Ancient Music

Overview

Organized music is an art form that expresses people's thoughts and feelings.

The origin of music

In his "The Descent of Man", British biologist Darwin advocated that music originated from bird song.

"Music originates from the subconscious" idealism

Historical materialism: Music originates from labor. Labor created human beings themselves and also created music. Labor practice gives music content; labor movements and voices give music rhythm and tone; who knows how to produce practice is the basic driving force for human beings to create and develop music culture.

Egyptian Music and Sumerian Music

Ancient Asia: Assyria (beginning 3000 BC, ending 7th century BC) Babylonia, Sumerian Civilization

Egypt The musical instruments of slave society were the lute and the harp

The music was monophonic, mysterious and in service to the rulers.

"The Epic of Gilgamesh" is an outstanding literary and artistic work of Babylon.

Old Babylonian musical instruments harp, lyre, recorder, double flute, drums and bells.

Music Characteristics Monophonic music and music theory strive to explain the deeply touching nature of music and its great influence on people.

Ancient Indian Music

The "Vedas" was formed at the end of the 10th century BC, reflecting and describing the music activities of ancient India. Among them, "Rigveda" is the oldest collection of poems in ancient India. The collection of poems "Samaveda" is a collection of poems with more than 1,800 verses that can be set to music.

The representative musical instruments of ancient India include the "veena", "sanlinda", pottery timpani and rattles.

Music characteristics: monophonic music, heptatonic scale, twenty-two rhythms. Monk bands and choruses appeared in temples, resulting in an "alternating chorus" of solo and chorus singing.

Ancient Greek Music

Epics are divided into simple, complex, suffering and character epics. It adopts the six-note heroic form. There are special chanting tones. It is refined based on the pronunciation and rhythm of the poem. The troubadour who recited the epic poem was called Bard. He held a lira-type plucked instrument and sang while playing. "Homer's Epic" consists of two epic poems, "Iliad" and "Odyssey". Solo lyrical poetry includes drinking songs, love songs, and lamentations. With local ethnic characteristics. The poems are beautiful in style and rich in meter, and most of them are played and sung to the accompaniment of the lyre. The famous female poet Sappho was both a lyric poet and a female musician.

The "Father of Greek Music" Terpande improved the notation method in the first half of the 7th century BC. Comedies in ancient Greece fall into three categories: sacrificial drama, tragedy and comedy. The famous tragedian Aeschylus' "Prometheus Bound" and the comedy writer Aristophanes' "Ahanais", "Knight" and "Peace" are descending scales from high to low.

Modal four-tone sequence

Instruments String instruments: lyre, guitar, harp and harp Wind instruments: recorder, double flute, pan flute, brass instrument-trumpet

The ancient Greeks regarded music as a noble cultivation, and regarded participation in music practice as a citizen's right, and slaves had no right to participate.

Ancient Roman Music

The ancient Romans regarded music as a kind of enjoyment. Select people with musical talents from slaves and train them for your own enjoyment. The professionalization of music has strengthened, and the status of musicians has been reduced. After 392 AD, Christianity rose to spiritual dominance, allowing church music to be confirmed and developed in ancient Rome. Ambrose's arrangement and improvement of church songs made necessary preparations for the formation of "Gregorian Chant" in later generations.

A hydraulic organ in ancient Rome that used water pressure to produce sound.

Music characteristics 1. Brass instruments and percussion instruments have developed greatly. 2. Complete the separation of poetry and music. 3. In polytheistic ancient Rome, church music sprouted with the birth of Christianity. 4. The prototype of the "pipe organ" used in churches, which is eye-catching in the history of music, appears, and there are some signs of the transition from ancient music to medieval music.

Music of feudal society (medieval music)

Music of early feudal society

Ritual activities: daily classes and masses. Pope Gregory I once again reformed Christian music. Ordered the collection of Christian hymns in 599 AD. The expansion of Gregorian chant from the 10th to the 12th century AD was reflected in the liturgy of the Mass, in the form of additional sections, continuations, and religious dramas.

Music in the heyday of feudal society

Folk musicians who were mainly citizens were called wandering entertainers; musicians who were mainly nobles and knights were called troubadours; German troubadours , called Love Poetry Hand.

Polyphonic music

In the 9th century AD, church musicians began to try to use "Psalm" as a fixed tune and add a parallel fourth or fifth tune below it to form a form of polyphonic music.

Different from Organon, Descant uses rhythmic patterns, and the overall music shows the structural characteristics of phrasing, which is a textural form of note-on-note.

Leonan's (1135-1200) "Complete Organon" alternates the development of Organon to its peak and the Descant style to form a contrast between different styles.

Claude Laura.

A passage composed on the part with more singing and written in Descant. It has separate paragraphs and clear endings, so it can be created independently. It is the predecessor of the most popular polyphonic motet in the 13th century.

The ancient mode or church mode was established by medieval music theorists on the basis of the ancient Greek four-note sequence.

From the perspective of the direction of progress, ancient Greece was from top to bottom, and medieval times was from bottom to top.

13th century. Franco, a German music theorist, wrote the book "Quantitative Song Art" and pioneered the quantitative notation method of using notes to display time values.

Arabic Music

In 750 AD, Abbas overthrew the Umayyad Dynasty and established the Abbasid Dynasty.

Zaryab music theorist founded the Zaryab music school. He opened a school, created new musical forms, and added one string to the "Oud" (originally four)

Zaryab's favorite disciple Farabi wrote the "Encyclopedia of Music", "Models of Music", "Rhythm Classification" and "Supplement to Rhythm Studies".