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''Apollonius, Rhodius. The Argonautica. Cambridge, Mass. : London :Harvard University Press; W. Heinemann, 1961. Print.''

Plato. The Symposium. Trans. Alexander Nehamas and Pay Woodruff. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1989. Print.

Landels, John G. Music in ancient Greece and Rome. London New York: Routledge, 1999. Print.

John G. Landels, Music in Ancient Greece and Rome. London and New York:  Routledge, 1999. Pp. xii, 295. ISBN 0-415-16776-0.

Quasten, Johannes. Music & worship in pagan & Christian antiquity. Washington, D.C: National Association of Pastoral Musicians, 1983. Print.

Sendrey, Alfred. Music in the social and religious life of antiquity. Rutherford N.J: Fairleigh Dickinson University, 1974. Print.

Richardson, N J. Three Homeric Hymns: To Apollo, Hermes, and Aphrodite : Hymns 3, 4, and 5. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Print.

''Aristotle. Aristotle's Poetics. New York :Hill and Wang, 1961. Print.''

''Ovid, 43 B.C.-17 A.D. or 18 A.D. Ovid's Metamorphoses. Dallas, Tex. :Spring Publications, 1989. Print.''

Pindar, and C. M. Bowra. The odes of Pindar. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969. Print.

Concerning the origin of music and musical instruments: the history of music in ancient greece is so closely interwoven with greek mythology and legend that it is often difficult to surmise what is historically true and what is myth. The music and study of music in ancient greece layed the foundation for western music and western music theory, as it would go on to influence the ancient romans, the early christian church and the medieval composers, specifically the teachings of the Pythagoreans, Ptolemy, Philodemus, Aristoxenus, Aristides, and Plato compile most of our understanding of ancient greek music theory, musical systems, and musical ethos. The study of music in ancient greece was often included in the curriculum of great philosophers; Pythagoras in particular believed that music was delegated to the same mathematical laws of harmony as the mechanics of the cosmos, evolving into an idea known as the music of the spheres. The Pythagoreans focused on the mathematics and the acoustical science of sound and music, they developed tuning systems and harmonic principles that focused on simple integers and ratios; however, this was not the only school of thought in ancient greece.

Landels

Popular types of song, these were usually acompanied by a stringed instrument

Paean; most commonly sung in honor or worship of Apollo as well as Athena, they usually solemnly expressed the hope for deliverance from a peril, or were sung in thanksgiving after a victory or escape

Prosodion: a type of hymn or processional that invoked or praised a god. Prosodions were usually sung on the road to an altar or shrine, and usually precedes or were followed by a Paian.

Dithyrambs: usually merrily sung in celebration at festivals, performed especially in dedication to Dionysus the god of wine. Dithyrambs featured choirs (choros) of men and boys who were accompanied by an aulos player.

Music in Society

Instrumental music also served a religious and entertaining role in ancient greece as it would often accompany religious events, rituals, and festivals. Music was also used for entertainment when it accompanied drinking-parties or Symposia. A popular type of piece to be played while drinking at these drinking parties was the Skolion, a piece composed to be heard while drinking. Before and after the greek drinking parties, religious libations, or the religious the act of partaking and pouring out drink, would be made to deities, usually the olympic gods, the heroes, and Zeus Soter. The offering of libations were often accompanied by a special libation melody the called the Spondeion which was often accompanied by an aulos player.

Music occupied an important role in the greek sacrificial ceremonies. The sarcophagus of Hagia Triada shows that the aulos was present during sacrifices as early as 1300 BC (quasten). Music was also present during times of initiation, worship, and religious celebration, playing very integral parts of the sacrificial cults of Apollo and Dionysius.

Music (along with intoxication of potions, fasting, and honey) was also integral in preparation and catalyzing divination, as music would often induce prophets into religious ecstasy and revelation, so much so that the expression for "making music" and "prophesying" were identical in ancient greek. (q)

Instruments was also present in war time, though it may not have been considered music entirely, as specific notes of the trumpet were played to dictate commands to soldiers on the battlefield. The aulos and percussion instruments also accompanied the verbal commands given to oarsmen by the boatswain. The instruments were used mainly to help keep the oarsmen in time with one another.

Poetry and Drama

Whether or not long narrative poetry, or epic poetry like those of Homer, were sung is not entirely known. As in Plato's dialogue Ion, Socrates uses both the words "sing" and "speak" in connection with the homeric epics, however there are heavy implications that they maybe have been at least recited unaccompanied by instruments, in a sing-song chant.

Music was also present in ancient Greek lyric poetry, which by definition is poetry or a song accompanied by a lyre. Lyric poetry eventually branched into two paths, monodic lyric which were performed by a singular person, and choral lyric which was sung and sometimes danced by a group of people choros. Famous lyric poets include Alkaios and Sappho from the Island of Lesbos, Sappho being one of the few woman who's poetry has been preserved.

Music was heavily prevalent in ancient greek Drama.

