Music In The Western World Chapter 1 Summary

Music in the Western World Review Exam 1 (Music History 1)

1. Ovid: Orpheus and the Magical Powers of Music
a. Ovid- Roman Poet
b. To the Greeks, music possessed ethos, the magical power to influence its hearers’ emotion and morals
c. This magical power is illustrated in they myth of Orpheus
2. Nicomachus: Pythagoras and the Numerical Properties of Music
a. Pythagoras (Pytacora in images) (sixth century B.C.) was credited with the discovery of the numerical relationships governing the basic intervals of music-the octave, the fifth, the fourth, and the second.
b. There is an inaudible harmony founded on the basic musical proportions
c. Interval sounding when glasses 16 and 8 are hit: Perfect 8 (2:1)
d. Interval sounding when
Dealt with ethos and the powerful force of music ii. Looked down on the use of music for mere pleasure iii. Hymns: prayers to gods
b. Greek thought described the nature of music, its effects and its proper uses
c. Plato believed that education should stress gymnastics (to discipline the body) and music (to discipline the mind)
i. Urges balance between gymnastics and music ii. Only certain types of music are suitable iii. Music should not have complex scales or mixed genres, rhythms, or instruments iv. Changes in musical conventions could lead to lawlessness in art and anarchy in society
8. The Church Fathers on Psalmody and on the Dangers of Unholy Music
a. Early church leaders were known as “the church fathers”
b. Encouraged music for sacred purposes only
c. Prohibited instrumental music
a) Instrumental music lacked words and could not convey Christian teachings
b) They feared evoking pagen practices, such as spectacles involving dancing
c) Playing instruments is idle and unproductive and can lead to licentious behavior
d. “Psalm implies serenity of soul; it is the author of peace, which calms bewildering and seething thoughts…a psalm is the work of angels, a heavenly institution, the spiritual incense.” St.
Three types of people in musical art: those who perform instruments, those who compose songs and those who judge the instrumental performances and composed songs. (third type is considered a musician)
b. “The mere physical skill serves as a slave, while the reason governs all as sovereign…how much nobler is the study of music as a rational science than as a laborious skill of manufacturing sounds?”
c. “That person is a musician who through careful rational contemplation ahs gained the knowledge of making music, not through the slavery of labor, but through the sovereignty of reason… the type which buries itself in instruments is separated from the understanding of musical knowledge…they act as slaves, for they use no reason but are totally lacking in thought.”
11. Music as a Liberal Art (Scholia enchiriadis)
a. The trivium of the verbal arts: grammar, dialectic, rhetoric
b. The quadrivium of the mathematical disciplines: geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and harmonics (music)
12. Before Notation (Isidore of Seville)
a. Isadore of Seville: “Unless sounds are remembered by man, they perish, for they cannot be written down.”
b. Simple melodies may have been memorized and complex melodies may have been improvised within strict conventions
c. When melodies were written down, formulaic structures remained