DMA Terms - Ancient World

Question 1

Aristotle

Answer 1

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

Question 2

Aristoxenus

Answer 2

Author of Harmonics and Rhythmics (mostly lost)
Contrasts to Pythagoreans
intervals as diastema, spatially conceived rather than mathematically conceived

Question 3

Centonization

Answer 3

Byzantine music, that melody be constructed of short motives or “building blocks” similar to those associated with the oktoechos. Evident in some western chant

Question 4

De Musica

Answer 4

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

Question 5

Ethos

Answer 5

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.

Question 6

Greater perfect system

Answer 6

Ancient Greek pitch space spanning two octaves which comprised four tetra chords plus an added note a the bottom

Question 7

Greek instruments

Answer 7

Kithara (stringed) song/theater
Lyre (stringed) song/theater
Aulos (oboe like) dance instrument

Question 8

Harmonia

Answer 8

Ancient Greek scales or modes
There were seven harmonia corresponded with the seven octave species
Each had a specific ethos assigned to it

Question 9

Harmony of the spheres

Answer 9

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

Question 10

Heterphony

Answer 10

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

Question 11

Immutable system

Answer 11

Greater perfect system plus the option of adding the synemmenon tetrachord from the lesser perfect system

Question 12

Lesser Perfect system

Answer 12

Allowed the intro of Bb into the musical system

Question 13

Mensural notation

Answer 13

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

Question 14

Monochord

Answer 14

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

Question 15

Monophony

Answer 15

A single-voiced texture prevalent in ancient music

One voice or instrument playing in unison or in octaves

Question 16

Plato

Answer 16

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

Question 17

Psalmody

Answer 17

The practice of monophonic (often antiphonal) chant singing

The oldest western musical tradition

Question 18

Ptolemy

Answer 18

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

Question 19

Pythagorean Comma

Answer 19

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

Question 20

Pythagorus

Answer 20

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

Question 21

Syntonic comma

Answer 21

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

Question 22

Tetraktys of the decad

Answer 22

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

Question 23

Timaeus

Answer 23

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

Question 24

Tonoi

Answer 24

Similar to our notion of mode or octave species

Question 25

Influences of Ancient music on the Middle Ages

Answer 25

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