Reproductions/Recreations of Ancient Music

I keep looking for more modern reproductions of ancient music to put in my personal build in addition to the EB soundtrack and I'm wondering if other people do the same thing. Particularly, I'm wondering about some culture groups more than others. There are a number of modern cd's that are attempts to recreate what ancient greek music was like - and I just got one of them in the mail from amazon.com today: Melpomen, by Conrad Steinmann, made in Austria. It's about half/half vocal/instrumental. Some of the pieces are a little jarring, but some are perfect. Anyone else tried some of the other ones?

I've got a few different Tuva cd's, which gives me plenty of steppe-type music.

The one I'm wondering most about is "barbarian" culture music. Are there any *good* cd's out there that really attempt to recreate what celtic music was like? Of course if you do searches for celtic music you get tons and tons of things that are not appropriate in the least. I do have some mp3s by Krauka (Vikinga seidur) that are really good, but I can't handle all of the pieces on the cd. I know they've got a couple of other cd's too, but the samples I've heard online make them sound much more modern. Anyone know about any other attempts to recreate any of our barbarian factions' ancient music?

Duuude, you don't have the soundtracks to Troy and Gladiator in the background? Nothing like hearing the first opening scene music to Gladiator when you are establishing Imperium Romanorum in the German forests!

Joking. Really.

My mom has some Greek music from her visits to Athenai that I hate her for... it's all orchestra, but supposedly some stuff may be applicable. I'll try and dig through her stash.

Some of it just sounds like modern greek music (traditional greek, but modern) to me - but some sounds much more authentic (not that I know a terrible amount about either, but I know enough to be dangerous - to know that one is one and the other is the other :grin:).

I recently made a post on the internal forum where I linked to a number of different places on the web one can find music like this (many of these have sample tracks or parts of tracks online):

Melpomen: Ancient Greek Music by Ancient Greek Anonymous, Conrad Steinmann, Conrad Steinmann, and Ensemble Melpomen (Audio CD - Jan 10, 2006)
http://www.amazon.com/Melpomen-Ancie...id=1170517688/

Music of the Ancient Greeks by Ensemble De Organographia, Anonymous, Athenaeus, and Euripides (Audio CD - Mar 24, 1997)
http://www.amazon.com/Music-Ancient-...id=1170517688/

Musique de la Grece Antique by Greek Anonymous, Gregorio Paniagua, and Madrid Atrium Musicae (Audio CD - Oct 10, 2000)
http://www.amazon.com/Musique-Grece-...id=1170517688/

Music from Ancient Rome, Vol. 1: Wind Instruments by Gaetano Delfini, Luce / Ravenstein, Natalia van Maioli, Walter Maioli, and Walter / Maioli, Luce Maioli (Audio CD - April 22, 1997)
http://www.amazon.com/Music-Ancient-...id=1170517688/

Music of the Ancient Sumerians, Egyptians and Greeks by Ensemble De Organographia, Philip Neuman, and Gayle Stuwe Neuman
http://www.amazon.com/Music-Ancient-...id=1170517688/

The Cyprosyrian Girl: Hits of the Ancient Hellenes by John Curtis Franklin
http://www.kingmixers.com/AncGreekMusicFragments.html (a few full mp3s are online there - some are a little strange for sure, and sound more like 1970's hippie stuff :grin:)

Northern Europe during the Roman Era
http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/cds/emu005.htm

E tempore emergo
http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/cds/emu003.htm

Musica Romana
http://www.musica-romana.de/de/cd.html

Music of Greek Antiquity
Petros Tabouris et al.
F.M. Records PAIAN 653
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000003YH4/

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Krauka -
http://www.krauka.dk/musik02.html

Also have just been told about Prehistoric Music of Ireland - they have a few mp3's of sections of tracks on there. Very authentic stuff.
http://homepage.eircom.net/~bronzeag...available.html

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If anyone has heard any of these or has any of these, your opinions on them would be much appreciated.

