic group of Southwest Asia

The Hurrians were a people who inhabited the Ancient Near East during the Bronze Age. They spoke the Hurrian language, and lived throughout northern Syria, upper Mesopotamia and southeastern Anatolia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lyre</span> Ancient Greek string instrument

The lyre is a stringed musical instrument that is classified by Hornbostel–Sachs as a member of the lute family of instruments. In organology, a lyre is considered a yoke lute, since it is a lute in which the strings are attached to a yoke that lies in the same plane as the sound table, and consists of two arms and a crossbar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of music</span>

Although definitions of music vary wildly throughout the world, every known culture partakes in it, and it is thus considered a cultural universal. The origins of music remain highly contentious; commentators often relate it to the origin of language, with much disagreement surrounding whether music arose before, after or simultaneously with language. Many theories have been proposed by scholars from a wide range of disciplines, though none has achieved broad approval. Most cultures have their own mythical origins concerning the invention of music, generally rooted in their respective mythological, religious or philosophical beliefs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indian classical music</span> Classical music from the Indian subcontinent

Indian Classical Music is the classical music of the Indian Subcontinent. It is generally described using terms like Marg Sangeet and Shastriya Sangeet. It has two major traditions: the North Indian classical music known as Hindustani and the South Indian expression known as Carnatic. These traditions were not distinct until about the 15th century. During the period of Mughal rule of the Indian subcontinent, the traditions separated and evolved into distinct forms. Hindustani music emphasizes improvisation and exploration of all aspects of a raga, while Carnatic performances tend to be short composition-based. However, the two systems continue to have more common features than differences. Another unique classical music tradition from the eastern part of India is Odissi music, which has evolved over the last two thousand years.

Bharata was a muni (sage) of ancient India. He is traditionally attributed authorship of the influential performing arts treatise Natya Shastra, which covers ancient Indian dance, dramaturgy, poetics, and music.

<i>Natya Shastra</i> Sanskrit text on the performing arts

The Nāṭya Shāstra is a Sanskrit treatise on the performing arts. The text is attributed to sage Bharata, and its first complete compilation is dated to between 200 BCE and 200 CE, but estimates vary between 500 BCE and 500 CE.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indian classical dance</span> Performance arts rooted in Hindu musical theatre

Indian classical dance, or Shastriya Nritya, is an umbrella term for different regionally-specific Indian classical dance traditions, rooted in predominantly Hindu musical theatre performance, the theory and practice of which can be traced to the Sanskrit text Natya Shastra. The number of Indian classical dance styles ranges from six to eight to twelve, or more, depending on the source and scholar; the main organisation for Indian arts preservation, the Sangeet Natak Academy recognizes eight: Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kuchipudi, Odissi, Kathakali, Sattriya, Manipuri and Mohiniyattam. Additionally, the Indian Ministry of Culture includes Chhau in its list, recognising nine total styles. Scholars such as Drid Williams add Chhau, Yakshagana and Bhagavata Mela to the list. Each dance tradition originates and comes from a different state and/or region of India; for example, Bharatanatyam is from Tamil Nadu in the south of India, Odissi is from the east coast state of Odisha, and Manipuri is from the northeastern state of Manipur. The music associated with these different dance performances consists many compositions in Hindi, Malayalam, Meitei (Manipuri), Sanskrit, Tamil, Odia, Telugu, and many other Indian-Subcontinent languages; they represent a unity of core ideas and a diversity of styles, costumes, and expression.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Music of Mesopotamia</span>

Music was ubiquitous throughout Mesopotamian history, playing important roles in both religious and secular contexts. Mesopotamia is of particular interest to scholars because evidence from the region—which includes artifacts, artistic depictions, and written records—places it among the earliest well-documented cultures in the history of music. The discovery of a bone wind instrument dating to the 5th millennium BCE provides the earliest evidence of music culture in Mesopotamia; depictions of music and musicians appear in the 4th millennium BCE; and later, in the city of Uruk, the pictograms for ‘harp’ and ‘musician’ are present among the earliest known examples of writing.

In Indian aesthetics, a rasa literally means "juice, essence or taste". It is a concept in Indian arts denoting the aesthetic flavour of any visual, literary or musical work that evokes an emotion or feeling in the reader or audience, but cannot be described. It refers to the emotional flavors/essence crafted into the work by the writer or a performer and relished by a 'sensitive spectator' or sahṛidaya, literally one who "has heart", and can connect to the work with emotion, without dryness.

