# Music in ancient times **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 20, 2004, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-in-ancient-times/270162 "2004-10-20T03:03:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-in-ancient-times/270162/1 "2004-10-20T03:03:31Z")
I listen to classical music on a local radio station and midevieal music is played enough, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard music composed during the Roman Empire or the Greek Civilization. I’m sure that people in ancient times had musical instruments and knew how to write music, so the absence is interesting Did no pieces survive, were they never written down or are they just not particulary interesting? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-in-ancient-times/270162/2 "2004-10-20T03:34:43Z")
That’s an interesting question, about which I know nothing. Someone who does will probably be along shortly. However I did find a site which purports to list [all published fragments of Ancient Greek music which contain more than a few scattered notes.](http://www.oeaw.ac.at/kal/agm/) Sound files are provided for each. There’s some _odd_ sounding stuff there. ---
**Author:** ![TJdude825](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@TJdude825](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJdude825)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-in-ancient-times/270162/3 "2004-10-20T03:35:32Z")
Also perhaps google “gregorian chant” which is like very very early Medieval times, I believe. ---
**Author:** ![Early\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Early\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Early_Out)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-in-ancient-times/270162/4 "2004-10-20T03:36:22Z")
Very little survives from before about 1000 A.D., most of it only fragments. On top of that, no one is particularly confident about how to interpret the system of musical notation in use at the time (a problem that persists well into the Renaissance). [Here are some “performances” of music from Ancient Greece](http://www.oeaw.ac.at/kal/agm/). As you can see, they’re not exactly toe-tappers! (On preview, I see that **Squink** has dredged up the same site.) ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-in-ancient-times/270162/5 "2004-10-20T03:42:21Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > That’s an interesting question, about which I know nothing. Someone who does will probably be along shortly. However I did find a site which purports to list [all published fragments of Ancient Greek music which contain more than a few scattered notes.](http://www.oeaw.ac.at/kal/agm/) Sound files are provided for each. There’s some _odd_ sounding stuff there. If this is all that has survived, no wonder it is so little heard. ---
**Author:** ![Early\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Early\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Early_Out)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-in-ancient-times/270162/6 "2004-10-20T03:44:44Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > If this is all that has survived, no wonder it is so little heard. Oh, I don’t know. I think _Athenaios, Paian_ has a good beat, and you can dance to it. Sort of. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-in-ancient-times/270162/7 "2004-10-20T03:56:27Z")
You’d think there’d be something coming out of the Arabic world. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-in-ancient-times/270162/8 "2004-10-20T04:04:56Z")
This is worth a look: [Dr. Estrella’s Incredibly Abridged Dictionary of Composers](http://www.stevenestrella.com/composers/index.html?ancientmusic.html) (ancient music) ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-in-ancient-times/270162/9 "2004-10-20T04:50:36Z")
> [@Early Out](#): > > Oh, I don’t know. I think _Athenaios, Paian_ has a good beat, and you can dance to it. Sort of. Wow. This music one of tunes used in the Civilization III game. It’s been jazzed up with drum and tamborine, but the melody is the same. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-in-ancient-times/270162/10 "2004-10-20T09:21:11Z")
The answers given aren’t as surprising as they might be, when you look at music from a less Euro-centric point of view. Western european music from the twelfth century onwards is pretty much unique, in that it developed a systematic method of notation that can be understood without the necessity of an inherited aural tradition alongside it. Even just slightly earlier European chant notation (such as the tenth-century neumes [here](http://www.skypoint.com/~waltzmn/Neumes.html)) requires some knowledge of the melody to be passed on along with the notation, and obviously this has been lost. It would be surprising if earlier notations did not have a similar partial role.