I know of one web resource that might interest you, if you don't know about it already.

www.oeaw.ac.at/kal/agm/index.htm

That page also contains links to other ancient music sites and some ancient greel pronounciation guides.

Hope it helps

Quote:

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Originally Posted by oudysseos

I know of one web resource that might interest you, if you don't know about it already.

www.oeaw.ac.at/kal/agm/index.htm

That page also contains links to other ancient music sites and some ancient greel pronounciation guides.

Hope it helps

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Oudysseos, thanks for the link. In fact using this, I have found the following gem...

http://www.oeaw.ac.at/kal/agm/aulos/Ligy.mp3

It mimics one of the few scores of Ancient Hellenic music we KNOW of. It was originally performed at Delphi in 128 BC, the accompanying aulos is mentioned, and the vocal melody which went in similar tunes.

Ancient Greeks wrote their music like their numbers, using the letters of their 24letter alphabet. The above is written by Athenaios, Paean 14-16

So, people if you want to listen to authentic ancient greek music (not much was preserved but THIS fraction did), download and listen to the link above (don't worry, it is legal).

Sort of surprised there's such limited interest in this type of stuff. I think it's more likely due to folks not having thought about it much or heard much of it instead of really not liking or enjoying it. Especially on eastern/semitic/nomadic stuff - which is really beautiful and works very well as additions in the game too. Just take a listen to this one: http://homepage.eircom.net/~bronzeag.../butterfly.mp3 - which has traditional Irish flute and a Bronze Age Irish horn.

TA can you show me some Gallic music? I would like to hear some of that plz

That's one thing I have no knowledge of at all. I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction on that one. :grin:

Darn. Well I will hear Riverdance in the meantime =)

Very interesting stuff!

Did the Ancient Greeks themselves actually use Pythagorean tuned 12-tone chromatic scale? Actually, the "Ligy" sample sounds very Sun Ra-- a lover of esoteric flute and oboe melodies.

this is very interesting, just not much info on it though...

pythagoras' original theories on music didnt specifically state a 12 tone scale. He did say that 12 was important, but he also connected music with celestial bodies. Turkish music was derived from pythagoras' theories, but you can hear that it is very different from Western music which is also based on pythagoras.

heres a link :
http://www.davesabine.com/Music/Arti...9/Default.aspx

Well it's about time you guys started looking for the real stuff.:juggle2: I love ancient music and TBH I couldn't stand the in game soundtrack for EB as it's too "Hollywood". Glad to see some more folks interested in finding something a little more "Real".
BTW check out some of the Cithara tunes on the site oudysseos posted. Some of them would sound really awesome on the strat map.

Where does one go if they want to hear something very realistically "celtic"? It seems like it's such a mess; "authentic celtic music" turns up crap even in a search - and lots of it. Are there any groups or individuals who reconstruct anything like what ancient celtic music might have been like? It would seem like there would be many of them, but I've no idea and don't have the ability to slog through the different classifications of what is celtic music to understand.

Dont know dude, but you have the most awesome signature I have seen.

Hehe. :grin: Thanks, but I'm just waiting on Caratacos to get some unit images done for some hellenic factions, and then I'll probably turn "traitor" and use one of them instead. :laugh4:

We've got to get someone to also actually *make* that unit that you see depicted there. We don't even have anyone lined up for it at the moment.

I just saw that you use the Getai general on TWC ;)

Really interesting unit. If you tell me he is a Belgae I would believe it certainly. Interesting is for me how only the Belgae, the Brits, and later the Picts used woad, but other tribes dont.

Back to the topic. From where those musicians get the inspiration for Celtic music? Is the bagpipe ancient? Wikipedia says it does.

So bagpipes can be Gallic music?

If you are interested I found this link about Celtic musical instruments.

http://www.ceolas.org/instruments/

and this....

An early mention for a use of bagpipes in written history can be found in the 1st-century epic Punica of Silius Italicus on the First Punic War; this mention to an old Galician tribe reads:

Fibrarum et pennae divinarumque sagacem
flammarum misit dives Callaecia pubem,
barbara nunc patriis ululantem carmina linguis,
nunc pedis alterno percussa verbere terra,
ad numerum resonas gaudentem plauder caetras. (book III.344-7)

"Rich Gallaecia sent its youths, wise in the knowledge of divination by the entrails of beasts, by feathers and flames— who, now crying out the barbarian song of their native tongue, now alternately stamping the ground in their rhythmic dances until the ground rang, and accompanying the playing with sonorous caetras" (or gaethas, bagpipes).

Hope this can help you in your quest for Gallic music =)

For Barbarian cultures I would recommend a hearty sampling of Blind Guardian, Bathory, Moonsorrow, and other forms of power, black, and viking metal.:viking:

PS. there needs to be a :metal: smile.

Riverdance? heavy metal? gah! I'm beginning to wonder if anyone out there has even tried to make serious attempts at reproducing ancient celtic music (pre 1000 CE). This Prehistoric Music of Ireland seems about the only thing I've seen that is serious. http://homepage.eircom.net/~bronzeagehorns/sounds.html I see some stuff that purports to be celtic folk music from Galacia and Asturia, but I've no idea really - it sounds like modern "celtic music" to me in the clips I found online. So many of these sites are 5 to 8 years out of date too - like some were passing interests by the author and then dropped. Midi stuff is definitely out of the question also though. :grin:

Dont quit your quest TA! I know you can find the music that Corocotta, Vercingetorix, Asterix, Brennus, and others liked to hear when they were eating their wild boars.

Said kings while eating were probably actually listening to Greek musicians. Greek musical instruments show up in the tombs of Celtic kings. They likely listened to a mixture of local music (various tin horns, hand drums, and string instruments akin to dulcimers and early harps, themselves imported from Greeks via the Ptolemies, and vocal music) and Hellenic music (through hired foreign musicians). Incidentally, their food would probably not be so much a straight up wild boar as a bit more cosmopolitan food. Celtic kings, particularly in Gaul, were very continental; very fad driven people. Kind of comforting, things haven't changed in over 2000 years.

some people must have attemped recreations, its probably just hidden away with all the modern celt music. Maybe you could attempt to find specific songs that are known to be old and are still played.

A half assed way would be to attempt to recreate it using staple celtic 'riffs', like how blues has that specific sound because of the way its played. You could also recreate the instruments with some creative effects use, and modern instruments.

i can attempt some recreations if the info was available...but i guess thats the tricky part.

Well, it looks like the Kilmartin Sessions is one of the only other real things I can find: http://www.kilmartin.org/music/music.html They have a few short samples on the site and it's available on CD for about 14 pounds.

Quote:

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Using original instruments and reconstructions, this unique CD offers, for the first time, a chance to hear the sounds that would have been familiar to our forebears thousands of years ago. It includes the first commercially available recordings of the two thousand year old Caprington horn, the 8th century iron bell of St Adomnan, the 9th century Pictish triple pipes, and many other remarkable items, including a traditional Gaelic quern song and its use as melody for St Columba's visionary poem, the Altus Prosator. The music ranges from ringing rocks to bird-bone flutes; Bronze Age horns and drums to the extraordinary sound of the Celtic war trumpet, the carnyx (left), specially recorded for the Kilmartin Sessions in Smoo Cave. It ends with the eerie combination of harmonic singing and Bronze Age horn, recorded in the Hamilton Mausoleum - the building with the longest reverberation in the world. It was an appropriate choice, for like the Mausoleum, this CD has its own reverberations reaching into our remotest past and our deepest sub-concious.

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This Carolan's Receipt CD is harp music that is pretty early compared to anything else we have written down, but it's only 17th century - and it sounds a little like it too, but he was also influenced by some classical composers.
http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/1097983/a/Carolan's+Receipt.htm

"Derek Bell recreates the authentic sound of Carolan, the blind 17th century Irish harper who transformed this traditional musical genre. (Actually Bell is almost certainly a far better harp player than Carolan, whose genius was composition, not performance.) Bell mainly uses a wire-strung harp, which gives his arrangements the haunting air of a music box. Listen closely for Bell's magical musical embellishments. Bell includes some of Carolan's best-known pieces (Blind Mary, George Barabazon, and Carolan's Farewell to Music) but also treats us to some lesser-known masterpieces, including Lady Athenry, Caralon's Nightcap, and Lady Gethin."

