Although we can learn about various facts of prehistoric musical cultures from images and archeological remains, our understanding is severely limited by the lack of written record. Instruments themselves were made out of perishable materials, and few have survived. Luckily, pictures show how instruments were held and played, and in what circumstances music was used. Surviving instruments reveal details of their construction. For example, archaeologists exploring the royal tombs at Ur, a Sumerian city on the Euphrates, found several lyres and harps. Combining written records with images of music-making allows a much fuller understanding of how Greek cultures used music. They showed repertories including wedding songs, funeral laments, military
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The earliest known composer by name is Enheduanna. She was an Akkadian high priestess at Ur, who composed hymns to the moon god Nanna and moon goddess Inanna. The text, but not her music, survive of cuneiform tablets. Around 1800 b.c.e., musicians began to write down what they knew instead of passing it down orally. Their writing described intervals, improvisation, performing techniques, and many other resourceful attributes of music. Amongst the writings are instructions for tuning an instrument that indicated the used of seven-note diatonic scales. They recognized seven scales of this type, corresponding to the seven scales playable of the white keys of a piano. These scales have parallels in the ancient Greek musical system as well as in our own. Still, Ancient Greece is the earliest civilization that offers us enough evidence to construct a well-rounded view of musical culture, although there are still many …show more content…
For the Greeks, music and poetry were nearly the same. The parallels include rhythm, expression, and emotion. Songs themselves are rhythmic, with poetry flowing in the same way. Greek playwrights and poets had been composing to accompanying music for several centuries when, in the 4th century BC, a new sport developed: spoken-word. Music and poetry have advanced since in their shared source of creative inspiration and similar mathematically-inclined structures. Rhythms were ordered by numbers, because each notes were some multiple of a primary duration. Pythagoras, another profound Greek philosopher, was credited was credited with discovering that the octave, fifth, and fourth, were related to
The earliest known composer by name is Enheduanna. She was an Akkadian high priestess at Ur, who composed hymns to the moon god Nanna and moon goddess Inanna. The text, but not her music, survive of cuneiform tablets. Around 1800 b.c.e., musicians began to write down what they knew instead of passing it down orally. Their writing described intervals, improvisation, performing techniques, and many other resourceful attributes of music. Amongst the writings are instructions for tuning an instrument that indicated the used of seven-note diatonic scales. They recognized seven scales of this type, corresponding to the seven scales playable of the white keys of a piano. These scales have parallels in the ancient Greek musical system as well as in our own. Still, Ancient Greece is the earliest civilization that offers us enough evidence to construct a well-rounded view of musical culture, although there are still many …show more content…
For the Greeks, music and poetry were nearly the same. The parallels include rhythm, expression, and emotion. Songs themselves are rhythmic, with poetry flowing in the same way. Greek playwrights and poets had been composing to accompanying music for several centuries when, in the 4th century BC, a new sport developed: spoken-word. Music and poetry have advanced since in their shared source of creative inspiration and similar mathematically-inclined structures. Rhythms were ordered by numbers, because each notes were some multiple of a primary duration. Pythagoras, another profound Greek philosopher, was credited was credited with discovering that the octave, fifth, and fourth, were related to