Tosca A . C . Lynch

Building upon Lynch 2022a and 2022b, this article offers the first account of the historical evolution of the Greek harmonic system and notation keys (tónoi) that bridges the gap between Classical and Imperial music.

This new solution allows us to reconstruct, for the first time, a continuous, if evolving, tradition that stretches from Euripides’ Orestes to late antiquity, reconciling key theoretical insights provided by Ptolemy, Porphyry and others with documentary evidence that illustrates the structure of the Imperial harmonic system and its use in the Imperial musical documents (dDAGM).

This approach also enables us to trace the gradual expansion of the Greek notation system from an initial set of symbols (Α–Ω) to the full array recorded by Aristides and Alypius, mapping its development onto key historical milestones including the revolutionary innovations of the New Musicians and Damon of Oa’s inclusion of the Lydian mode into the Greek modulation system.


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Errata Corrige

p.77, note 19 and p.83 note 27: please correct the mistake in the accent of the word sýstēmata into systḗmata. I must have changed the singular into plural, but forgot to change the accent accordingly!
p. 104, line 4: please insert missing ‘grand-’ after pupil’ (revised sentence: ‘This problem was eventually solved by a grand-pupil of Pythocleides, an Athenian aulete called Lamprocles’.

p.107, lines 5–7:  please delete the following sentence: ‘and the same interval is emphasised an octave lower in the instrumental accompaniment (B3–F3)’.
I misread the notation sign relative to the lowest note (which ought to have been printed in its instrumental version) for B2.
The actual sign recorded in the Orestes papyrus is C3 (as reported in note 86 on the same page), and forms a fourth with the note F3.

p.109, Figure 16: the dotted line that identifies Phrygian diatonos meson is misplaced, and should be
aligned with  Π F3

This article offers an overview of a variety of paths that can be followed to investigate the rich and multifaceted world of the ancient ‘art of the Muses’, highlighting the value that different perspectives bring to the study of ancient mousikē and its development as a discipline. In other words, this article is a methodological piece in the etymological sense of the term. It is a written logos that illustrates different methodoi—a number of ‘paths’ (hodoi) that lead us through (meth’) the world of ancient Greek music and reveal different, but complementary, aspects of this complex reality. Given that the historical dimension of these important issues has been discussed elsewhere, this article explores the productive interplay of different dimensions through the lens of my own research journey. In particular, we shall see how the interplay of insights offered by ancient philosophy, literature and musical theory, combined with the practical evidence preserved by the Greek musical documents and material culture, shows that we need to develop a flexible and multi-faceted approach to the study of ancient Mousikē in order to try to recapture some of its defining features. The final sections of this article include a number of case studies that show how new tools developed in the area of Digital Humanities have great potential for the study of ancient music. Some of these materials, including modern performances of ancient musical scores as well as 3D reconstructions of ancient instruments such as the Louvre aulos, are showcased on a new dedicated website, eMousike.com. Keywords: Ancient Greek Music, Greek musical documents, Louvre aulos, 3D modelling, Digital Humanities.

Bringing together evidence preserved by Aristoxenus, Aristides Quintilianus, Ptolemy, Porphyry and the Greek musical handbooks in a unified framework, this article and its sequels show how the Classical modulation system reconstructed in Lynch 2018 is confirmed by the melodies recorded in the Greek musical documents. Taken jointly, these articles will offer the first comprehensive account of the use of notation tónoi in the ancient Greek musical documents that is fully consistent with the extant technical evidence on ancient harmonic theory and with literary testimonies about the harmonic innovations introduced by the New Musicians. The present article will focus on the Classical/Hellenistic harmonic system, whereas its Imperial counterpart will be discussed in a separate article. These theoretical analyses are based upon a newly developed database (dDAGM, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5181743) which collects all the musical notes attested in the standard edition of the Greek musical fragments (DAGM), for a total of over 3,400 notes.