Just as far as Carolan goes- Irish trad music happens to be something that I know quite a bit about, and I'd have to say that Carolan's 18th century harp music would be an innacurate analogue for 3rd century BC celtic music, as the wire-strung harp is an essentially modern instrument, dating from no earlier than the 11th or 12th century AD. Carolan also composed in the modern diatonic mode (heavily influenced by older irish modes of course) so his music still sounds "modern" and is still popular today. SO it's unlikely that Vercingetorix would have been listening to Planxty Irwin.

Thanks oudysseos! It sounded way too classical to me anyway.

A few things I might recommend, btw, for other culture groups:

Conrad Steinmann - Melpomen: Ancient Greek Music
Various Artists - Yemen - Music of the North
Atrium Musicae De Madrid - Musique Arabo-Andalouse
Huun-Huur-Tu - Where Young Grass Grows
Gevorg Dabagian - The Music of Armenia: Volume Three - Duduk
Ali Jihad Racy - Ancient Egypt: A Tribute
Krauka - Vikinga Seidur

Not all correct for the time period exactly, but all with a very good feel and quite nice to listen to on the whole while playing EB. :2thumbsup:

Here's another web resource for EB contemporary greek music- I hope it's not a repeat. It's interesting because you see images of the actual papyri, then click on them to hear them. Also has links and resources.

There is here in Dublin a National Archive for Music, I hace a reader's card, I will pop in some day and see if they have any resources on ancient music. Don't have much hope though.

Edit-- I suppose that this post will work out much better if I include the link :)

http://classics.uc.edu/music/

Edit of the edit-- here's another good music site.

http://users.otenet.gr/~bm-celusy/grmusic.html

Edit cubed-- Bovine Management?

Sure, within the past month I've some cattle herding, vacinating, and tagging.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou

Where does one go if they want to hear something very realistically "celtic"? It seems like it's such a mess; "authentic celtic music" turns up crap even in a search - and lots of it. Are there any groups or individuals who reconstruct anything like what ancient celtic music might have been like? It would seem like there would be many of them, but I've no idea and don't have the ability to slog through the different classifications of what is celtic music to understand.

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You could always try old French! Tho thats probably alittle too germanized. Perhaps take an Irish harp and some Goblet Drums and play them alongside a Cithara and a Duduk? Wish I could be of more help TA but I'm kinda new to this music hunting thing.

TA how is your search going? Have you looked out for Persian music, because I think that it happens the same as with Celtic music.

I have gotten the Kilmartin Sessions and they are really great. There are a lot of songs there I am putting in my personal build for barbarian factions strat map music.

Persian Cataphract could answer some more on the Persian side, but he has pointed me towards some good stuff already. The best thing I've found so far are some songs from the Kudsi Erguner Ensemble, their CD Peshrev and Semai of Tanburi Djeil Bey. It has some vocals, but a lot of them are just instrumental and work very well. TPC and Angadil also have pointed out La Musique Savante Persiane by Sorouch Izadi and Djalal Akhbari, but it has too much in the way of vocals for me to really enjoy it on the strat map. Same problem with Shahram Nazeri's Mythical Chant (Kurdish Classical Music). Same problem also with Haj-Ghorban Soleimani's Tradition Des Bardes Du Khorassan.

Oh, by the way, the Roman music has a second CD out, *and* you can get both of them for 10 bucks each (USD) on audiolunchbox - mp3's. One is for wind instruments and the other for strings.

would some books help? or are you looking stricly for audio?

I found this, sounds kinda interesting, I could get a hold of it if you think it might be of some use. Hah, I think that might be name, no other info.

