Talk:Delphic Hymns

Modern performance recordings available?
With the undertanding that any modern performances of the ancient hymns would, obviously, be interpretations and not faithful to the original performances, does anyone have any links to modern performances and recordings? Or, even a MIDI or digital audio file of the notes played as shown in the article? --NightMonkey 01:49, August 26, 2005 (UTC)


 * I could make a MIDI file of it easily, if that would help. It's a little misleading since we have absolutely no idea how they performed this stuff, and it would sound rather "plain."  (I think the music was sung by the chorus while the kithara player improvised some kind of embellishments, but I can't put that in the article 'cuz it's just my guess.)  In the standard MIDI spec I think there's several plucked strings that would be appropriate sounds.  Antandrus  (talk) 02:19, 26 August 2005 (UTC)


 * FYI there is a recording available called "Ancient Greek Music" by the Atrium Musicae de Madrid, released in 1979 on Harmonia Mundi, that contains interpretations on reconstructed instruments of pretty much all the ancient Greek and Roman musical output that has survived to the present, including the first Delphic Hymn to Apollo. There's also information on a more recent CD here. --Gene_poole 02:39, 26 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Interesting! I wish I had it.  I'll list it and one or two more at the end of the article.  Antandrus  (talk) 04:30, 26 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I found a recording that incorporates the theme of the first Delphic Hymn in the game Civilisation III. Here's a link to it: If the link is included, can it be mentioned in the recording section? Watto the jazzman (talk) 02:21, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Original notation?
I'd be interested in seeing a picture of the original epitaph, if that's possible. It would also be interesting to read a history of the transcription of the hymn into modern notation.


 * Here you go:  -- I'd love to use it in the article but we'd have to write for permission to put that picture under our license.  The music notation is the little symbols above the letters.  The Seikilos epitaph is done similarly, and there is a photo of that on the internet somewhere as well.  Antandrus  (talk) 05:09, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

"Permission for noncommercial educational use granted" it says. Doesn't Wiki come under that? This is the 2nd, and the image in the article is the 1st, no? Oh, and does anyone know of info about how they know what the symbols mean (i.e.,"a history of the transcription of the hymn into modern notation")? Do we have an article on ancient musical notation that we could link to?


 * We probably can use the image; however if we put it under GFDL, someone else could use it for non-educational commercial use (I think) violating the original permission. I'm no expert on this stuff.  And yes we definitely need an article on ancient Greek music notation (that's the only kind I know anything about) ... it's just not written yet.  Antandrus  (talk) 14:55, 26 August 2005 (UTC)


 * It seems to me, that given it is a photograph of just the face of the tablet, that it is a public-domain antiquity, ineligible for copyright or any noncommercial licensing. Ziggur 20:22, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

I shall await the article with bated breath. I was already curious about ancient notation (the only kind I know about is European christian). I can't remember; can we link a picture without putting it under GFDL? Or does that just not work?


 * OK, you've convinced me; I put the photo in the article. Feel free to tweak its position.  I don't know yet which license template tag belongs on the image page.  (Anyone know the licensing nuances better than I do?) Antandrus  (talk) 20:35, 26 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Hey, just wondering what prompted you to delete the image. A photograph of a document, painting, etc. in antiquity, at least in the U.S., should be public domain.  See Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service.  While that case does not relate directly to copyright over photos of public domain art, it does establish that creativity is needed for a copyright to be valid.  A documenting photo showing only the work in question at a dead-on angle for the best reproduction of the original therefore should not fall under copyright and the person has no right to license it noncommercially. Ziggur 20:17, August 28, 2005 (UTC)


 * Professor Paul Brians (now retired), who took the photograph for the Washington State University website, has indicated that he is happy for the photograph to be used. He writes: "We created the World Civilizations database specifically to provide royalty-free images for educational use." The photograph along with others, such as a picture of the omphalos, is available at this address: World Civilizations. Kanjuzi (talk) 04:57, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

the earliest Music?
quote: ...is the earliest unambiguous surviving example of notated music from anywhere in the western world... - and what about the Seikilos epitaph? Seikilos is not dated without doubt but it is between the 2nd and the 1st Century BC -- Hartmann Schedel (talk) 15:16, 12 July 2008 (UTC) The epitaph is the earliest complete fragment of notated music. Everything I've read (not just this article) dates the Delphic hymns further back.--Jlowther91 (talk) 05:38, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

"Pythian Festival"
"the Pythian Festival, held only once every ten years, "... The redlinked reference, then, is not to the Pythian Games, held every four years? --Wetman (talk) 18:30, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Pöhlmann and West (2001) say every ten years, but do not clarify how this decennial Festival relates to the Games. The ten-year interval is cited (originally by Reinach, I believe) as the reason for the possibility that the two Hymns may have been composed ten years apart, rather than in the same year.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:59, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

The Greek text
I don't know where I could find the original Greek text of the hymns, I mean, not a photo of the stone.--190.22.94.15 (talk) 20:43, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * A careful transcription of the surviving Greek text, as well as the original letter-notation of the music, can be found in Pöhlmann and West 2001, cited in the References. There is no translation there, however.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:55, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I had some trouble finding translations of the Hymns. I ended up finding both, at least in part, but on internet pages whose reliability I cannot vouch for, not speaking the language myself.

1st hymn: (http://www.rakkav.com/biblemusic/images/delphi.jpg). This is a translation (without a signature) of the same section quoted in the article.

2nd hymn: (http://www.wsu.edu/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_1/delphic.html). This is credited as being from Washington State university but, again, I cannot comment on the quality of the translation. --Jlowther91 (talk) 03:25, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

External links modified
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Breve marks
What was wrong with (– u –)? (– ⏑ –) doesn't look any better! If the breve mark was a properly sized one it would be OK, but as it is, it looks too small and too low on the page. Kanjuzi (talk) 04:30, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, it took me a minute or two to figure out that "u" was meant to represent a breve mark at all, and a typewriter workaround should not be necessary in this day and age (just as we do not use double-hyphens instead of em-dashes on Wikipedia). I reckon that, if this confuses me, it is going to be worse for a reader who is not expecting macrons and breves at all. The sizing of the breve may be a product of your browser, since it looks OK to me (Safari 11.0.2, running under OS-X 11.1), though admittedly it rides a little low. There are actually two breve symbols that I am aware of (perhaps there are also Wiki templates for the purpose, which might be more satisfactory, but I have not succeeded in finding such templates for stand-alone marks). This one is the "metrical breve" from the Music Symbols category in Unicode, and the macron here is really an en-dash (I do not find a corresponding macron in the Music Symbols set). The "real" Unicode macron and breve marks are meant to be used as superscripts, and so display small and high (ˉ ˘ ˉ), which I judge to be unsatisfactory. There may be other options of which I am unaware, but the letter "u" is simply too confusing, in my opinion.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:45, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Midi recording
The midi recording of the first section (placed under the illustration) used to work immediately when clicked, but now has to be downloaded first. Can anyone solve the problem? Kanjuzi (talk) 08:19, 7 July 2018 (UTC)