| Music is an art which reflects social and cultural changes. If the society or the culture of a particular place is going into decline, the music of that place will show the same. Similarly, when the society or the culture is booming, the music will also flourish. Thus, music has a major part in the tracking down the past of a country.
The music world owes much to the Ancient Greeks. In fact, the word "music" is originated from the nine Ancient Greek muses - goddesses controlling the arts and sciences. Contemporary musicians refer to their muse, which is someone who impacts on another person's creative work. A number of musical terms are derived from the Greek language. Yet, with the fall of Ancient Greece and the collapse of the Byzantine and Roman Empires, Greek music stopped developing for a few centuries until it was reborn in the 19th century.
Greeks are believed to have considered music a way of worshipping God. Music was also an important of their social life. It was played on all forms of social occasions. Since drama was also quite popular in Greece, music was used when drama was staged.
It is usually believed that Greek music did not have harmony. It was mainly sung by one vocalist and not by a chorus as is normally seen in Greek plays. Ancient musicians strictly stuck to the laws of music and didn't combine one form with another. The rules were so strict that the viewers or listeners were not allowed to clap. The objective of musical shows was not to entertain but to educate common people.
Pythagoras suggested the use of numbers to denote musical scales which he discovered while studying the differences in sound frequencies of varied length strings of a musical instrument. This concept was introduced to Ancient Greek Music, and Pythagoras became known as the father of music theory. Most musical works, as reported, was monophonic. Hence, they were quire similar. But when musicians started introducing new things to music, experts like Plato considered it sacrilege of the purest form of music.
These days Greek music is made up of traditional folk music and Eastern and Western tendencies. |
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