Hi Mike.
Interesting news.
I did a lot of studying of ancient Greek theorists' tunings during
college, and I found this out-of-print book, which the publishers
later published free online (after my begging and sending them links
showing people who had copies trying to sell this $30 book for $300,
which is still happening).  "Divisions of the Tetrachord" by John
Chalmers.  It's not just Greek tunings, but a large part of it is, as
their use of the tetrachord was pretty advanced, and most of them
disagreed on how it should be tuned, so there were lots of writings on
it.  My understanding is that no one today knows exactly what tunings
the musicians were using, and they were most likely tuning things
slightly differently from each other, all the time ignoring the
theorists.
I never reached the point of wanting to emulate ancient Greek music
itself, but I found their tuning ideas very interesting.  The free
tuning program Scala also has a tetrachord player interface based on
Chalmer's triangle representation presented in this book, taken from
the study of chemistry.
http://eamusic.dartmouth.edu/~larry/published_articles/divisions_of_the_tetrachord/index.html
Scala:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/scala/

-Chuckk

On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 7:06 PM,   wrote:
> The current issue of Computer Music Journal (Winter 2008) contains an
> article that should be of interest to Csound people, "Emulation of Ancient
> Greek Music using Sound Synthesis and Historical Notation," by Politis,
> Margounakis, Lazaropoulos, Papeleontiou, Botsaris, and Vandikas.
>
> The article describes ARION, which is software by the authors that permits
> the user to render vocal and/or instrumental music in the style of ancient
> Greece.
>
> ARION uses something called "Phoneme Modeler" (evidently based on the
> Synthesis Toolkit in C++) for vocal synthesis, and Csound not only for
> instrumental synthesis, but also for merging the vocal audio with the
> instrumental audio.
>
> Unfortunately I was not able to find this software for download. If anyone
> does, please let us know.
>
> Regards,
> Mike
>



-- 
http://www.badmuthahubbard.com

Hmm, not sure about this! Chord changes? Surely they are not using 
Microsoft SongSmith? According too all the scholarship I have read, 
Greek music was monodic - counterpoint was anathema, and "harmony" 
expressly signified the relationship between notes in the melody  (which 
we should properly call monody today).

Worth remembering one sometimes cantankerous Ancient Greek Philosopher 
in  particular:

"Nothing important should be written down".
"Music is far too important to be entrusted to musicians".


Richard Dobson



Richard Power wrote:
> There's a recording generated by ARION, as well as a video 
> demonstration, at this 
> site: http://meteora.csd.auth.gr/Arion/pages/downloads_en.htm 
> 
> 
> On Feb 1, 2009, at 11:06 AM, michael.gogins@gmail.com 
>  wrote:
> 

Great! I love that quote...

2009/2/3 Richard Dobson :
> Hmm, not sure about this! Chord changes? Surely they are not using Microsoft
> SongSmith? According too all the scholarship I have read, Greek music was
> monodic - counterpoint was anathema, and "harmony" expressly signified the
> relationship between notes in the melody  (which we should properly call
> monody today).
>
> Worth remembering one sometimes cantankerous Ancient Greek Philosopher in
>  particular:
>
> "Nothing important should be written down".
> "Music is far too important to be entrusted to musicians".
>
>
> Richard Dobson
>
>
>
> Richard Power wrote:
>>
>> There's a recording generated by ARION, as well as a video demonstration,
>> at this site: http://meteora.csd.auth.gr/Arion/pages/downloads_en.htm
>>
>> On Feb 1, 2009, at 11:06 AM, michael.gogins@gmail.com
>>  wrote:
>>
>
>
>
> Send bugs reports to this list.
> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe
> csound"
>

It's like a cheap TV soundtrack! Embarrassing really.... Even Zarlino
would have been appalled!

