How To Play The Music Of Ancient Greece (4 of 4) Video

How To Play "Hymn To The Muse" (2nd century CE), by Mesomedes of Crete! A studio quality recording of this piece can now be downloaded from my NEW ALBUM, "An Ancient Lyre" : http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/mlevy4 (also now available from Apple iTunes).

Mesomedes of Crete was a Greek lyric poet and composer of the early 2nd century AD. More information can be found at:

http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Bios/Mesomedes.html

"Hymn To The Muse" is written in the ancient Greek "Dorian" mode; E-E on the white note of the piano - not to be confused with the MEDIEVAL "Dorian" mode, which was D-D! Due to a misinterpretation of the Latin texts of Boethius in the Middle Ages, a certan medieval scholar (presumably sloshed on Mead at the time!), gave all the ancient Greek musiclal modes the wrong Greek names...and we are still stuck with this terminology today! For the CORRECT names of the ORIGINAL ancient Greek modes, see:

http://www.harmonics.com/lucy/lsd/corrections.html

For what Plato & Aristotle themselves had this to say about these ancient musical modes, please see this fascinating link:

http://www.pathguy.com/modes.htm

The ancient Greeks favoured the Dorian Mode, as it was meant to inspire bravery in battle - in order to explore this idea further I recently had some fun, arranging "Hymn To The Muse" n thrash metl guitar, set to a video with images of the most manly and brave batles in all of Ancient Greek History - the Battle of Thermopylae, where in in August, 480 B.C, King Leonidas and the 300 Spartans, who along with 700 Thespians fought to the death against the Might of the entire Persian Army...please see the video response below! ;o)

The translation of this ancient song (which mercifully, I am NOT going to attempt to sing!), are as follows:

'Sing for me, dear Muse, begin my tuneful strain; a breeze blow from your groves to stir my listless brain...Skillful Calliope, leader of the delightful Muses, and you, skillful priest of our rites, son of Leto, Paean of Delos, be at my side'. (translation by J. G. Landels).

It is played here on a lyre strikingly similar to the ancient Greek Kithara; the large wooden 7 string lyre favoured by the professional musicians of ancient Greece. The lyre I am playing, though, is in fact a replica (based on an illustration on the back of an ancient Jewish coin), of the 10 string Hebrew "Kinnor"; the ORIGINAL "Harp of King David"...once played 3000 years ago, by King David himself, as he danced before the very Ark of the Covenant! For almost 1000 years, the Kinnor was played by my very own Levite ancestors, in the Temple of Jerusalem, to accompany the legendary singing of the Levitical Choir...

The most challenging aspect of playing this piece, is attempting to play the many accidententals required by the melody - on a DIATONICALLY tuned lyre...WITHOUT the aid of any fancy sharpening pedals, which are to be found on almost all modern harps!

The ancient Greeks managed to get around this by a technique I have been working on, called "finger-stopping" - an accidental can be played, by increasing the pitch of a lyre string by a semitone; this is achieved by pressing the string (about a centimeter in from the tuning peg), with a finger of the left hand which shortens its vibrating length, and therefore increases the pitch of the note the string produces.

Regarding the accidentals used in this piece, another fascinating similarity between ancient Greek music & ancient Jewish music can directly be heard - when the 3rd of the ancient Greek Dorian mode (E-E)is SHARPENED, this creates a scale which is IDENTICAL to the Jewish "Ahava Raba" mode (which still can be heard in 90% of Jewish Klezmer music today...including the most famous of all Jewish songs; "Hava Nagila"!):

E,F,G#,A,B,C,D,E

To hear this wonderful fragment of ancient Greek music sang and played on authentic replica ancient Greek instruments, please also see the amazing upload on Youtube by Michael Atherton & Melismos:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=piYpvpBgwRs

For all details about my many "Musical adventures in Time Travel", please also visit:

http://www.ancientlyre.com

Many thanks for watching!

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michaeljking: I love your new website!! some very interesting sounding music, Its great to have some historical period music to draw from, That's the problem with the Anglo Saxon lyre music, we have the tuning, some references to performances in the literature but the elusive music itself......

Klezfiddle1: Glad you like my new website - please spread the word! Was the Anglo Saxon lyre tuned GABCDE? What sources are there about this lost music? It is amazing how many little gems of ancient Greek music have survived, and are continuing to be discovered. In contrast, it is so strange, that virtually no remnants of the lost musical legacy of the ancient Roman Empire have been so far been found...

michaeljking: Hucbold 10th century, late for the 6 string Lyre, that was a C diatonic. we tuned the smaller Cologne lyres to this tuning, the longer ones to G or A diatonic. Many Lyre players in the US use the pentatonic tuning. The Romans adopted Greek culture, I wonder if the lack of roman literature is due to the fact that they used greek music? I would love to see some real greek or roman lyres, The only archaeology I have seen was a bone/ivory string holder/tie block(somewhere in the UK)

Author: Klezfiddle1; Uploaded: Nov 10, 2009; Duration: 7:58; Views: 292

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