The Ancient Greek Music

The Ancient Greek Music

If people talk about the oldest music culture in Europe, the answer must be ancient Greek music. Since the “Age of Mythology,” Greeks have attached great importance to art and music. People can learn from the Grave Painting of the “Aegean Age” that the musical lives of ancient Greek residents were singing and dancing with instruments and sometimes singing and dancing together. After humans from the ages of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia got into the age of ancient Greeks, people were already started research the music; in the 776 B.C. when the first Olympic Games were held in Greece, the ancient Greek music was also becoming developed (Hagel, 2009). The ancient Greek music culture including melodramas and music theories were played a very important role in the Greek culture, it had also affected the culture in today.

The golden age of ancient Greek music culture, according to “The History of Music in the Western Culture” by Keizo Horinchi, is between 650 B.C. and 338 B.C. During that time, the music forms were songs, song-and-dance and melodramas (Horinchi, 1994). The instruments were usually from the previous age. The most popular instrument in ancient Greek was Lyra; it was alleged that the famous blind poet Homer used to use Lyra to accompany his two epics: the Ilia and the Odyssey. During the golden age of ancient Greek music, the musical genre became exceedingly rich. There were songs of sacrifice, songs of drinking, songs of wedding, songs of love, songs of celebration, songs of god, and songs of heroes. Most of these songs were played with dance. The ancient Greeks thought that: “To hold athletics and sacrifices every year, we will get a chance to rest our soul. It is just like the daily life, we have entertainment to expel tiredness and depression (Horinchi, 1994).

The ancient Greek melodrama was also very prosperous. Many tragedy writers and works appeared during that