2009/2/3 peiman khosravi :
> Great! I love that quote...
>
> 2009/2/3 Richard Dobson :
>> Hmm, not sure about this! Chord changes? Surely they are not using Microsoft
>> SongSmith? According too all the scholarship I have read, Greek music was
>> monodic - counterpoint was anathema, and "harmony" expressly signified the
>> relationship between notes in the melody  (which we should properly call
>> monody today).
>>
>> Worth remembering one sometimes cantankerous Ancient Greek Philosopher in
>>  particular:
>>
>> "Nothing important should be written down".
>> "Music is far too important to be entrusted to musicians".
>>
>>
>> Richard Dobson
>>
>>
>>
>> Richard Power wrote:
>>>
>>> There's a recording generated by ARION, as well as a video demonstration,
>>> at this site: http://meteora.csd.auth.gr/Arion/pages/downloads_en.htm
>>>
>>> On Feb 1, 2009, at 11:06 AM, michael.gogins@gmail.com
>>>  wrote:
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Send bugs reports to this list.
>> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe
>> csound"
>>
>

I think that contrasts between "chordal" and "monodic" music are much
too simple. I feel that this distinction is rooted in a particularly
19th century concept of tonality in which, if you don't have triads
and major/minor duality, you don't really have chords.

In point of empirical fact, in every style of music, if more than one
person is playing and/or singing at the same time, there will most
likely be times in which more than one pitch is sounding at the same
time. If you ask me, those times are chords. The main formal interest
of the players and listeners may be in melody and expression, you may
not hear cadences or have tonality in the sense of Mozart, but one
will most definitely hear changes between chords.

The changes that occur in non-tonal but chordal music may or may not
be conceptualized by the practitioners of that music. I am not an
expert on ancient Greek music. Obviously, with a kithara at least and
also with a hydraulis or lyre, there will in fact be chords. How, or
indeed if, these were theorized I do not know. The reconstructed
samples of ancient Greek music that I have actually heard (some of it
was notated and some dozens of tunes and fragments survive, the Greek
instruments have been reconstructed and used to accompany these) _most
definitely has chords and changes of chord_ although, of course, not
Western tonality.

In medieval and contemporary Arabic music, which has some similarities
with ancient Greek music and which is not tonal in the Western sense,
there is formal theoretical consideration not so much of chords, but
of scales (maqamat) and parts of scales (ajnas), and indeed of how
these are related in a harmonic sense. Arabic music even has its own
system of modulation (one maqam is built from two jins, two maqamat
share one jins and modulation occurs by moving through the common jins
into the new maqam). Although the theory of Arabic modulations has
nothing more than "pivot" in common with our Theory 101, Western
listeners will often definitely hear these as modulations. I do not
know if this has anything in common with ancient Greek theory, but it
does show how you can have harmony and modulation in non-Western
music.

I feel that this whole area of harmony and tonality is one in which
many musicians have been deafened by the spectacular success of a
particular narrow conceptualization of "common practice harmony" which
either is over-applied to other styles of music, or causes people not
to hear what is really being played in other musics.

I repeat, if you think about what we know of ancient Greek music and
listen to it as authentically as possible (i.e. not tarting it up),
you will still hear chords and changes of chord. I mean "chord" in the
sense of "simultaneously sounding pitches" not chord in the sense of
Western tonality. But the changes of chord have real musical meaning
and impact.

Regards,
Mike

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 7:04 AM, peiman khosravi
 wrote:
> It's like a cheap TV soundtrack! Embarrassing really.... Even Zarlino
> would have been appalled!
>
> 2009/2/3 peiman khosravi :
>> Great! I love that quote...
>>
>> 2009/2/3 Richard Dobson :
>>> Hmm, not sure about this! Chord changes? Surely they are not using Microsoft
>>> SongSmith? According too all the scholarship I have read, Greek music was
>>> monodic - counterpoint was anathema, and "harmony" expressly signified the
>>> relationship between notes in the melody  (which we should properly call
>>> monody today).
>>>
>>> Worth remembering one sometimes cantankerous Ancient Greek Philosopher in
>>>  particular:
>>>
>>> "Nothing important should be written down".
>>> "Music is far too important to be entrusted to musicians".
>>>
>>>
>>> Richard Dobson
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Richard Power wrote:
>>>>
>>>> There's a recording generated by ARION, as well as a video demonstration,
>>>> at this site: http://meteora.csd.auth.gr/Arion/pages/downloads_en.htm
>>>>
>>>> On Feb 1, 2009, at 11:06 AM, michael.gogins@gmail.com
>>>>  wrote:
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Send bugs reports to this list.
>>> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe
>>> csound"
>>>
>>
>
>
> Send bugs reports to this list.
> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe csound"
>