"Musical and poetical relicks of the Welsh bards, preserved, by tradition and authentic manuscripts, from very remote antiquity; never before published. To the bardic tunes are added variations for the harp, harpsichord, violin, or flute. With a select collection of the pennillion and englynion ... with English translations. Likewise, a general history of the bards and druids ... with an account of their music and poetry, to which is prefixed, a copious dissertation on the musical instruments of the aboriginal Britons
Jones, Edward, 1752-1824."


Also, if books would be helpful, lemme know if anything from this catalouge might help- http://main.library.utoronto.ca/ - All the libraries are nearby, and i could get them transferred to my school.


EDIT: just saw your post TA, and i was wondering if theres any way I can get to hear these 'old school' tunes you're finding at little to no cost?


EDIT2:
The Petrie Collection of the ancient music of Ireland
Petrie, George, 1790-1866

"Summary
First published in 1855, George Petrie's "The Petrie Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland," is widely regarded as one of the most important nineteenth-century collections of traditional Irish music. It contains nearly two hundred melodies collected by Petrie as well as song texts in Irish and English and detailed notes by Petrie about the sources of the songs or pieces. The collection, which was originally published under the auspices of the Society for the Preservation and Publication of the Melodies of Ireland, has been out of print for many years and the few remaining copies are now extremely rare collector's items."

For folks who have an Andrew Jackson 20 dollar bill on hand and spendable, and really like playing as the Romani, here is a good idea:

I've bought mp3's from both Synaulia CD's online in the last few days and I must say they really are quite good. Some have lyrics, but there are a good 8-10 tracks on each disc that are perfect for the campaign map, and already in mp3 format. It's quite easy to get them to work too. They certainly are the best reproductions of any ancient Roman music I've been able to find anywhere up to this point.

1. Disc 1 (wind instruments) and 2 (string instruments) are found at these two links:
http://audiolunchbox.com/album?a=63865
http://audiolunchbox.com/album?a=63864
You can buy them as mp3s for 10 USD per CD. Pay by creditcard or paypal and they are on your desktop in a few minutes. You get the cover art included if you want to print it out and make your own physical CDs.

2. Copy the tracks you like best into the EB/data/sounds/music/ directory.

3. open up descr_sounds_music.txt in the EB data directory (open it with a text editor) and insert the tracks you like into the campaign map slot - just make sure you spell the track names correctly, but you can very easily see the pattern there with the other EB mp3s. Restart a campaign and enjoy some pretty darned authentic Roman music while you're playing!

My personal choices are:
Disc 1, tracks: 2, 10, 14, 21, 15, 16, 20, 18, 11
Disc 2, tracks: 16, 2, 7, 10, 11, 13, 14

(audiolunchbox by the way is a totally legit site from everything I've been able to tell, but this was the first time I used it)

Does it only work with .mp3's, or can you insert whatever music you want into it?

interesting albums, if anyone wants to hear them, they're available for 'preview' off of emule

I could have sworn that I saw on this very forum a sound file of a celtic war horn of some kind - forgot what it was called, but it was one of those really tall things that sometimes had what looked like an animal head at the top. Really interesting sound that it made, if I recall. Wish I could remember what it was called. Anyone remember? :)

Bump :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Danest

I could have sworn that I saw on this very forum a sound file of a celtic war horn of some kind - forgot what it was called, but it was one of those really tall things that sometimes had what looked like an animal head at the top. Really interesting sound that it made, if I recall. Wish I could remember what it was called. Anyone remember? :)

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That'd be a carnyx, but it wasn't a musical instrument, it was for commanding regiments in battle.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Anthony

That'd be a carnyx, but it wasn't a musical instrument, it was for commanding regiments in battle.

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Maybe we could use that as new battle horns? The vanilla battle horns sound kinda wimpy IMHO.:juggle2:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eduorius

TA how is your search going? Have you looked out for Persian music, because I think that it happens the same as with Celtic music.

