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should not inscribe a time-signature in the modern style when and as appropriate. |
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It is important to realize that the bar in this music is created by a particular repeating note-pattern, or by a set of note-patterns recognized as equivalent variants of one another. It is not to be thought of (as in Western music) as an abstract receptacle that may be filled by any combination of notes. This is another aspect of the difference between additive and divisive rhythm. So, once the note-pattern changes, the bar-length and time-signature may well change too. In some Greek music the note-pattern did not change, and the rhythm was straightforward and uniform throughout. But in other cases the rhythms were much more flexible and varied, representable only by changing time-signatures and bar-lengths. |
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In what follows, we shall first review six basic types of rhythmic movement, and then try to say something of the varieties of their combination. |
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The dactylic hexameter ( ) was one of the commonest Greek metres throughout Antiquity. In Homer's time epic poetry in this metre was sung to the lyre. Certain features of the versification, and explicit testimony from Dionysius of Halicarnassus, indicate that the ratio of the long to the short notes in such singing was less than the standard 2 : 1, probably more like 5 : 3, but not precisely measurable. This no doubt reflects the ratio between long and short syllables in ordinary speech, as against the precise mathematical ratio generally imposed by musical rhythm, especially when music is accompanied by bodily movement.16 Dionysius says that there was also a foot of the form  which had the same |
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(Footnote continued from previous page) |
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much weaker than that in Western music; in some cases this accentuation is put into it by the investigator, because we Westerners seem to feel the need of making what is heard more comprehensible by ''phrasing" it in some way or other.' (Kunst, 40.) |
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16 Dion. Hal. Comp. 109 (ii. 71. 10 U.-R.), citing specialist rhythmicians, cf. 144 (ii. 93. 15); my Greek Metre, 20f., 36-9. In his classic study Hungarian Folk Music (Oxford. 1931). 9, Béla Bartók distinguishes two forms of rhythm used in Hungarian songs: 'tempo giusto', i.e. strict rhythm, deriving from rhythmical motions such as work and dancing, and 'parlando-rubato', independent of corporal movement and based on the rhythm of the words. The Greek evidence points to an analogous distinction. The connection between musical rhythm and bodily movement is made by Pl. Phlb. 17d, ps.-Arist. Pr. 19. 38; cf. Aristox. Rhythm. 2. 9, Bacchius, Harm. 93, Aristid. Quint. 1. 13. |
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