Editorial

If an ancient Greek were to hear today’s music,
he would certainly be impressed by the polyfonia,
impact and instrumentational strength,
because those were not characteristic of ancient
music.
On the other hand he could consider our melodies
to be monotonous, because only two modes are
used in our days, (Major and Minor scales),
whilst in ancient Greek music there existed seven
different ways, each of which had a different
character (mixolidios, lidios, frygios, dorios etc).
Modes were of special importance to the ancient
Greeks and this can be deduced from the fact
that Plato dealt with these, as he considered
some of them suitable for his Politia and others
not. These modes were bequeathed to Byzantine
music as the Eight Sounds, while they were
being used by the Western Church too. In Eastern
music the modes are known as makams. In contemporary
music modes reappeared in Jazz with
the same term modes with ancient Greek names
About Ancient Greek Music
Michalis Georgiou
(left – right) The Greek Ambassador, Mr Dimitris
Rallis, his wife and Michalis Georgiou.
(mixolydian, dorian, ionian, aiolian, locrian,
etc.)
An ancient Greek would also find contemporary
music poor in musical intervals, since only
the rough intervals of tones and semi-tones
are used in contrast to ancient music which used
a variety of musical intervals. Apart from the
Cleoriki kithara (cradle
kithara), 5th century BC.
Greek salpinx, trumpet, kochlos, keras. Seven-stringed lyra, 5th century BC. Oxival, clay pots with wooden bases.
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