DMA Terms - Ancient World Flashcards
Aristotle
Music contains strong ETHOS which imitated the passions and was capable of moving them
Training in music was necessary to the development of musical judgement
Aristoxenus
Author of Harmonics and Rhythmics (mostly lost)
Contrasts to Pythagoreans
intervals as diastema, spatially conceived rather than mathematically conceived
Centonization
Byzantine music, that melody be constructed of short motives or “building blocks” similar to those associated with the oktoechos. Evident in some western chant
De Musica
Aristide’ s only surviving manuscript dating from 2nd or 3rd century A.D.
Attempts a compilation of all knowledge relevant to music
“Modern” complication of all things about Ancient Greek music and music’s relationship to the other disciplines
Divided into theoretical, practical, and metaphysical sections
Ethos
Ancient Greece
Music is capable of affecting men’s emotions, mental state and behavior
Ethos was also ascribed to specific instruments, pieces, timbres, rhythms etc.
Greater perfect system
Ancient Greek pitch space spanning two octaves which comprised four tetra chords plus an added note a the bottom
Greek instruments
Kithara (stringed) song/theater
Lyre (stringed) song/theater
Aulos (oboe like) dance instrument
Harmonia
Ancient Greek scales or modes
There were seven harmonia corresponded with the seven octave species
Each had a specific ethos assigned to it
Harmony of the spheres
Introduced by Pythagoreans and later picked up by Plato that astronomy, music and mathematics were one in the same
The motions of the heavenly bodies caused actual sounds to occur and made a sort of celestial music
Heterphony
Prevalent in the ancient world
One voice or instrument created a melody which was simultaneously sounded and embellished upon by a second voice or instrument
Immutable system
Greater perfect system plus the option of adding the synemmenon tetrachord from the lesser perfect system
Lesser Perfect system
Allowed the intro of Bb into the musical system
Mensural notation
A system of notation established around 1260 in use through 1600.
Long, Breve and semi-breve Initially
The long = 3 breve and 1 breve = 3 semi-breve
Additional 4th note = duplex long which equaled 2 longs
14th century - minim was added
15th century - semiminima was added
Monochord
A single string with a moveable bridge
Used by pythagoreans and many later musical scholars up through Renaissance and into the Baroque to demonstrate that string length ratios determined musical intervals
Monophony
A single-voiced texture prevalent in ancient music
One voice or instrument playing in unison or in octaves
Plato
Ca. 427-347
Timaeus
Republic 380 BC
His beliefs on music was Pythagorean.
Socially he believed music should be used for education in balance with gymnastics (mental vs physical)
Believed in simple music for education rather than complex music for entertainment
Psalmody
The practice of monophonic (often antiphonal) chant singing
The oldest western musical tradition
Ptolemy
2nd century AD
Important mathematician
Laid out various species of the consonances in terms of tones and semi-tones
Perfect 4th music be perfect since it sounded like one
Pythagorean Comma
Purely tuned octaves and fifths in the Pythagorean tuning system result in intonational discrepancies… that is 12 pure 5th do not equal 7 octaves and six whole tones do not equal one octave. In each case the discrepancy between these two ratios is 531441:524288 (= 23.5 cents) the Pythagorean comma
Pythagorus
Leader of the Ancient Greek Pythagoreans (5th-6th century BC)
Expressing musical intervals in terms of ratios
Math, music and astronomy were one in the same
Syntonic comma
The difference between four perfect 5ths and two octaves plus a major third (amounts to 21.5 cents)
The comma is responsible for discrepancies in tunings of thirds just as the Pythagorean or diatonic comma is responsible for discrepancies in tuning 5ths
Tetraktys of the decad
Pythagorean pyramid diagram comprising ten dots used to illustrate the numbers 1 through 4 and the manner in which they can be combined to form the ratios of the sting length which, when combined, form consonant sonorities
Timaeus
The only Platonic dialog known to the Middle Ages
Plato concerns himself with the inner workings of inner harmonies and their manifestation in the natural world
Plato believed that music could be used to correct discords in the soul
Tonoi
Similar to our notion of mode or octave species
Influences of Ancient music on the Middle Ages
1 music as melodic line
2 importance of text (rhythm and words) on melody
3 improvisation in performance - no fixed notation
4 music as part of nature - affecting human thought and behavior
5 scientific acoustical theory
6 scales based on tetrachord s
7 musical terminology