In his Poetics, Aristotle links the origins of tragic drama to dithyrambs. The leaders of dithyrambs were the ones who led the song and dance moves, which would then be responded to by the group. Aristotle implies that this relationship between a single person and a group began the tragic drama, which in it's earliest stages had a single actor and played all the parts through either song or speech. The single actor engaged in dialogue with the choros. The choros narrated most of the story through song and dance. In ancient greece the playwright was expected to not only write the script but also expected to compose the music and dance moves.

Music in society[edit]
Music played an integral role in ancient Greek society. Pericles' teacher Damon said, according to Plato in the Republic, "when fundamental modes of music change, the fundamental mores of the state change with them." Music and gymnastics comprised the main divisions in one's schooling. "The word 'music' expressed the entire education".

Mythology[edit]
"In greece the heroic ballads of ancient times as well as tales of the gods were always recited (or sung) to the accompaniment of stringed instruments.(add the rest of the quote)" -Sendry

The ancient greek myths were never codified or documented into one form; what we possess are several different versions from several different authors, across multiple centuries, which can lead to variations and even contradictions amongst authors and even the same author. According to greek mythology: music, instruments, and the aural arts are attributed to divine origin, and the art of music was gift of the gods to men (quasten).

Although Apollo was prominently considered the god of Music, several legendary gods and demigods were purported to have created some aspect of music as well as contributed to its development. Some gods, and especially the Muses, represented specific aspects or elements of music. The 'inventions' or 'findings' of all ancient greek instruments were accredited to the gods as well. The performance of music was integrated into many different modes of greek story telling and art related to mythology, including drama, and poetry, and there are a large number of ancient greek myths related to music and musicians.

Etiological Myths:

Lyre: According the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, Hermes, after stealing his brother Apollo's sacred cattle, was inspired to build an instrument out of a tortoise shell, he attached horns, and gut-string, to the shell and invented the first lyre. Afterwards Hermes gave his lyre to Apollo, who took interest in the instrument, in payment for the stolen cattle. In other accounts, Hermes gave his newly invented lyre to Amphion, a son of Zeus and a skilled musician.

Syrinx/ Pan-pipe: According to Ovid's Metamorpheses, Syrinx was a Naiad, a water nymph, who ran away from Pan after he tried to woo her. While she fled, she came upon an uncrossable river and prayed to her sisters to transform her so that she may escape Pan. Her Nymph sisters transformed Syrinx into a bundle of reeds which Pan found and fashioned an instrument out of, the pan pipe or syrinx.

Aulos: According to Pindar's Twelth Pythian Ode, after Perseus beheaded Medusa, Athena 'found' or 'invented' the aulos in order to reproduce the lamentation of the gorgon Medusa's sisters. Since the same greek word is used for 'find' and 'invent' it is unclear; however, the writer Telestes in the 5th century states that Athena found the instrument in a thicket. In Plutarch's essay On the Restraint of Anger, he writes that Athena, after seeing her reflection while playing the aulos, threw the instrument away because it distorted her facial features when played. After which Marsyas a satyr, picked up her aulos and took it up as his own.

Salpinx: Athena the goddess of warfare is closely related to the Salpinx, or war trumpet.

Warning Myths: Marsyas and Apollo

Myths of Skill or Triumph: Orpheus

Aulos and Salpinx: war trumpet

Also other traditions Double Aulos to the satyr Marsyas after athena threw the aulos away

Apollo and Concordia: Harmony

The muses: -

Linos, teacher of orpheus, son of apollo and muse urania was said to have been the first to receive the gift of singing from the muses

Orpheus is often considered to be the bridge between myth and reality

In Greek mythology: Amphion learned music from Hermes and then with a golden lyre built Thebes by moving the stones into place with the sound of his playing; Orpheus, the master-musician and lyre-player, played so magically that he could soothe wild beasts; the Orphic creation myths have Rhea "playing on a brazen drum, and compelling man's attention to the oracles of the goddess"; or Hermes [showing to Apollo] "...his newly-invented tortoise-shell lyre and [playing] such a ravishing tune on it with the plectrum he had also invented, at the same time singing to praise Apollo's nobility that he was forgiven at once..."; or Apollo's musical victories over Marsyas and Pan. the Pan pipes, or syrinx.

There are many such references that indicate that music was an integral part of the Greek perception of how their race had even come into existence and how their destinies continued to be watched over and controlled by the Gods. It is no wonder, then, that music was omnipresent at the Pythian Games, the Olympic Games, religious ceremonies, leisure activities, and even the beginnings of drama as an outgrowth of the dithyrambs performed in honor of Dionysus.

It may be that the actual sounds of the music heard at rituals, games, dramas, etc. underwent a change after the traumatic fall of Athens in 404 B.C. at the end of the first Peloponnesian War. Indeed, one reads of the "revolution" in Greek culture, and Plato's lament that the new music "...used high musical talent, showmanship and virtuosity...consciously rejecting educated standards of judgement." Although instrumental virtuosity was prized, this complaint included excessive attention to instrumental music such as to interfere with accompanying the human voice, and the falling away from the traditional ethos in music.

Greek musical instruments[edit]
The following were among the instruments used in the music of ancient Greece: