What Do We Mean by Ancient Greek Music?

Abstract:

Virtually all the literary expressions of archaic and classical Greece that we read today as texts - Homer’s epics, elegies, lyric poetry, drama - were wholly or partly sung and accompanied by musical instruments. Most people suppose that the music of ancient Greece is irrevocably lost. My research project aims to hear the music again as an aural reality by putting together what we know of rhythm, melody and instrumentation along with the few dozen fragments of Greek melodic notation, Greek musical theory, and parallels from living folk music traditions.