Music In Ancient Greek Thought

Music In Ancient Greek Thought

Photo credit Pixabay.coom/Tasos_Lekkas

Unlike many other ancient civilizations, the Greeks recorded, in writing, many of their thoughts and philosophies on music and how it relates to humans. Through them, an interesting view can be gained of how music affected people in the ancient world, and what they thought its purpose was.

Greek mythology held that the earliest musicians were gods such as Apollo, Hermes, Amphion, and Orpheus. The word music itself comes from the mythical concept of the muse. The Greeks made use of music in most aspects of life, from religious ceremonies to military events, and they generally thought of it as an art of enjoyment and a science related to arithmetic and astronomy.

One of the most famous Greeks of all time, Pythagoras, thought that numbers were the key to music, as well as everything else. He was the first to calculate the ratios of common intervals that are the base of musical theory to this day. By dividing a single string, he found that the ratio of an octave was 2:1, a fifth was 3:2, and a fourth was 4:3.

The mathematical nature of music was thought to be a reflection of the order of the universe by the Greeks, going along with their concept of harmonia (parts unified into an orderly whole). This concept helped relate music to astronomy as well. Different writers recorded that musical notes corresponded to the movements and positions of planets, and Plato wrote about the “harmony of the spheres,” the idea that music was produced by the revolutions of planets.

The Pythagorean view held that numbers governed all aspects of the universe and life, and because of this, the numerical nature of music could help keep the soul in balance and affects its inner harmony. Later Greek writers had different ideas about how this worked, but shared the idea that music affected the mind and emotions.

Aristotle wrote that music imitated certain emotions and this created the same emotions in the listener. This is an observation that is obviously true, but Aristotle went further in describing that one should listen to certain types of music to be virtuous, and that listening to the wrong types of music for too long could make one weak and ignoble.

With the ancient Greeks, we get one of the first full views of the role and craft of music. As with every other subject, the Greeks expanded the concepts in instrumental music established before them, and created many new aspects that live on today.