-- 
Michael Gogins
Irreducible Productions
Michael dot Gogins at gmail dot com

Not to get into a deep running discussion about this, but anyway:

I find the distinction (very much a 19th/20th C one if you will) between 
"monody" and melody"  is useful. The former encompasses most obviously 
plainchant, and any musics such as those you have referenced that play 
over a drone (raga, etc) and are in essence characterised by a single 
sung line.  I do indeed expressly mean that harmony (rules concerning 
the choice and succession of notes) is there understood horizontally. In 
the case of a drone, naturally the "harmony" is also expressed for each 
note against that drone, as well as horizontally.

"Syrinx" is a monody, as is Density 21.5; no attempt to "harmonise" 
either will add anything, indeed quite the opposite in my experience.
Whereas a modern "melody" is conceived with underlying harmony changes, 
modulation etc, that are implicit when they are not explicit. How we 
hear all of these is clearly heavily conditioned by our modern 
sensibilities, leading on the one hand to the harmonisation of 
plainchant, and the Gounod-esque "need" to add a melody to Bach's C 
major prelude, and in so doing discover the need to add a chord never 
written by Bach, to enable the melody to work.  These are chords with 
structural (horizontal) significance, not accidental simultaneities.

The fact that a modern musician today will somehow "hear chords" in a 
monody says much more about that musician and his time than it does 
about  the monody. And (again from all that I have read), Greek string 
instruments were used monodically, to replicate the primary singer 
(homophonically), not like a guitar to play chords. Perhaps the 
"musicians" Plato so deplored did that.

A most remarkable aspect of this subject which I had never come across 
until I met a person with the complaint, is a particular form of amusia, 
in which a single melodic line could be heard and appreciated as we 
would expect and hope, but even two simultaneous voices, much less a 
whole polyphonic ensemble, sounded chaotic and impossible to listen to.

A raga performance can start using one rag, and at some point transform 
into another, and a performer may elect to incorporate elements of a 
second raga into the one they are nominally performing; but I think we 
must be very careful of calling this "modulation" in the Western sense. 
The Root "Sa" stays the same.

Take the "Star-Spangled Banner" - clearly written harmonically, complete 
with modulations, and the chords are pretty much mandated in the 
constitution. But it can also be heard monodically with a fixed tonic 
drone, (and if only in terms of th scale used) as a warped version of 
Rag Bihag or Rag Hamir (which unusually use both natural and sharp Ma 
(fourth) in alternation. I would have no problem playing it that way, 
indeed on the bansuri. But I would probably have to put in a few 
oscillations and slides, and play it relatively slowly,  as befits the 
instrument and the style. Sort of Hendrix without the electronics. How 
easy would it be to suspend the expectations of familiarity and hear it 
as I was playing it?



Richard Dobson





Michael Gogins wrote:
> I think that contrasts between "chordal" and "monodic" music are much
> too simple. I feel that this distinction is rooted in a particularly
> 19th century concept of tonality in which, if you don't have triads
> and major/minor duality, you don't really have chords.
> 
...
> I repeat, if you think about what we know of ancient Greek music and
> listen to it as authentically as possible (i.e. not tarting it up),
> you will still hear chords and changes of chord. I mean "chord" in the
> sense of "simultaneously sounding pitches" not chord in the sense of
> Western tonality. But the changes of chord have real musical meaning
> and impact.
> 
> Regards,
> Mike
> 

On 04/02/2009, at 3:06 AM, Richard Dobson wrote:

> Not to get into a deep running discussion about this, but anyway:
>
> I find the distinction (very much a 19th/20th C one if you will)  
> between "monody" and melody"  is useful.


