EDWARD'S LECTURE NOTES:
More notes at http://tanguay.info/learntracker
C O U R S E
Western Music History through Performance
Jonathan Coopersmith, Curtis Institute of Music
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C O U R S E L E C T U R E Ancient Musical Notation Notes taken on November 14, 2014 by Edward Tanguay |
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music from 1500 BC to 1300 AD
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understanding the developments of this period is critical in understanding the development of music
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the era not only covers music of:
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Babylonians, Ancient Greece to the Renaissance
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also covers the development of our musical notation
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changed the way music was conceived, composed, and the way it sounded
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Mesopotamia
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going back almost 4000 years almost nobody was reading music as we know it today
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music was rarely written down
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Babylonians created the names for
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intervals
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scales
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tunings
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basic form of notation
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cuneiform
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written with reed
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fired in kiln and hardened
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many of our records of cuneiform exist today because attacking armies burned the buildings which contained clay tablets which hardened in the ensuing fire and thus were preserved for posterity
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Ancient Greece
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there are many pictures of instruments from ancient Greek culture
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players with their teachers
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players of different ages
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players playing in many occasions and situations
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rarely does it show anyone looking at a tablet or playing from any written notation
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most learned to play by ear through oral tradition
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music was memorized or improvised
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developed intervals and systems of scales
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also much written about the philosophy of music in society
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how music should be taught
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when certain scales or ranges should be used
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the role of music in schools was discussed
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Plato
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warned that we should be cautious of any fundamental changes in music
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Aristotle
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everyone needed to study music but only to become educated and develop character
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when you become a professional, it becomes competitive, which is bad for one's character
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to be paid to perform music is degrading to one's character
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fewer than 50 musical pieces or parts of pieces from 350 BC to 400 AD exist
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Seikilos column
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musical setting on tomb stone
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short but one of the oldest musical pieces
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Greek text with letters on top representing the musical pitches
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Greek letters stand for notes
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discovered in 1883 in Turkey
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now in National Museum in Denmark in Copenhagen
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much of Greek music and its notation was forgotten until the Renaissance
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almost a thousand years later