This article completes the discussion of the Classical/Hellenistic harmonic system set out in part I. Taken jointly, these articles offer the first account of the use of notation keys in the Hellenistic musical documents that is fully consistent with technical evidence as well as literary testimonies about the harmonic innovations of the New Musicians. This article offers practical analyses and new modern transcriptions of the Ashmolean Papyri (DAGM 5–6) and Athenaeus’ Paean (DAGM 20)—scores that reflect the modulation system of the New Music and its characteristic use of ‘exharmonic’ and ‘chromatic’ notes. The analyses offered in this article are powered by a newly-developed database (dDAGM, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5181743) and show that these ‘exharmonic’ notes correspond to the chromatic ‘bends’ first identified in Lynch 2018a—‘bends’ that ‘distorted’ the central pillars of the noble Dorian harmonía and turned it into its polar opposite: the Mixolydian, the emotional and lamenting mode par excellence.

This paper looks at different ways in which Aristophanes makes fun of the seemingly lofty subtleties of Classical Greek rhythmic theory, exploiting the aesthetic similarity between different kinds of rhythms as well as the significant role that this kind of knowledge acquired in the social and cultural context of in 5th-century Athens. After a brief discussion of some basic concepts that shaped Classical rhythmics, including the difference between rhythmical and metrical feet, the article discusses the similarities between what can be reconstructed of Damon’s approach to rhythmical analysis, Aristophanes’ Socrates puns on subtle rhythmical distinctions and their distinguished cultural status, and the defining features of the investigations into linguistic correctness undertaken by intellectuals collectively known as the Sophists. This background sheds light on key details of this passage of Aristophanes’ Clouds (vv. 636–53), allowing us to appreciate the cultural mores that inform Socrates’ humorous references to different units of measurements and their relationship to distinct categories of rhythms. The contrast between rhythms ‘by the finger’ (kata daktylon) and rhythms ‘by the armour’ (kat’enhoplion) is particularly important in this context, in that it reveals the complex interplay of rhythmical and metrical features in shaping the ethical impact of a given song. These issues are discussed in detail on the basis of extant technical sources. Among other things, these sources show how the ‘compound’ nature of the enhoplian rhythm stemmed from its combination of dactylic/equal rhythms and iambic/double ones in the same song. This evidence is strikingly convergent with the playful account of Damon’s rhythmical lectures (epideixeis) that Plato’s Socrates offers in Republic 3 (400b1–c5), and with the aesthetic features of traditional dances in armour, including ‘marching songs’ (embatēria) as well as Pyrrhic dances (pyrrichai).

This paper will focus on Plato's thought-provoking depiction of justice as special kind of harmonia (Resp. 4.443c-444a) that epitomises the best possible organisation of the soul, exploring his nuanced use of the model of lyre tunings in performative, theoretical as well as educational terms. By comparing Plato's use of harmonic imagery with technical discussions of lyre tunings and their key role in educational settings, I will show how Plato exploited distinctive features of traditional Greek lyre harmoniai to give shape to his innovative understanding of the structure of the soul and the harmonious , but not strifeless, relationship between its individual components. In the second part of this paper, I will look at how the model outlined in the Republic sheds light on the musical structure that gives shape to the World Soul in the Timaeus, advancing a new interpretation of its elusive harmonic organisation.

In this paper, I offer a close discussion of the musical innovations attributed to Phrynis, Timotheus and other ‘New Musicians’ mentioned in a famous fragment of Pherecrates’ Chiron, interpreting this fascinating passage in the light of the extant evidence about ancient harmonic theory and practice, as well as the latest research findings. More specifically, I shall advance a new hypothesis concerning the nature of Phrynis’ in- novative ‘twister’ (strobilos): producing a special bending (kampē) of a semitone, this gadget allowed Phrynis to combine five different harmoniai (Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Iastian and ‘Loose Lydian’) in one and the same twelve-string tuning. Making a sub- tle modification to this device, Timotheus further expanded the harmonic palette of his twelve-string kithara, introducing the lamenting aulos-mode par excellence, the Mixolydian, into the realm of lyre music. Philoxenus increased this system by adding an extra string, reaching the 13-step arrangement that is at the heart of Aristoxenian harmonic theory.