And then there is heterophony...

D.

________________________________________________
David Worrall.
- Experimental Polymedia:	www.avatar.com.au
- Education for Financial Independence: www.mindthemarkets.com.au
Australian research affiliations:
- Capital Markets Cooperative Research Centre: www.cmcrc.com
- Sonic Communications Research Group:	creative.canberra.edu.au/scrg

I've never felt comfortable when modern musicians state that harmony
never existed until Western music.  It often coincides with an
"explanation" of why 12-tone equal temperament is better than just
intonation.

I can say, though, that some of the steps in the ancient Greek scales,
no matter who was tuning them, would not have sounded very harmonious
sounded together.  I don't guess Henry Cowell would have been very
loved around then.

But anyone who knows about Fourier analysis knows that any tone made
by a physical instrument is already several tones together.  It's easy
to make positive statements about the past, like "no ancient Greek
musician ever ever played two tones at once and got away with it", but
if they could hear consonance in two well-tuned notes in succession,
who's to say they would have cringed at hearing them overlap?  If all
you have to go on is the writings of theorists - or even the writings
of people who knew how to write - then you may not be getting the
whole story.

-Chuckk

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 3:55 PM, Michael Gogins  wrote:
> I think that contrasts between "chordal" and "monodic" music are much
> too simple. I feel that this distinction is rooted in a particularly
> 19th century concept of tonality in which, if you don't have triads
> and major/minor duality, you don't really have chords.
>
> In point of empirical fact, in every style of music, if more than one
> person is playing and/or singing at the same time, there will most
> likely be times in which more than one pitch is sounding at the same
> time. If you ask me, those times are chords. The main formal interest
> of the players and listeners may be in melody and expression, you may
> not hear cadences or have tonality in the sense of Mozart, but one
> will most definitely hear changes between chords.
>
> The changes that occur in non-tonal but chordal music may or may not
> be conceptualized by the practitioners of that music. I am not an
> expert on ancient Greek music. Obviously, with a kithara at least and
> also with a hydraulis or lyre, there will in fact be chords. How, or
> indeed if, these were theorized I do not know. The reconstructed
> samples of ancient Greek music that I have actually heard (some of it
> was notated and some dozens of tunes and fragments survive, the Greek
> instruments have been reconstructed and used to accompany these) _most
> definitely has chords and changes of chord_ although, of course, not
> Western tonality.
>
> In medieval and contemporary Arabic music, which has some similarities
> with ancient Greek music and which is not tonal in the Western sense,
> there is formal theoretical consideration not so much of chords, but
> of scales (maqamat) and parts of scales (ajnas), and indeed of how
> these are related in a harmonic sense. Arabic music even has its own
> system of modulation (one maqam is built from two jins, two maqamat
> share one jins and modulation occurs by moving through the common jins
> into the new maqam). Although the theory of Arabic modulations has
> nothing more than "pivot" in common with our Theory 101, Western
> listeners will often definitely hear these as modulations. I do not
> know if this has anything in common with ancient Greek theory, but it
> does show how you can have harmony and modulation in non-Western
> music.
>
> I feel that this whole area of harmony and tonality is one in which
> many musicians have been deafened by the spectacular success of a
> particular narrow conceptualization of "common practice harmony" which
> either is over-applied to other styles of music, or causes people not
> to hear what is really being played in other musics.
>
> I repeat, if you think about what we know of ancient Greek music and
> listen to it as authentically as possible (i.e. not tarting it up),
> you will still hear chords and changes of chord. I mean "chord" in the
> sense of "simultaneously sounding pitches" not chord in the sense of
> Western tonality. But the changes of chord have real musical meaning
> and impact.
>
> Regards,
> Mike
>
> On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 7:04 AM, peiman khosravi
>  wrote:
>> It's like a cheap TV soundtrack! Embarrassing really.... Even Zarlino
>> would have been appalled!
>>
>> 2009/2/3 peiman khosravi :
>>> Great! I love that quote...
>>>
>>> 2009/2/3 Richard Dobson :
>>>> Hmm, not sure about this! Chord changes? Surely they are not using Microsoft
>>>> SongSmith? According too all the scholarship I have read, Greek music was
>>>> monodic - counterpoint was anathema, and "harmony" expressly signified the
>>>> relationship between notes in the melody  (which we should properly call
>>>> monody today).
>>>>
>>>> Worth remembering one sometimes cantankerous Ancient Greek Philosopher in
>>>>  particular:
>>>>
>>>> "Nothing important should be written down".
>>>> "Music is far too important to be entrusted to musicians".
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Richard Dobson
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Richard Power wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> There's a recording generated by ARION, as well as a video demonstration,
>>>>> at this site: http://meteora.csd.auth.gr/Arion/pages/downloads_en.htm
>>>>>
>>>>> On Feb 1, 2009, at 11:06 AM, michael.gogins@gmail.com
>>>>>  wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Send bugs reports to this list.
>>>> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe
>>>> csound"
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> Send bugs reports to this list.
>> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe csound"
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Michael Gogins
> Irreducible Productions
> Michael dot Gogins at gmail dot com
>
>
> Send bugs reports to this list.
> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe csound"
>



