The Greek musical heritage.

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Music was of divine origin according to Greek mythology. Dim prehistory saw music as magic and named it as a source of healing, purification and natural miracles. Homer wrote in the Odyssey of the singing of heroic poems. The lyre, kithara (early, small harps) and aulos (double-reed pipe) probably came into Greece from Asia Minor. Fundamental ideas and contributions - music as pure melodic line, linked with words (to shape the rhythm and meter of the music, ) performance based on improvisation within accepted conventions and formulas, art as an orderly system according to the laws of nature capable of affecting thought and conduct, scientifically-based theory of acoustics, scales based on tetrachords and musical terminology.

THE DOCTRINE OF ETHOS - music with moral qualities affecting mood, sound and rhythm ruled by mathematical laws that operate in the visible and invisible creation.

THE TETRACHORD

THE SPARTANS - Spartan culture was based on war and the entire population was trained from an early age to function in a warrior mode. They believed art was corrupting and so there is little record of their artistic output.




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