This paper calls into question a long-lasting but ill-founded tenet of Platonic scholarship, namely that Plato was not interested in, or aware of, the technical implications of the musical concepts he employed in the dialogues. By contrast, I will show how he exploited the technical features of the musical concept of symphōnía dià pasôn, in order to highlight the unique role played by temperance (sōphrosýnē) in the ideal city. More precisely I will argue that Plato’s musical images, far from being decorative or purely metaphoric devices, enrich our understanding of the ethical notion they depict precisely by means of their technical and performative implications, which were very familiar to the original readers of the Republic. Hence musical theory and practice, in addition to being central elements of the cultural context in which Plato’s reflections must be interpreted, represent also a repertoire of concepts that significantly informed his philosophical theories.

with
Penelope Murray (Warwick), Ian Rutherford (Reading), Giorgio Ieranò (Trento), Pauline LeVen (Yale), Susanna Sarti (Florence), Luigi Galasso (Milan), Sylvain Perrot (Strasbourg), Maria Chiara Martinelli (Pisa), Sheramy D. Bundrick (South Florida St. Petersburg), Marco Ercoles (Bologna), Timothy J. Moore (Washington in St. Louis), Naomi A. Weiss (Harvard), Zoa Alonso Fernández (Madrid), Timothy Power (Rutgers, New Brunswick), Konstantinos Melidis (Cyprus), Chres̄tos Terzes̄ (Athens/Vienna), John C. Franklin (Vermont), Egert Pöhlmann (Erlangen), Andrew Barker (Birmingham), Tosca A. C. Lynch (Oxford/Verona), Stefan Hagel (Vienna), Massimo Raffa (Milazzo/Perugia), Eleonora Rocconi (Pavia), Francesco Pelosi (Pisa), Antonella Provenza (Palermo), Verena Schulz (Munich), Mark Griffith (Berkeley), Mariella De Simone (Salerno/Naples), Armand D'Angour (Oxford), Eric Csapo (Sydney/Warwick), Peter Wilson (Sydney), Paola Dessì (Padua), Cecilia Panti (Rome), Donatella Restani (Bologna/Ravenna), Daniela Castaldo (Salento)

https://www.emousike.com/ddagm

This app is powered by the dDAGM database, which has been developed by Tosca A.C. Lynch and collects all the musical notes attested in the standard edition of the Greek musical documents ( DAGM = Pöhlmann and West, OUP 2001).

The interactive chart that is currently available in the app represents the distribution of ancient Greek musical notes that are attested in Classical and Hellenistic documents.

You can visualise the notes belonging to different families of keys by selecting the relevant options in the side panel on the left. The list of the relative documents will appear below the chart.

This evidence and its significance for the history of ancient Greek harmonics are discussed in Lynch 2022a (‘Unlocking the Riddles of Classical Greek Melodies I: Dorian Keys to the Harmonic Revolution of the New Music and the Hellenistic Musical Documents’, Greek and Roman Musical Studies 10.2, 383-415).

Enjoy!

This figure (Lynch 2023, Fig. 21) represents the basic harmoníai that could be played by the Louvre aulos in its Imperial setting, as well as some of the modulating scales that could be produced by 'expanding' the basic scales through partial-covering of up to two finger-holes of this instrument.

Each of these modes is matched to the corresponding Greek notes employed in the Imperial musical documents, as well as the corresponding tunings recorded by Aristides Quintilianus and Ptolemy.

The practical use of these modes in the Imperial musical documents shall be discussed in detail in a book currently in preparation (https://zenodo.org/record/7524698#.Y-oUwy8w1pR). As discussed on my website, this reconstruction is based on the 3D model I produced in 2021: https://www.emousike.com/louvreaulos

For the sake of methodological rigour, my analysis of the Louvre aulos scale is based on the frequencies published in Hagel 2014. Thanks to the chamber pitch calculator included in Lynch 2021b, the musical value of these frequencies is however established on the basis of the standard pitch set by the Koilē flute (~432 Hz, Terzēs 2020).