-- 
http://www.badmuthahubbard.com

On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 1:23 PM, Chuckk Hubbard
 wrote:
> If all
> you have to go on is the writings of theorists - or even the writings
> of people who knew how to write - then you may not be getting the
> whole story.

That was intended as a vague "you", not Mike.  I agree with Mike.
-Chuckk

Agree Chuckk, Mike.
Also, when reading the Greeks, it is important to understand that he  
concept of harmony was broader than temporal coincidences/ 
simultaneities.
On 14/02/2009, at 10:23 PM, Chuckk Hubbard wrote:

> I've never felt comfortable when modern musicians state that harmony
> never existed until Western music.  It often coincides with an
> "explanation" of why 12-tone equal temperament is better than just
> intonation.
>
> I can say, though, that some of the steps in the ancient Greek scales,
> no matter who was tuning them, would not have sounded very harmonious
> sounded together.  I don't guess Henry Cowell would have been very
> loved around then.
>
> But anyone who knows about Fourier analysis knows that any tone made
> by a physical instrument is already several tones together.  It's easy
> to make positive statements about the past, like "no ancient Greek
> musician ever ever played two tones at once and got away with it", but
> if they could hear consonance in two well-tuned notes in succession,
> who's to say they would have cringed at hearing them overlap?  If all
> you have to go on is the writings of theorists - or even the writings
> of people who knew how to write - then you may not be getting the
> whole story.
>
> -Chuckk
......



________________________________________________
David Worrall.
- Experimental Polymedia:	www.avatar.com.au
- Education for Financial Independence: www.mindthemarkets.com.au
Australian research affiliations:
- Capital Markets Cooperative Research Centre: www.cmcrc.com
- Sonic Communications Research Group:	creative.canberra.edu.au/scrg

Chuckk Hubbard wrote:
> I've never felt comfortable when modern musicians state that harmony
> never existed until Western music.  It often coincides with an
> "explanation" of why 12-tone equal temperament is better than just
> intonation.
> 

Of course it ~existed~; it was just expressed and understood differently.

Western harmony and polyphony is an extraordinary achievement, without 
which we can scarcely live. But it has meant the loss of some things of 
value, as (in the vast majority of instances) it depends on a more or 
less rigid set of fixed pitch classes, whereas with a purely horizontal 
formalization, pitches need be neither rigid nor fixed.

As I say to my 12-tone friends when I am improvising on bansuri -"you 
have your twelve semitones; I have all the spaces in between as well". 
It is a lot more than simple portamento. Indeed, many western vernacular 
styles do in many ways seek to combine both : 'bent' notes in jazz, the 
various vocal kicks and wobbles  of contemporary vocalizing, borrowed 
variously from Qawwali, Fado, Flamenco etc, but over chord changes. But 
little or none of that can be written down, which in the West 
conventionally makes it somehow less important  to some minds  than 
material that ~can~ be written down.

