Will
Bruce Greek
Music
In my presentation, I will
discuss early Greek music theory and its influence upon
our modern western scale system. Early Greek music is
associated with a vocal tradition in which the singer
would improvise to the accompaniment of a lyre. The
tuning of the 4 lyre strings determined the mood of the
piece to be sung, much as in Indian classical music. A
Dorian mode, considered 'virile and bellicose' would be
used for the singing of epic. Other modes had different
emotional and ethical associations: the Phrygian mode was
'agitated and Bacchic'; the Lydian 'intimate and
lascivious' [Plat. Resp. 398e]. Terpander added a
second tetrachord and musicians began tuning their lyres
so that the top note of one lyre would be one whole tone
lower than the bottom tone of the other lyre. I noticed
that both lyres being tuned to Dorian modes would produce
our modern major scale and a Phrygian upon a Lydian would
produce a minor scale. In the course of my presentation,
I will demonstrate the sounds of these modes and scales
on my keyboard.
The experiments with pitch in
the tuning of the lyre ignited some of music's first
scientific research. Pythagoras was the first to see a
relation between the ratios of string length and pitch.
For instance, a 2:3 ratio produces a perfect fifth
(do-so). Pythagoras developed a system based on whole
number ratios for most of the intervals we use in modern
music. By tuning the first circle of fifths, he produced
an entire chromatic scale. This tuning however didn't
allow key modulation. The problem became known as the
'Pythagorean comma' and was still contended with in
Baroque times. Certain keys were considered theoretical
and untunable. Musicians developed various ways of tuning
which 'spread out' the comma over several intervals to
allow key modulation. No one was as successful in doing
this as J.S. Bach. His wohltemperirt
(well-tempered) system consisted of 7 perfect fifths
and 5 tempered fifths. This system allowed
comfortable modulation into all keys, each of which would
have its own unique 'color' dependant on the variable
position of the tempered tones in the scales. We now use
'equal temperament' which divides the comma into 12 equal
steps. This makes all intervals equally out-of-tune so
that the only pure interval is the octave. As Aristoxenus
(Book II, 55) had theorized, our ears adapt to tonality
and accept tone ratios as harmonious due to repeated
exposure to them.
In my presentation, I will also
demonstrate the 'perfect' ratios of Pythagoras and Bach
versus the equally tempered intervals of a modern
keyboard with a monochord I made out of a two-by-four.
Abstracts
Index