Western music

Ancient Middle East and Egypt

The inhabitants of the Mesopotamian region around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers—the Sumerians, the Babylonians, and the Assyrians—flourished from about 3500 to about 500 bce. Their pictures and the few surviving artifacts indicate that they had instruments of every basic type: idiophones, whose sound is made by resonating as a whole; aerophones, which resonate a column of blown air; chordophones, with strings to be plucked or struck; and membranophones, made of stretched skins over a resonating body. An undecipherable hymn engraved in stone, dating from about 800 bce, is evidence of a primitive system of musical notation.

The Egyptians, entering historical times about 500 years later than the Mesopotamians, enjoyed all of the same types of activities and instruments, as may be deduced from numerous written references to music as well as seen on many artifacts, especially the pictures preserved on pottery utensils.

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The musical culture of the Hebrew peoples, recorded from about 2000 bce and documented primarily in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), was more directly influential in the West because of its adoption and adaptation into the Christian liturgy. Because of the prohibition of Jewish religious law against the making of “graven images,” there are very few surviving artifacts or pictures. Among the established practices of the temple service still current in the synagogue are the extensive use of the shofar (a ritualistic ram’s-horn trumpet) and the singing of passages from the Torah (Pentateuch; the first five books of the Bible), prayers, and songs of praise.

Ancient Greece

Of the eastern Mediterranean cultures, it was undoubtedly that of the Greeks that furnished the most direct link with the musical development of western Europe, by way of the Romans, who defeated them but adopted much of Greek culture intact. Entering historical times relatively late, circa 1000 bce, the Greeks soon dominated their neighbours and absorbed many elements of earlier cultures, which they modified and combined into an enlightened and sophisticated civilization. The two basic Greek religious cults—one devoted to Apollo, the other to Dionysus—became the prototypes for the two aesthetic poles, classical and romantic, that have contended throughout Western cultural history. The Apollonians were characterized by objectivity of expression, simplicity, and clarity, and their favoured instrument was the kithara, a type of lyre. The Dionysians, on the other hand, preferred the reed-blown aulos and were identified by subjectivity, emotional abandon, and sensuality.

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The prevailing doctrine of ethos, as explained by ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle, was based on the belief that music has a direct effect upon the soul and actions of humankind. As a result, the Greek political and social systems were intertwined with music, which had a primary role in the dramas of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes. And the Grecian educational system was focused upon musica and gymnastica, the former referring to all cultural and intellectual studies, as distinguished from those related to physical training.

To support its fundamental role in society, an intricate scientific rationale of music evolved, encompassing tuning, instruments, modes (melodic formulas based on certain scales), and rhythms. The 6th-century-bce philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras was the first to record the vibratory ratios that established the series of notes still used in Western music. From the total gamut of notes used were derived the various modes bearing the names of Grecian tribes—Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, etc. The rhythmic system, deriving from poetry, was based on long–short relationships rather than strong–weak accentual metre. After Pythagoras, Aristoxenus was the major historian and theoretician of Greek music.

Ancient Rome

When the musical culture of the eastern Mediterranean was transplanted into the western Mediterranean by the returning Roman legions, it was inevitably modified by local tastes and traditions. In most cases, the resulting practices were more limited than their models. The diatonic (seven-note) scale, for example, became the standard, displacing the chromatic and enharmonic structures of the Grecian system. Of particular consequence was the new concept of metre as a series of equal durations, with emphasis being determined by accent (stress) rather than by duration.

An inventory of the musical heritage transplanted from the ancient East (particularly Greece) to Rome reveals the rich treasure inherited: an acoustical theory that accounted for the identification and classification of tones; a concept of tonal organization resulting in the system of modes; principles of rhythmic organization; basic principles of instrument construction; a system of notation that conveyed all necessary indications of pitch and duration; and a large repertory of melodies to serve as models for further composition.