OT(ish): a really old, complete tune

[Ibrahim]

well, I was wandering YT after my report looking for anything interesting, when I stumbled upon this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KRnAKzFMhk&feature=related

apparently, it's the oldest surviving complete melody in the western world-and apparently was a drinking song.

here's another interesting tune I found, same channel, and a bit before EB (well, 1200 years):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viMbnj_Ei2A&feature=related

and apparently a Delphic one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MMI06AnhtM&feature=related

my question now is:

1-can the former be possibly used in EB 2? (of course, you may need to ask permission).
2-my question for historians: just how do other historians reconstruct the tunes used back then? did people have a kind of musical number chart or similar? if so, what was it like?

[anubis88]

Interesting... As for your second question, i think some sort of note chart is the only possible way how stuff like this can survive... I see no other means of getting a tune to life.

[Lvcretivs]

well, I was wandering YT after my report looking for anything interesting, when I stumbled upon this: [...]
2-my question for historians: just how do other historians reconstruct the tunes used back then? did people have a kind of musical number chart or similar? if so, what was it like?

A really interesting, but probably extremely complicated subject - are there any helpful music theorists and historians at the .org?

With regards to notation, the German Wikipedia has an rather succinct and seemingly knowledgeable article summarizing the two separate notation methods (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musiktheorie_im_antiken_Griechenland#Griechische_Notenschrift), which are, it seems - at least approximately - reconstructible from the surviving texts of (hellenistic) musical theorists:

one, - based upon the old Dorian/Phoenician alphabet - for the instrumental player(s)...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Diaton._Leiter_instr..PNG/800px-Diaton._Leiter_instr..PNG...and one, - based upon the modified and augmented letters of the Ionic alphabet - for the accompanying vocalist(s)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/thumb/6/62/Diaton._Leiter_vokal.PNG/800px-Diaton._Leiter_vokal.PNG
which are found in an separate line above the lyrics, as seen in the epigraphically attested compositions, eg. the transcribed Seikilos epitaph:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cf/Seikilos.svg/500px-Seikilos.svg.png

[Teleklos Archelaou]

I asked the guy back when we were doing the EB1 music. I hoped he could record a few things for us or at least let us use some of his music. He never replied to my request, so I put him in my "abi in malam crucem" file.

[anubis88]

Wow, if Teleklos Archelaou comes back from the grave to reply to a topic, that means something :clown:

[Ibrahim]

A really interesting, but probably extremely complicated subject - are there any helpful music theorists and historians at the .org?

With regards to notation, the German Wikipedia has an rather succinct and seemingly knowledgeable article summarizing the two separate notation methods (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musiktheorie_im_antiken_Griechenland#Griechische_Notenschrift), which are, it seems - at least approximately - reconstructible from the surviving texts of (hellenistic) musical theorists:

one, - based upon the old Dorian/Phoenician alphabet - for the instrumental player(s)...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Diaton._Leiter_instr..PNG/800px-Diaton._Leiter_instr..PNG...and one, - based upon the modified and augmented letters of the Ionic alphabet - for the accompanying vocalist(s)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/thumb/6/62/Diaton._Leiter_vokal.PNG/800px-Diaton._Leiter_vokal.PNG
which are found in an separate line above the lyrics, as seen in the epigraphically attested compositions, eg. the transcribed Seikilos epitaph:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cf/Seikilos.svg/500px-Seikilos.svg.png

interesting: the German Wikipedia does a pretty good job explaining it to me. It's a pretty sophisticated system the Greeks had. thanks for the link and summary-it was very helpful.

now what about the Hurrian tune? that one from what little I found, is based on an Ugaritic text-as far as I undesrstand. Ugaritic has no vowels in the written form (a proto-alphabet), so how can they be certain what the Hurrian version sounded like? if the reconstruction was from a typical cuniform text (which did have vowels-albeit in syllabry), how was the exact tue found out anyway? was there an accent system in Hurrian Cuniform? this is all new to me, so I'm scratching my head at this.

@ TA: "abi in malam crucem" uh-oh, that cannot be good....

@ anubis88: I guess I can now claim-with some justification-to be EB's version of Shang Tsung :clown:

[Caligula]

WOW! This is awesome! I'm currently writing some new, fresh music scores for the Rome Total Realism: VII team. This thread will help me immensely with music ideas! Thank you! :)