Music in Greek Life
Music, melody, harmony, rhythm, symphony, orchestra, organ, chorus, chord, tone and so on, the world owes these words to the Greeks. Ancient Greek culture was permeated with music. However, the subject, "Music in Greek Life" is practically ignored by all of us. Sometimes its very existence seems to be barely acknowledged. We can learn about music in ancient Greek by several ways; the evidence of archaeology and art; the innumerable references to music and music-making scattered through Greek literature from the eighth century B. C. onwards; specialist writing on music, e. g. Aristoxenus of Tarentum; non-literary documents, especially inscriptions, occasionally also papyri; actual musical scores. In ancient Greek culture, music, song and dance were seen as being, together with orderly sacrifices to the gods and athletic facilities for men, the most characteristic manifestations of a civilized community in peacetime. The Greek thought above all of the music and song associated with the public worship of the gods. Not everything, however, had to be subordinated to the god's needs. A paean or dithyramb might contain much that had little relevance to the deity being honoured. Offering prizes for the best singer or instrumentalist was a natural development. In B. C. 5th century, there were competitions for rhapsodes at the festival of Asclepius at Epidaurus. There must have been many opportunities for hearing epic song other than at festivals, but festivals will have been a common setting. In the society portrayed in the Homeric poems it is music and song that provide the normal entertainment of the household. Much of the elegiac and lyric poetry of the seventh, sixth, and fifth centuries was composed to be sung at the symposium. Certainly at Athens in the fifth century symposiasts regularly sang songs or excerpts from 'classic' poets. The ability to play the lyre was not uncommon among the archaic nobility. While the men made merry, the women of the household also were singing too in their own quarters. Children's songs must not go unmentioned. The picture has been deliberately limited to the Archaic and Classical periods (eighth to fourth centuries), in order to maintain a semblance of coherence.