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I think TA explained it in the best way. Traditional Iranian music is very aimed at vocals, and one could almost write an entire treatise on singing techniques alone. The tradition of singing is very deeply rooted in Iranian culture, and it is said that about 2,000 pieces of Sassanid folk music have passed on to us, including the works of Barbâd (Called "The Great"), Nakîsâ and Sarkâsh, through Farâbî. Since most Sassanian records were destroyed during the Islamic incursions, it hints at a very strong tradition of singing and the pieces being of such popularity as to have passed on by oral tradition. We have knowledge as to what instruments and what system of scales the Sassanians (Which we have reasons to believe that much of this was known during Parthian times as well) used, and it is remarkably alike Greek in many aspects. Even more sad is that a purely Iranian tradition has been misused under the facade of Sufism, denoting it as the music of dervishes and music of Iranian Islam... Someone shoot me already :bomb:

Unfortunately, Iranian classical music is very much so driven by vocals and what is even more unfortunate is that Iranian classical music is declining. Shahram Nazeri, Mohammad Reza Shajarian, Jalal Akhbari and Souroush Izadi are only a handful of artists today who are proficient in classical music. That is unless I start asking around among some pals of mine for some true traditional Kurdish, Lûr, Gûrgânî, Gîlânî, Balûchî and Bandarî music, sung by true herders, and nomads ... This is not music easily acquired to come by in an Iran where singing is largely prohibited, especially to women, and it's not like most of these simple people would carry around a studio for recording :laugh4:

I have a few instrumental tracks. Shahram Nazeri is one of the greatest artists in this field as the language he usually sings in was Kurmanji, a form of Kurdish, very similar to Pahlavî. His songs are very Daf-intensive, a form of a framedrum with rings connected to the edges, giving a very mesmerizing treble sound akin to soft, white noise while beating the hide (Often deer-skin). Traditional songs are either based on the tunbak (Goblet-drum) or the daf. Sometimes both are used, but the tunbak would be the dominant basis, while the daf would merely be percussion. There are other drums, but they are meant for specific styles, so the goblet and framedrums are the most generic.

I think it would be really cool if you guys would release a historical music add-on or something like that, I would definently download it.

Ah, some Carnyx notes played in place of the vanilla battle horn... that'd be really cool. Or maybe carnyx sounds and screaming, if we get warcry back.

We really can't do anything like that for copyright reasons Lignator. Sorry.

I have read that the music of the Basque country is very old.

So, could I ask, how do you get the music to play?

In the game? Take a look at post 32 above - it has the basic instructions. Here is an example of my Roman stratmap section:

Code:

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                state MUSIC_STRATMAP_SUMMER
                        event delay 5 volume -40
                                folder data/sounds/music
                                EB_Roman_Theme.mp3
                                Roman_10.mp3
                                Roman_11.mp3
                                Roman_12.mp3
                                Roman_13.mp3
                                Roman_14.mp3
                                Roman_15.mp3
                                EB_Western_Greek_Theme2.mp3
                                Roman_16.mp3
                                Roman_17.mp3
                                Roman_18.mp3
                                Roman_19.mp3
                                Roman_20.mp3
                                Roman_21.mp3
                                EB_Roman_Theme.mp3
                                Roman_22.mp3
                                Roman_23.mp3
                                Roman_24.mp3
                                Roman_25.mp3
                        end

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I renamed the mp3s to ones that are easy to keep track of, and kept some of ours interspersed between them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou

In the game? Take a look at post 32 above - it has the basic instructions. Here is an example of my Roman stratmap section:

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Ah, I'd basically already done that, and assumed I was missing something.

It turned out I was.

Pontos is Eastern, not East Greek :wall:

Well, now I've worked that minor technical error out, I am going to have the wierdest EB soundtrack possible for my Pontics

Teleksos, I've listened to Kudsi Erguner Ensemble, and its just Turkish music. What makes you believe that its anything like ancient persian? and if ive made that assumption incorrectly, my apologies.

Ive listened to most of the other albums you've posted as well, and though i cant vouch for their authenticity, its good listening for sure!

