Transcript Ancient Roman Music

Ancient Roman Music
LUTE
• The lute, the true forerunner
of the guitar (kithara), is
considered a medieval
instrument but was played
by the ancient Romans. The
image above was from the
late Roman era in
Constantinople, perhaps 500
AD. The Roman lute had
three strings and was not as
popular as the lyre or the
kithara, but was easier to
play.
LUTE
• The lute, the true forerunner
of the guitar (kithara), is
considered a medieval
instrument but was played
by the ancient Romans. The
image above was from the
late Roman era in
Constantinople, perhaps 500
AD. The Roman lute had
three strings and was not as
popular as the lyre or the
kithara, but was easier to
play.
LUTE
• The Egyptian lute
predates the Greek lute
and is basically the
same except more
slender. It also had "fholes" straddling the
strings, allowing the
frets to reach down to
the bridge.
ORGAN
• Organs powered by
bellows were
commonly played at
the games, and also
in more serious
settings.
ORGAN
•
The Roman organ, called a
hydraulicis, was often played at
Colisseum events where
gladiators fought and criminals
were publicly executed.
Perhaps they even had a
version of "Take Me Out to the
Ball Game" or some crowd
favorites. In the mosaics below
the organ is played along with
horns resembling French horns
and military style trumpets. Like
most things Roman, the organ
came orignally from the Greeks.
It is possible the Greeks got it
from the Hebrews.
ORGAN
•
the organ would appear to have
between 8 and 12 pipes. The Roman
organ was powered by a bellows and
pumped by foot.
•
The Roman organ was also played in
more respectable settings such as the
chamber style music being played by
the ladies in the image below. In this
image the organ has many more
pipes, perhaps 30, but the smaller
pipes may extend in a double row.
These pipes are clearly smaller in
proportion to the Colisseum organ and
the assembly more delicate overall.
The large box underneath surely
contains a bellows and perhaps even
an air bladder. In this setting the
bellows may have been operated
separately.
ORGAN
•
The ancient Jewish organ called
the magrepha in the Talmud
predates the Roman organ,
possibly by several centuries. The
magrepha had ten pipes with ten
holes each and could produce
one hundred different notes,
according to Samuel. It was
normally played in synagogue
services.
•
The Roman organ had levers or
keys that operated flaps over the
holes. The larger organs may
have had arrays of flaps to create
chords with a single movement.
ORGAN
• Vitruvius provided
diagrams of the
hydraulicis like the
one above and
explained their
design and
operation
KITHARA
• The kithara, the
"guitar" of the
ancient Romans,
was the premier
musical instrument
and was played in
both serious and
popular music.
KITHARA
• The Kithara was the premier
musical instrument of
ancient Rome and was
played both in popular music
and in serious forms of
music. Larger and heavier
than a lyre, the kithara was a
loud, sweet, and piercing
instrument with precision
tuning ability. It was said
some players could make it
cry.
KITHARA
• From Kithara comes our
word guitar, and though the
guitar more directly evolved
from the lute, the same
mystique surrounds the
guitar idols of today as it
did for the virtuoso kithara
players, the citharista, and
popular singers of ancient
Rome.
KITHARA
• Like other
instruments, it came
originally from
Greece and Greek
images portray the
most elaborately
constructed
kitharas.
KITHARA
• It was considered
that the gods of
music, the muses
and Apollo, gave
kithara players their
gift to mesmerize
listeners.
LYRE
• Perhaps the most
ancient of stringed
instruments, the lyre
appears in endless
forms, in all settings,
and everywhere
from Greece, to
Troy, to Persia and
Egypt.
LYRE
• The lyre dates back
beyond the Romans to
the Greeks but its
actual origin is
uncertain. It is first
mentioned in Homer's
Iliad in which he
describes Achilles
making and playing a
lyre with a tortoise shell
soundbox.
LYRE
• The lyre had seven
strings and appears in
several varieties, each
with a distinct Greek
name. Some had no
soundbox and Roman
lyres sometimes had
wooden soundboxes. No
sharp distinction exists
between a large lyre with
a wooden soundbox and
a kithara.
LYRE
• The lyre is most often
depicted in classical
settings and in the
theatre. In Greek art it
also commonly occurs
in celebrations and
orgies. The Spartans
were often skilled
players of the lyre and
other instruments, when
they were not engaged
in battle.
LYRE
• The lyre, not a fiddle, was
the actual instrument Nero
played as he watched the
common people's housing
districts go up in flames.
Nero was fond of singing in
the baths and it was said
that he "regularly murdered
the songs of Menicrates."
Menicrates was one of the
star musical performers of
the times.
LYRE
• The lyre was often
played to
accompany popular
songs and poetry
and from this
instrument comes
the word lyric.