Dattilam (दत्तिलम्) is an ancient Indian musical text ascribed to the sage (muni) Dattila. It is believed to have been composed shortly after the Natya Shastra of Bharata, and is dated between the 1st and 4th century AD. But Bharathamuni had given reference of the treatise " Dattilam" in his celebrated work "Natyashastra"(1-26) so there is a belief that Dattilam may be a work composed before Bharata Muni.

Svara is a word that connotes simultaneously a breath, a vowel, the sound of a musical note corresponding to its name, and the successive steps of the octave or saptaka. More comprehensively, it is the ancient Indian concept about the complete dimension of musical pitch. Most of the time a svara is identified as both musical note and tone, but a tone is a precise substitute for sur, related to tunefulness. Traditionally, Indians have just seven svaras/notes with short names, e.g. saa, re/ri, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni which Indian musicians collectively designate as saptak or saptaka. It is one of the reasons why svara is considered a symbolic expression for the number seven.

Nabnitu ("Creation") is an ancient encyclopedic work of the Old Babylonian period that consists of multiple tablets. The name Nabnitu is taken from the first line of the first tablet in the series. Some of the tablets provide "scientific" names for "parts" of objects and the human body. Tablet VII lists the parts of the human hand.

Within Indian classical music for Shruti, Sarana Chatushtai is an experiment. The purpose is to obtain the correct physical configuration of Śruti swara arrangement to Shadja Grama Notes on a veena instrument. The experiment is described in Abhinavabharati, a commentary to Natya Shastra, as an explanation after verse 28.26 of Natyashastra. The 22 Srutis are the only notes which can be useful for music in an “octave”, in this view. The sections below describe the experiment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Music in ancient India</span>

Music in ancient India, can be reproduced from written works dating to the Indian classical period, such as the Nātya Shastra, and through surviving examples of liturgical music such as the hymns of the Samaveda. Musical instruments dating to the prehistoric period have been recovered from archaeological excavations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hurrian songs</span> Collection of music dating from approximately 1400 BC

The Hurrian songs are a collection of music inscribed in cuneiform on clay tablets excavated from the ancient Amorite-Canaanite city of Ugarit, a headland in northern Syria, which date to approximately 1400 BC. One of these tablets, which is nearly complete, contains the Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal, making it the oldest surviving substantially complete work of notated music in the world. While the composers' names of some of the fragmentary pieces are known, h.6 is an anonymous work.

<i>Veena</i> Various chordophone instruments from the Indian subcontinent

The veena, also spelled vina, is any of various chordophone instruments from the Indian subcontinent. Ancient musical instruments evolved into many variations, such as lutes, zithers and arched harps. The many regional designs have different names such as the Rudra veena, the Saraswati veena, the Vichitra veena and others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santur</span> Hammered dulcimer of Iranian origin

The santur, is a hammered dulcimer of Iranian origins.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hittite music</span> Music of the Hittite people

Hittite music is the music of the Hittites of the 17th–12th century BC and of the Syro-Hittite successor states of the 12th–7th century BC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Draffkorn Kilmer</span>

Anne Draffkorn Kilmer was an American historian of the ancient Near East who served as a professor of Assyriology at the University of California, Berkeley. She was an expert in ancient Mesopotamian culture, specifically Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform texts and the history of ancient music, games, and mathematics. In 1963, she became the first woman appointed to a tenure-track position in what is now the Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures department at the University of California, Berkeley. She later became curator of the Babylonian collection in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, formerly the Lowie Museum. She rose to the rank of Professor, served as chair of her department three times, and acted as dean of humanities.