Some of the simplest stuff - like the traditional improvisation on the Ney flute (totally solo) and the improvisation on the oud and kanun. They're the two from Kudsi Erguner that I've found that work best.

My "eastern" culture mp3 set currently has four tracks off that Kudsi Erguner ensemble cd (those two I mentioned above plus two other instrumental ones that are a little more, and maybe too much, complex), three Gevorg Dabagian tracks off volume three of "The Music of Armenia" - all solo duduk tracks. One by the Shoghaken Ensemble off volume five of that same set, and one by a Duduki Trio from Georgia. Then the other piece is an instrumental track off a chant cd - Shahram Nazeri's Mythical Chant (Kurdish Classical Music). Someone else has promised me a few other ones that would work better, but I haven't heard back from him about it recently. :grin: I really would like to use some other ones from a few traditional albums I've got now, but staying away from vocals is something I've tried to focus on. As well as 10 minute tracks. :laugh4:

Here you go, TA. I found this on youtube while looking for King Crimson videos. There is apparently a lot more by following the various related material links on the side.

I know this is late for this thread....

But on ancient reconstructed Gallic music, there are two bands I'm aware of.

One is French, I don't remember the name (I'll find it later) but the clips I heard weren't that great in my opinion.

However, I highly suggest Imbraxton- some really good sounding reconstructed Gallic music (in the language too.)

I've heard most of the groups mentioned above and have to say I don't care for most of them.... especially Omnia.
The amount of stupid laughs and sighs in the background of some songs drives me nuts (Synaulia does it too but a little bit less annoying.)

Also, I'm no expert in Ancient Greek or Classic Latin, but in some of these groups you can clearly, clearly hear the contemporary accents of the musicians (French, Spanish, German, etc) and it ruins the experience a bit for me.

Good luck in the search for good reconstructed music!

Iustinus

Now that's what I'm looking for. I've pretty much spent my limit on some of these CD's, but thanks for pointing out that group! :2thumbsup:

And there I was, about to do my thread Jesus act on this...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Iustinus

I know this is late for this thread....

But on ancient reconstructed Gallic music, there are two bands I'm aware of.

One is French, I don't remember the name (I'll find it later) but the clips I heard weren't that great in my opinion.

However, I highly suggest Imbraxton- some really good sounding reconstructed Gallic music (in the language too.)

I've heard most of the groups mentioned above and have to say I don't care for most of them.... especially Omnia.
The amount of stupid laughs and sighs in the background of some songs drives me nuts (Synaulia does it too but a little bit less annoying.)

Also, I'm no expert in Ancient Greek or Classic Latin, but in some of these groups you can clearly, clearly hear the contemporary accents of the musicians (French, Spanish, German, etc) and it ruins the experience a bit for me.

Good luck in the search for good reconstructed music!

Iustinus

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Well those are neat but they've only got one CD and it sounds like a bunch of Drunken Germans singing really bad French.:laugh4:

Here's the other Gallic music group I mentioned:

http://www.ensemble-bardos.org/

Also, there used to be a clip of the song Luccu Gaisatis online (by Imbraxton,) it's a good song, it might be around with some careful searching.

Iustinus

I just remembered another group, this one Ancient Greek, that I don't think has been mentioned.

I don't know if anyone has heard of Daemonia Nymphe, but I really like their stuff. It's not strictly reconstructed music, but the instruments are apparently all high quality reconstructed instruments and the themes (mostly religious) really bring me back to, for example, the Dionysian cult when I listen to them. I'm not sure that they sing in Ancient Greek, the language sounds modern to me, but I could be wrong. Anyhow, just another suggestion!

http://groups.msn.com/DaemoniaNymphe/

Iustinus

Edit:

Actually, I think Daemonia Nymphe would probably be one of the absolute best groups out there for a game soundtrack, some of the songs are perfect for battle!

Here's a link with some of their tracks:

http://www.myspace.com/daemonianymphemyspace

Listen to Divined by Trophonios and imagine a Theban army marching into battle, for example.......