The Distant Past

Music does not only exist in the western world though much of it we discussed and study is western. Music is not in existence in a short span of one day but took time to evolve and change throughout the years. Mothers sing to their babies, farmers make sounds to frighten birds from the fields. It is inscribed in the Sumerian cuneiform(Wedge-shaped writing) on clay tablets that music is also used for pleasure. To fill the temple with joy,to chase the city’s gloom away; the heart to still, the passions calm, of weeping eyes the tears to stay.

Music also exists in places like Mesopotamia, China, Egypt and many other places. Isis was thought to have sung to her husband Osiris when he was in the underworld. Priests and priestesses also chanted complex music during religious services. Babylonia was called Chaldea last time and scholars of the court such as astrologers, mathematicians were leading thinkers of their time. They observed everything and look for their relationship to heaven ,earth and all different forms of nature. This ‘harmony of sphere’, they thought, could be expressed in numbers. Where music was concerned, they found that by dividing a length of vibrating string by halves, third, quarters and fifths, they could produce a series of notes. We call it the ‘harmonic series’. True to their philosophy, they related the unison, the octave, the perfect fourth and the perfect fifth to the four season of the year.

East and West

Before considering the cultures if Greece and Rome, to which Western music owed a great debt, it is worth looking at the music of the Orient.

Eastern music is improvised not written down. It is mystical sounding and it may sound weird to western-tuned ears. However, it is rich with the cultures of the Orient and tinge with unique taste that is found only in the east.

The East is famous for its pentatonic scale which consists of only the C, D, F, G and A of the western scale.

In China, there were flutes, drums and bells which we know from writing and archaeological findings. The Chinese also associated music with numbers. Confucius held the view that music expressed ‘the accord of heaven and earth’ Since the number ‘3’ represents heaven and the number ‘2’ represents earth, notes whose frequencies of vibration were in the ratio 3:2 were thought to harmonise as heaven and earth.

Although the pentatonic scale formed the basis of Chinese music, by the first century B.C, there was a Chinese Flute that could play two extra notes, making the octave whole. By this stage, the Chinese also used organs, plucked string instruments like the gu zhen and the yang qin. Players of these instruments often formed themselves into bands and played for the royalty or the feudal lords. In the words of Confucius “the music of a man of noble mind is gentle and delicate, maintains a uniform mood, enlivens and moves”. Coincidentally, the time of Confucius resembles the Renaissance period of the West. Learned people were supposed to know things like archery, horse- riding, playing musical instruments, Chinese calligraphy, chess, mathematics and Chinese Literature. Confucius, was a master of all.

In India, music had a philosophical significance. Around 1500 B.C, an Eastern Mediterranean race called the Aryans invaded the country from the Pamir area in the extreme south of Russia. They drove away the indigenous Dravidians and took the place for themselves. They, then, begin what is known as the Vedic period of India. The word Veda means knowledge. There is a book of hymns which emphasis the correct pitching of the voice on three levels. The Indians treat the human voice as the most important form of instrument though they had others like the sitar( A pluck string instrument) and drums.

The Indians thought their chants were composed by the Gods and were assigned to natural things like heaven and days of the weeks etc.

Arabs were pretty much the same as the Indians they also associate their music with nature. For example, one Arabic style of music called maqam belongs to the zodiacal sign of the Ram, to sunrise and the cure for eye trouble.

The Greeks and the Romans

Somewhere around 3000 B.C, the Bronze Age begin and in its earlier stages, Europe flourished brilliantly. The Greeks musical style came partly from Egypt through Crete. Thrace, a north-eastern part of Greece was the birthplace of the greatest minstrel of Greek mythology, Orpheus. The Greeks claims that Hyagnis and Marsyas, from Phrygia in Asia minor were among the founders of their music. The two were credited by the Greeks with the invention of the aulos and another Phrygian called Olympos was supposed to have develop the style of its melodies. But the aulos was in fact known in Semuria, Egypt and Crete long before. It was a pair of pipes each having a double reed like an oboe’s and with holes stopped by the fingers. It had a shrill and penetrating tone. It was popular in weddings and other occasions. The Greeks consecrated the music of the aulos to Dionysius, their God of Wine.

The more refined lyre was the other principal Greek instrument and this was regarded as the instrument of god Apollo. It had from three to twelve string and the largest and most elaborate examples have the name of Kithara. Since the gentle tone of the lyre does not harmonise well with that of the aulos, they seldom play together.

Greek music primarily of ancient Greek civilisation. Only a few examples of ancient Greek music have survived. Music, however, was extremely important to the ancient Greeks, and all the major Greek philosophers theorised about the origin, nature, and function of music. Most of the music seems to have been monophonic, that is, composed of one not harmonised melodic line. Melodies and rhythms in vocal music were related to the rhythms and speech inflections of the text; instrumental music may have been similarly related to dance movement. The peak of musical activity came during the classical age (450-325 BC), when annual festivals and contests of vocal and instrumental music were held.

The principal instruments were two forms of lyre, the lyra and the kithara; and a double oboe, the aulos. They were all used as solo instruments and to accompany singing and recitation. String instruments were used in religious ceremonies associated with the cult of Apollo, and wind instruments were used in the cult of Dionysus and in drama.

The ancient Greek philosophers ascribed a divine origin and a continuing religious significance to music. They believed that music represented in microcosm the order and harmony of the universe and that by studying the acoustical properties of musical intervals they would come closer to understanding the cosmos. The ancient Greeks also believed that music had power over human emotions and behaviour and that when written in the various modes, or scales, music would cause predictable reactions. The truth of these beliefs has never been conclusively proved or disproved.
No noteworthy modern Greek composers have become prominent until recently. During the 1950s and '60s, however, several composers became famous, most notably Yannis Xenakis, an architect and composer.

