Ancient music thread!

Sadly we know little of ancient music. While we have uncovered ancient instruments like the lute, we do not have sheet music of those bygone days.

Roman and Greek (Ancient) music are lost to us. Go further back with Western Nations and you get even less.

Some cultures, such as Asian and African do have living remnants of their ancestral music, most of it tied to ceremony and religion.

The Greek Aulos and the Roman equivalent Tibia are basically flutes.

Strings included harps and variations on the Lyre. These were plucked instruments. Bow drawn string instruments didn't pop up until the Rebec (Ribible) (Arabic in nature, similar to a viola or violin).

Lap held 'half harps, half guitar' devices include the psaltery and the dulcimer This had a greater range of individual notes. The dulcimer having 14-16 strings the psaltery having 16. The psaltry is similar or a cross to a harp and a zither.

Percussion was most readily had, from beating two sticks together to more sophisticated drums, krotala, rattles, and variations of tambourine.

Flutes and similar were very popular. Variations would include panpipes. Bells and gongs or other ringing devices some with clappers some you had to strike with a stick.

Its not until the middle ages that instruments became more complex.


All that I have listed also have variations of them depending on what culture you go to.

Music tone and pitch changed for each note sometime in the early middle ages which has made it more difficult for us to figure out what was played on these instruments.

Wiki is your friend too;

[link to en.wikipedia.org]

In the Native American Indian Mounds, they found a type of flute that they used to play music.

Things have recently taken a surprising turn. The music tradition from Sakartvelo (the modern Republic of Georgia) is now proven to go back to before 2500 BC. An ornate silver bowl was found in the Svaneti region there which had a harp like instrument inscribed, a changi (still played in Svaneti), which looked identical to inscribings on ancient Sumerian bas reliefs.

Further research has finally made the connection. The Kartvelian peoples (which include the Svans) have a longstanding oral tradition that their ancestors escaped to the Caucasus Mountains from mines to the south. At this past July's international convention of Assyriologists, in Paris, based on archaeological and linguistic evidence, it was concluded that the Kartvelian people (of Georgia) were connected with the ancient Sumerians, probably as slaves in the mines.

One of the early musical clues to this connection was an ancient traditional Kartvelian song: "I am from the kingdom of Erech" -- which pointed to the Biblical city of Erech, known to be the ancient Sumerican city Uruk.

The Georgians have maintained an incredibly old and rich music tradition. It is now accepted that they had multi-voice, polyphonic singing, at least 1000 years before it developed anywhere else in the world.

Music is still a large part of their everyday life, singing traditional songs that are centuries, perhaps millenia old, each song designed for a particular occasion, such as particular types of work, rituals, table songs, etc. Apart from the inscription of the changi, the oldest actual instrument found in Georgia was a salamanuri (shepherd's flute) made of bone dating back to 1500 BC. The salamanuri is still widely played today.

It is universally accepted that the mysterious ancient kingdom of Colchis (Jason and the Golden Fleece, Medea) was actually Georgia. Until 50 years ago, residents of Svaneti still dipped rams' fleeces into the streams, panning for gold.

After Georgia was Christianized in the 4th century AD, even the same old pagan ritual songs remained, only the lyrics change. In fact, many of the ancient pagan rituals are still practiced, particularly in the isolated mountainous regions.

The one change that musicology purists perceive is that trained Georgian musicians performing for Western audiences "tweak" their unique-in-the-world (isolate) scale to sound more Western consonant.

I'll offer two youtube links to this incredibly rich tradition, which, IMO, deserves MUCH further research.

1) The late Hamlet Gonashvili (he died in a fall from an apple tree) singing "Chela", now a lament to an ox pulling a heavy cart, the singer lamenting the heavy yoke the ox must bear.

However, note the "nana, nana" in the chorus. Any Georgian "nana" song was originally a hymn to a female pagan astral deity, probably the moon goddess (akin to the moon god Nanna in Sumeria?? or his daughter Inanna??) These songs are now lullabyes, laments or hymns to Mary.

2) The Shina Vorgil, one of several pagan ritual perkhuli (round dances) still performed in the isolated Svaneti mountainous region.
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1) "Chela" -- note, the religious icon visuals are entirely appropriate. Georgia is not only still pagan in its practices, but once it adopted the Georgian Orthodox Church, it became the easternmost "defender of the faith".

During many invasions of the lowlands, holy icons were taken to the mountainous Svaneti region, distributed among villages and families for guardianship. Where they remain today, until ??? The Svans are a bit xenophobic and no longer even trust the church. One western journalist gained enough trust from a Svan to be allowed to see the precious, priceless icons his family is obligated to defend with their lives. The icons really did exist, albeit well hidden.

[link to www.youtube.com]

2) Shina Vorgil -- I'm not 100% sure, but I believe this was a perkhuli men danced before battle.

[link to www.youtube.com]

I'm lousy with links, but will check these after this posts. For those truly interested in ancient music, this area is RICH. I wish I had more time to learn about it.

rebecca

Last Edited by melonkali on 12/03/2009 10:36 PM

somewhere there is a 30000 year old bone flute. another really old flute has pieces that fit together to play undertones.

Never saw that instrument inca. That was really good.

kettledrums go waaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy back!