Music sounded like. All information we have about Greek music comes through the
writing of philosophers and scholars, depictions of instruments in Greek art works, and
few dozen fragments of stone and papyrus inscribed with musical notation. Like our
music today Greek music was mixed or combined with poetry, music, and dancing.
Greek music also, played a big role in religion like gospel music plays a big role in
religion today. Music was used in celebrations such as weddings, military victories, and
funerals. Today we use music in some of the same life events as the Greeks did.
Whatever the content in which Greek music was used, it must …show more content…
Despite the differences in our music compared to the
Greek music, we owe a great deal to it. Their concern for proportion and mathematical
precision led the Greeks to develop the first systematic studies of musical sound.
Pythagoras, a Greek mathematician, is credited with discovering the mathematical ratios
of the fundamental pitch intervals; the octave, fourth, and fifth were considered
consonances, or “perfect”, and all others were dissonances, or imperfect.
Critical to an understanding of Greek music is the doctrine of ethos. The Greeks
believed that certain scales, or as they were called, modes, possessed moral and ethical
values in terms of the emotional responses they produced in listeners. I think they are referring to music being used in healing or changing one emotional state through music.
Music had a very definite influence on character and, music could spur action; it could
lead to the strengthening of the whole being, just as it could undermine mental and
spiritual balance; and it could suspend completely the normal willpower, rendering
people unconscious of their acts. This doctrine explains the important role music played
in the Greeks