|
|
|
|
|
|
|
By far the greater part of Greek musicas of ethnic music overall consisted of song, either solo or choral. Instruments were sometimes played on their own, but mostly they served to accompany the human voice. There normally was such accompaniment (except when someone was singing to entertain himself while doing something else), but its role was subordinate. A choir of many voices was not balanced by an equivalent band of instrumentalists; very often a single piper supplied the accompaniment, even for a chorus of fifty, as in the Athenian dithyramb. According to a writer of the Aristotelian school, we enjoy listening to a singer more when he sings to an aulos or a lyre, not because of the additional sonority but because it helps to define the tune. It is not better with more instruments, because that tends to obscure the song.1 Another tells us that the aulos is better than the lyre for singing to, because it blends better with the voice and covers the singer's mistakes, whereas the lyre shows them up.2 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
One can do other things melodically with the voice besides singing. One can hum, yodel, imitate bird or animal cries, or croon wordlessly. The Greeks, however, did not exploit these possibilities for musical purposes.3 Nor did they have songs composed partly or wholly of nonsense syllables, as some peoples do. On the contrary, their songs (so far as our knowledge goes) were settings of thoroughly articulate, often highly sophisticated poetic texts, with little verbal repetition. Hence it was important that the words should be clearly heard and not submerged in instrumental sound. Lasus of Hermione, the first poet known to have interested himself in musical theory, composed at least two pieces in which he contrived to avoid |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
1 Ps.-Arist. Pr. 19.9. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2 Ibid. 19.43. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
3 Aristophanes may emphasize the identity of bird or frog singers by incorporating appropriate calls in their songs (Av. 227ff., Ran. 209ff.), but these songs are predominantly in Greek; he is not producing anything in the manner of Janequin's Chant des oyseaux. |
|
|
|
|
|