Among other things, this diagram shows the basic scales produced by the Louvre aulos conform to the Phrygian and Hypophrygian tunings recorded by Ptolemy (Hypértropa and Iástia) not only with regard to their general octave species but also in connection with the fine tuning of key intervals. For instance, the septimal tone d–e (8:7) that is featured in Ptolemy’s Phrygian tuning (Hypertropa) corresponds to the interval produced by the relative holes of the L pipe of the Louvre aulos (Φ and C). Likewise, the septimal tone A–B that was distinctive of the ‘relaxed’ Iastian mode (Iastia) is produced by the lowest holes of the H pipe.

This diagram also shows that the Imperial kithára tunings were doubled an octave higher by the Louvre Aulos. This octave shift suggests that the Louvre aulos was a ‘kitharistic’ aulos (kitharistḗrios), which was also known as mágadis (Ath. Deipn. 14.634e–35c) after the special ‘harp-like’ effect produced by playing melodies in parallel octaves (magadízein). Unlike the note-for-note (próschorda) accompaniment that was typical of traditional lyre playing, ‘kitharistic’ auloi replicated the male register characteristic of kithara scales an octave higher (cf. e.g. Ps.-Plut. De Mus. 1141b).

Callum Armstrong will produce audio recordings of these scales in the near future, and they will be made available on the website in due course.

References

Lynch, T. A.C. (2023) 'Singing with the Muses: new paths into ancient Mousikē'. Dramaturgias (forthcoming). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368832615_Singing_with_the_Muses_new_paths_into_ancient_Mousike

Hagel, S. (2014b). Better Understanding the Louvre Aulos. In Eichmann, R., Jianjun, F., Koch, L.- Ch. (eds), Papers from the 8th Symposium of the International Study Group on Music Archaeology. Rahden, Westf.: Marie Leidorf, pp.131–142.

Terzēs, C. (2020). Musical Instruments of Greek and Roman Antiquity. In Lynch, T. A.C. and Rocconi, E. (eds), A Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Music, Malden: Blackwell, pp. 213-227.

Today marks one year since we lost Andrew, and it is still hard to find the words to express the magnitude of the loss experienced by many people who had the good fortune to know him and learn from, and with, him — both in person and through his many books and articles.

Many tributes have been paid to him by distinguished institutions, friends and colleagues, including the University of Birmingham, the UK Council of University Classical Departments, and the journal he founded, Greek and Roman Musical Studies. An extended biographical memoir will also appear shortly on the British Academy's website.
So today we will let music speak for us, and especially Andrew’s own voice, leading us all in song and reminding us to shine while we are alive.
Thank you, Andrew, for all that you have taught us and all that we have shared over the years.

https://www.emousike.com/post/andrew-barker-24-april-1943-22-july-2021

This website showcases different kinds of evidence concerning Ancient Greek music, including interactive 3D models of the Louvre and Ephesus aulos accompanied by music performed on accurate replicas of these instruments.
Forthcoming updates will feature exciting evidence on the New Music, the Greek harmonic system, ancient notation and the musical documents.

This is a 3D model of the Louvre aulos (inv. nr. E10962), which follows the measurements published by Stefan Hagel (Hagel, S. ‘Better understanding the Louvre Aulos’, Studien zur Musikarchäologie 9, Orient-Archäologie 33, 131–142).

I have reconstructed the reed on the basis of archaeological parallels combined with a mathematical model of this pipe, which gives a basic estimate of the scale it produces (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5515303).

This scale and its cultural significance will be discussed in forthcoming articles and the book I’m currently working on (Plato’s musical ethos: ancient modes, instruments and rhythms).