References

  1. ↑ Grout, D.J. (1973). A History of Western Music. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 4–5, 11. ISBN   978-0-393-09416-9 – via archive.org.
  2. ↑ Campbell, Patricia Shehan (Summer 1989). "Orality, Literacy and Music's Creative Potential: A Comparative Approach". Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education. 101 (101). 30–40 (p.31). JSTOR   40318372.
  3. ↑ Rankin, Susan (31 October 2018). Writing Sounds in Carolingian Europe: The Invention of Musical Notation. Cambridge University Press. ISBN   9781108381789.
  4. ↑ Ferko, Frank (16 December 2019). cpotts [username] ¿Potts, C.? (ed.). "Language of Music: The languages of Berkeley – an online exhibition". Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library. Library Update. Berkeley, CA: University of California. Retrieved 28 April 2020.
  5. 1 2 Anderson, Robert; El-Shawan, Salwa; Castelo-Branco; Danielson, Virginia (2001). "Egypt, Arab Republic of (Jumhuriyat Misr al-Arabiya)". In Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John (eds.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.). London, UK: Macmillan. ISBN   978-019517067-2.[ full citation needed ]
  6. ↑ "Music in Ancient Egypt". University of Michigan. c. 2000. Archived from the original on 13 October 2015. Retrieved 28 June 2014.
  7. ↑ Shaaban, Mohamed (22 April 2017). "What would Ancient Egyptian music sound like, if we could hear it?". Raseef 22 رصيف (raseef22.com). Retrieved 1 October 2019.
  8. ↑ Pulver, Jeffrey (1921). "The Music of Ancient Egypt". Proceedings of the Musical Association. 48: 29–55. doi:10.1093/jrma/48.1.29. ISSN   0958-8442. JSTOR   765727.
  9. ↑ "Cymbals". Digital Egypt (digitalegypt.ucl.ac.uk). London, UK: University College London. 2003. UC 33268. Retrieved 28 June 2014.
  10. ↑ David, A. Rosalie (1998). The Egyptian Kingdoms: The Making of the Past . New York, NY: Peter Bedrick Books. ISBN   9780872263000 – via Archive.org.
  11. ↑ Haslam, Andrew (1995). Ancient Egypt . New York, NY: Thomson Learning. ISBN   9781568471402 – via Archive.org.
  12. ↑ Manniche, Lise (1975). Ancient Egyptian Musical Instruments. Deutscher Kunstverlag. ISBN   9783422008274.
  13. ↑ Kilmer, Anne Draffkorn (1971). "The Discovery of an Ancient Mesopotamian Theory of Music". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 115 (2): 131–149. ISSN   0003-049X. JSTOR   985853.
  14. ↑ Kilmer, Anne Draffkorn; Civil, Miguel (1986). "Old Babylonian musical instructions relating to hymnody". Journal of Cuneiform Studies. 38 (1): 94–98. doi:10.2307/1359953. JSTOR   1359953. S2CID   163942248.
  15. ↑ Kilmer, Anne Draffkorn (1965). "The strings of musical instruments: Their names, numbers, and significance". Studies in Honor of Benno Landsberger. Vol. 16. pp. 261–268.{{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
  16. ↑ West, M.L. (May 1994). "The Babylonian musical notation and the Hurrian melodic texts". Music & Letters. 75 (2): 161–179 (esp. 161-162). doi:10.1093/ml/75.2.161.
  17. ↑ "Harp vs. Lyre - Main Differences and Similarities". Merely Music. Retrieved 22 May 2023.
  18. ↑ "Ancient Iraqi harp reproduced by Liverpool engineers". University of Liverpool. 28 July 2005. Archived from the original on 1 July 2010. Retrieved 21 May 2013.
  19. ↑ See a reconstruction of this hymn at Buccellati, Giorgio, ed. (2003). "Music in the Urkesh palace". urkesh.org.
  20. 1 2 3 Popley 1921.
  21. ↑ "Indian music – music in India – Indian music styles – Indian music history". Cultural India (culturalindia.net). Retrieved 1 October 2019.
  22. ↑ Ghosh, Manomohan, ed. (2002). "Chapters 1–27". Natyasastra: Ascribed to Bharata-Muni (translation). The Chowkhamba Sanskrit Studies 118 [part 3]. Vol. II, 1. Varanasi: Chowkhambha Sanskrit Series Office. p. 2. ISBN   81-7080-076-5. A treatise on ancient Indian dramaturgy and histrionics, completely translated for the first time from the original Sanskrit with an introduction, various notes, and index.
  23. ↑ Roda, Allen (2009). "Musical instruments of the Indian subcontinent". Metropolitan Museum (metmuseum.org)3. New York, NY. Retrieved 1 October 2019.
  24. ↑ Hays, Jeffrey. "Traditional Indian Music". Facts and Details (factsanddetails.com). Retrieved 1 October 2019.
  25. 1 2 Prajnanananda 1963.
  26. 1 2 "Prehistoric period". Music World (music-world.org). Retrieved 19 October 2020.
  27. ↑ "Music of Ancient Rome". Georgia Regents University. Augusta, Georgia. 2001. Archived from the original on 8 June 2013. Retrieved 28 May 2013.
  28. ↑ The Cambridge history of Western music theory. Internet Archive. Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press. 2001. p. 146. ISBN   978-0-521-62371-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)

Sources

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.