FLUTES
• The most ancient tonal
musical instrument of
all, flutes appear
throughout Etruscan,
Greek, and Roman, art.
They most commonly
appear in the form of
the twin reeds.
FLUTES
• and Greeks since
antiquity. In the image
above is an Etruscan
youth playing the twin
reeds, the most The
flute was one of the
most popular Roman
instruments, but it had
been played by the
Etruscans common type
of flute.
FLUTES
• The flute most often
appears in ancient art in
the form known as twin
reeds, but recorder
style flutes, as shown in
the Greek vase below,
are not uncommon.
FLUTES
• he art of the twin reeds
is certainly lost as there
are no twin reed players
today. The two flutes
would seem not to be
joined, but simply held
together while playing.
How these musicians
could have held the
flutes and
simultaneously played
them with their fingers
is difficult to imagine.
FLUTES
• In the image above
left from Pompeii,
the fellow playing
the twin reeds has
his left foot on a box
or device that may
be a percussive
metronome of some
sort.
FLUTES
• The flute is most
certainly the most
ancient tonal instrument
of all. If we included
whistles as single-note
flutes then they clearly
date back to over
20,000 BC. The bone
flute shown below was
found in Athens but is
missing the
mouthpiece, which most
likely contained a reed.
TYMPANI
• The tympani, or
tambourine, appears
everywhere that
celebrations,
theatre, or dancing
is illustrated
TYMPANI
•
Tympani, or
tambourines, were
common anywhere
there was celebration.
They were a favorite for
dancing in the streets
and no Bacchante
would be seen without
one.
TYMPANI
• Dancing girls at
dinner parties and
street bands often
played the
tambourine for
rhythm in place of
the much-heavier
drums.
TYMPANI
• The image of a
tympanum laying on the
floor was a metaphor
for the previous night's
celebration. In
association with theater
masks it symbolized the
arts. In some images it
symbolizes the joy of
religious ritual.
TRUMPETS
• Trumpets and
French horns
appear both in the
military, parade, and
in band-style
settings.
TRUMPETS
•
The Romans seem to have had a
variety of trumpets, including bronze
military trumpets and Frech Horns,
that were used in various settings
including triumphs, celebrations,
theatre performance, and games at
the Coliseum and the Circus Maximus.
Trumpeteers were known as tubicines
from tuba, meaning trumpet and
canere, meaning to play. The
trumpeteer was also called a
buccinator. Horn-blowers were known
as cornicines. The trumpeteer was
known as The cornetists were called
liticines. When classes were called to
gather for an assembly, the cornetists
blowing the horn or cornet was known
as a classicus.
PANPIPES
• Named after Pan,
the panpipes were a
familiar and ancient
sound to the
Romans, who felt
that the talent of
musicians was
inspired by Pan and
the muses.
PANPIPES
• The panpipes were a
uniquely Roman
instrument, and
probably date back to
the Etruscans. Pan, the
"country" god of
panpipe playing, (and
other mischief) is tied to
the rustic agricultural
origins of the Latin
people.
PANPIPES
•
•
•
Notice the young man with the
panpipes is styled as Pan, the
mythical god who inspires musical
creativity. He is not yet playing but is
watching the lyre player to carefully
catch his cue as he slowly raises the
pipes to his lips.
She has the look of a master
musician, serious and focused. As she
plucks a gentle melody that flows
down to the lower strings she steps
lightly, signaling the cue for the
panpipes at which she will then repeat
her melody as the pipes join in
harmony.
On the left the flute player listens and
waits with twin reeds, an instrument
that will add high notes in counterpoint
to the panpipes. On the next cue she
will join in with the third part of the
harmony, and then they will repeat and
fade.
HARP
• The harp, like the
lyre and the lute,
dates back beyond
Greece to the
ancient Egyptians
HARP
• The harp is among the most
ancient of musical
instruments and shows up
prominently in Egyptian and
Greek paintings. It was often
played in combination with
lyres, lutes, flutes or pipes,
percussive instruments, and
accompanied vocals and
dancing. It was also common
in religious ceremonies at
the various temples, and
was used at the games
during holidays.
DRUMS
• Drums and
percussion
instruments like
castanets were
common in dancing
styles of music.
DRUMS
•
Drums and percussion
instruments like tympani and
castanets, the Egyptian sistrum,
and brazen pans, served various
musical and other purposes in
ancient Rome, including
backgrounds for rhythmic dance,
celebratory rites like those of the
Bacchantes, military uses,
hunting (to drive out prey), and
even for the control of bees in
apiaries. Some Roman music was
distinguished for its having a
steady beat, no doubt through the
use of drums and the percussive
effects of clapping and stamping.
Egyptian musicians often kept
time by snapping the fingers.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
www.personal.psu.edu/users/w/x/wxk116/muse/