As soon as western composers invented modulation and keyboards (and 
staff notation), they were basically stuffed from a "harmony" point of 
view, as it led to the above-mentioned temperament problem in which 
(especially if you include the piano's stretched octave), everything is 
more-or-less systematically out of tune. Needless to say, singers  and 
players who can bend pitch do so, taking them far away from anything  a 
practical keyboard can manage. But, it is all to easy to make the result 
chaotic, as everyone tries continually to adjust to each other 
vertically, while also trying to make a coherent job of the horizontal. 
A lot of the time, it has to be said, it doesn't quite work, and our 
resultant sense of "harmony" is more a case of willful suspension of 
disbelief than of anything founded in either mathematics or acoustics!

On the bright side, it all means that even today, theory and practice 
are sufficiently divergent to ensure the continued employment of both 
theorists and (I hope!) musicians for many years to come.

Richard Dobson

I remember it as a breath of fresh air at the height of post-war  
serial explorations, to read Xenakis'  'On the progressive degradation  
of outside time structures' in his 'Towards metamusic' chapter in  
which he discusses the differences between continuities and sieve  
genera.

On 14/02/2009, at 10:59 PM, Richard Dobson wrote:

> Chuckk Hubbard wrote:
>> I've never felt comfortable when modern musicians state that harmony
>> never existed until Western music.  It often coincides with an
>> "explanation" of why 12-tone equal temperament is better than just
>> intonation.
>
> Of course it ~existed~; it was just expressed and understood  
> differently.
>
> Western harmony and polyphony is an extraordinary achievement,  
> without which we can scarcely live. But it has meant the loss of  
> some things of value, as (in the vast majority of instances) it  
> depends on a more or less rigid set of fixed pitch classes, whereas  
> with a purely horizontal formalization, pitches need be neither  
> rigid nor fixed.
>
> As I say to my 12-tone friends when I am improvising on bansuri  
> -"you have your twelve semitones; I have all the spaces in between  
> as well". It is a lot more than simple portamento. Indeed, many  
> western vernacular styles do in many ways seek to combine both :  
> 'bent' notes in jazz, the various vocal kicks and wobbles  of  
> contemporary vocalizing, borrowed variously from Qawwali, Fado,  
> Flamenco etc, but over chord changes. But little or none of that can  
> be written down, which in the West conventionally makes it somehow  
> less important  to some minds  than material that ~can~ be written  
> down.
>
The way I see it, it is not so much whether the space is continuous or  
discrete but the interaction between the complexity of the  
segmentation and its ability  to sustain artful performance.
> As soon as western composers invented modulation and keyboards (and  
> staff notation), they were basically stuffed from a "harmony" point  
> of view, as it led to the above-mentioned temperament problem in  
> which (especially if you include the piano's stretched octave),  
> everything is more-or-less systematically out of tune. Needless to  
> say, singers  and players who can bend pitch do so, taking them far  
> away from anything  a practical keyboard can manage. But, it is all  
> to easy to make the result chaotic, as everyone tries continually to  
> adjust to each other vertically, while also trying to make a  
> coherent job of the horizontal. A lot of the time, it has to be  
> said, it doesn't quite work, and our resultant sense of "harmony" is  
> more a case of willful suspension of disbelief than of anything  
> founded in either mathematics or acoustics!
>
But some of the most interesting music in the world is "out-of-tune",  
including that made with instruments that cannot hold a constant  
tuning. The extent to which a tuning conforms to some Pythagorean  
Ideal is not related to its musical usefulness. A little bit of  
wildness goes a long way!
D.

> On the bright side, it all means that even today, theory and  
> practice are sufficiently divergent to ensure the continued  
> employment of both theorists and (I hope!) musicians for many years  
> to come.
>
> Richard Dobson
>

________________________________________________
David Worrall.
- Experimental Polymedia:	www.avatar.com.au
- Education for Financial Independence: www.mindthemarkets.com.au
Australian research affiliations:
- Capital Markets Cooperative Research Centre: www.cmcrc.com
- Sonic Communications Research Group:	creative.canberra.edu.au/scrg