An interactive version of the 3D model is available on Sketchfab: https://skfb.ly/o7oUB

These images depict a 3D model of a preliminary reconstruction of the Ephesus aulos (550-600 BC) that I completed in 2020. The cultural and aesthetic significance of this pipe will be discussed in the book I am currently working on (Lynch, T.A.C. Plato’s musical êthos: ancient modes, instruments and rhythms).
An interactive version of this 3D model is available on Sketchfab: https://skfb.ly/opMNV

This database, created by Dr Tosca A.C. Lynch, includes all the notes attested in the ancient Greek musical documents collected in the standard edition DAGM (Pöhlmann, E. and West, M.L., 2001, Documents of Ancient Greek Music, Oxford: OUP).

Dr Lynch will present historically informed interpretations of these data in a series of articles devoted, respectively, to:

–the Classical/Hellenistic harmonic system and the relative documents (marked as BC in this database);

–the Imperial harmonic system and the relative documents (marked as AD in this database)

Dubious readings follow Pöhlmann and West; DAGM 17-18 are grouped with Imperial documents, as discussed in the articles.

The database will be released under CC License Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International upon publication of the articles that offer historically-informed interpretation of the data.

Lynch, T. (2017) Book Review – Wallace, R. W. Reconstructing Damon: Music, Wisdom Teaching and Politics in Perikles’ Athens, Oxford, Oxford University Press. 2015, xxiii, 223 pp. £55 (hb). ISBN: 9780199685738

Greek and Roman Musical Studies 5.2: 273–278

Following the great success of last year's event, the University of Trento is pleased to host the second 'Moisa Summer School in Ancient Greek Music'. This school brings together for five days many of the most renowned specialists in the field of ancient Greek music and offers excellent introductions to the many disciplines involved in these studies, which are by nature interdisciplinary, given the complex character of the Greek concept of μουσική. The Summer School aims at providing a detailed and comprehensive overview of the most important issues involved in the study of ancient Greek music, both in terms of musical theory and instrumental performance; in addition, students will be introduced to the key theoretical concepts employed in these studies and to the bibliographic resources they may use to pursue further studies independently.

The first edition of the 'Moisa Summer School in Ancient Greek Music' aims at bringing together for five days many of the most renowned specialists in the field of ancient Greek music and provide excellent introductions to the many disciplines involved in these studies, which are by nature interdisciplinary, given the complex character of the Greek concept of μουσική.

This paper calls into question a long-lasting but ill-founded tenet of Platonic scholarship, namely that Plato was not interested in, or aware of, the technical implications of the musical concepts he employed in the dialogues. Conversely, I will show how Plato exploited the technical and practical features of the concept of symphōnía dià pasôn, and of choral singing more generally, to highlight the unique role played by temperance (sōphrosýnē) in the ideal city. More precisely I contend that Plato’s musical images, far from being decorative or purely metaphoric devices, enrich our understanding of this ethical notion precisely by means of their technical and performative implications, which were very familiar to the original readers of the Republic. Hence musical theory and practice, in addition to being central elements of the cultural context in which Plato’s reflections must be interpreted, represent also a repertoire of concepts that significantly informed his philosophical the...

These slides accompanied a presentation I recently delivered at the ICS Sunoikisis Seminar on Digital Approaches to Cultural Heritage, within a session on 3D modelling. In this short talk, I discussed a case study in ancient Greek music, namely my recent reconstruction of the Louvre aulos and the many different types of evidence that informed it, ranging from literary and technical texts to iconography, mathematical models and practical experiments.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License: https://zenodo.org/record/6052599

General info on this session

This session introduced the concept of 3D modelling or visualisation, the production of 3D models of objects that cannot simply be imaged or scanned—either because they no longer exist (e.g. archaeological fragments), or not yet (e.g. digital design), or never will (conceptual or artistic models), or extant finds where experimental or working models are needed.

We discuss important issues around the use of 3D modelling in scholarly research, including metadata, documentation and academic value, and hear about two case studies, involving ancient musical instruments and anatomical ideas.

We suggest an exercise for students to try out at home, and present a short tutorial on building an architectural reconstruction of a building from Pompeii using the free software Sketchup.

Streamed live at https://youtu.be/UHxHFd9VgpA

Readings and exercise at https://github.com/SunoikisisDC/SunoikisisDC-2021-2022/wiki/5-3D-modelling