The Roman music were very similar to the Greeks except they prefer a larger more colossal form of performance. The aulos were much bigger and had more penetrating effect. Emperor Nero of Rome was in every aspect a notorious emperor, other than the fact that his only redeeming feature was that he introduced music and literature into Rome. He actually took part as a lyre player in the Greek Olympics games of 66 where, according to rumour, he won by bribery. Nero took great care of his voice which was thin and husky. He went to such an extent that he even employed a person to remind him not to strain his voice. Though his voice is not exactly fantastic, he certainly must have had stamina for his concert lasted for hours. Nero must have been and extraordinary man for even at the time of his death, forced to suicide by the military, he exclaimed “What an artist is lost in me!”

Private education in music was given to other aristocratic Romans besides Nero. The historian Tacitus maintains that Nero’s murder of the young prince Britannicus was largely due to the boy’s excellence in music.

Jewish Music

Religious and folk music of the Jews from the time of the Old Testament to the present; also, music by Jewish composers that has Jewish themes.

Ancient Jewish music seems to have been used principally in public worship, but it was utilised as well on such quasi-ritualistic occasions as coronations and celebrations. Indeed, as many passages in the Old Testament indicate, it would have been difficult for the Jews to imagine a joyful occasion without music.

Instruments:

The ancient Jews used a number of stringed instruments, the most characteristic of which was the kinnor, or lyre; this was probably the instrument of King David. Other stringed instruments were the nevel, or harp, and the asor, or zither. Such instruments as the ugab, or reed pipe, and the halil, or oboe, which had orgiastic connotations in Israel, as in Greece, were frowned upon by the priests. The hasora, or trumpet, and the shofar, or ram's horn, were ritual instruments used in the Temple and in connection with royalty; the shofar still plays a role in Jewish rites. Percussion instruments included the tof (a tambourine-like frame drum played by women), the pa'amon, a bell or chime, and the msiltayim, or cymbals.

The melodies used in the Temple liturgy appear to have been both tetra-chordal (based on a scale series of four notes) and modal. The liturgical texts were chanted by the priests, and an orchestra of professional musicians accompanied the priests with ornamented versions of the chanted melodies. Congregational singing was also antiphonal: The priests or a trained choral ensemble chanted one part, and the congregation chanted the other. Rhythm usually followed the accents of the syllables of the words.

Synagogue Music:

Following the Diaspora and the later destruction of the Temple by the Romans in AD 70, the synagogue assumed an ever-increasing importance. The liturgical practice of cantillation (chanting of Scripture), which had originated in the 5th century BC and had been performed by sacerdotal musicians, became the duty of a single lay member of the congregation about the 1st century AD. All accompaniment by musical instruments was henceforth forbidden, and responses, wherever the service required, were sung by the entire male congregation. The practice of cantillation and the desire that it be performed correctly led to the beginnings of a notational system during the 5th century AD and to the preservation of ancient chants among such groups as the Yemenite Jews. The investigation of Yemenite and Babylonian chant has shown that Christian chant is greatly indebted to the older Jewish model.

New forms did develop, however, and these hymns and post-biblical prayer modes, many based on Arabic metrical and rhythmic systems, created a need for trained musicians. Consequently, the office of hazan, or cantor, was established during the early Middle Ages.

At first the cantor's principal duty was to perform the more complicated liturgy. About the 8th century, however, the cantor began to improvise in performances. Over many centuries this practice, which increasingly included elements of non-Jewish songs as well as Roman Catholic and Protestant hymn tunes, resulted in extremely elaborate cantoral melodies far removed from the original ancient prayer modes.

The ecstatic niggunim, or wordless hymns, of 16th-century followers of the esoteric, mystical Cabala and of their spiritual descendants, the 18th- and 19th-century Hasidim, were offshoots of the ornamental cantorial style. Originally inspired by religious doctrines that stressed a spontaneous, emotionally expressive vocalisation of prayer lyrics, the niggunim degenerated in time as a result of frequent, inaccurate repetitions and unskilled attempts to mix native Jewish tunes with European art music. The Hasidic songs and dances, however, are of the greatest interest.

From about the 15th century on, in the ghettos of Eastern Europe, groups of folk musicians (klezmerim), playing written music, performed at synagogue services and for secular festivities as well. Occasionally they played for Christian audiences, thus serving as a means of cultural interchange. The klezmer style was revived-especially in the U.S.-in the 1980s, by amateur players performing popular and folk music on various instruments.

The Reform Movement:

Attempts at liturgical reform began in the 19th century. Foremost among the reformers was Salomon Sulzer, who was chief cantor of the Viennese Jewish community and a well-trained composer. Sulzer recognised the Oriental character of Jewish music and strove to bring about a disciplined liturgical service that incorporated this tradition in a manner acceptable to a Westernised Jewry.

In the 20th century, European and American Jewish composers, among them the Swiss-American Ernest Bloch and the Frenchman Darius Milhaud, created combined orchestral and choral settings for synagogue services. Other composers, such as the American Leonard Bernstein in his Kaddish Symphony, incorporated Jewish home prayer tunes and secular folk melodies into their music.

In Israel, the spiritual folk songs of Oriental Jewry, reminiscent of Arab music, have begun to blend with the latter and with the songs of European Jews. Much original Israeli music unites traditional Oriental elements with contemporary Western music.