The 2000 year old ear worm

Cafe Society
1

Lately I’ve been listening to Nathaniel Johnstone’s Antikythera Mechanism and today I got a bit curious about the last track, Epitaph.
It turns out that song is, in essence, the oldest complete music composition (notation and lyrics) known to exist; it’s based on the text and notation on the Seikilos stele and that just about blows my mind.
On the Wikipedia entry there’s a Greek and lire version of the original, it’s beautiful, short, soothing, evocative and all that makes it a very effective ear worm… I’ve been humming and whistling it throughout the day.

I’ve always been a late adopter for new music, but I have to say, this one takes the cake. :smiley:

2

I’ve heard it said that something like 99% of the music ever composed by man is lost - because it predates modern or even middle-ages notation.

I suspect the figure approaches unity for dance.

ETA - envisions Mycenean band banging out “Satisfaction”…

3

Once you know the tune, it is rather catchy. :slight_smile: I first encountered it while studying music history at school.

4

Thank you…

5

That song reminds me a bit (verse part only) of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”

The piece at the wikipedia article does not, though.

6

Is that opening chord progression from 0:10-0:30 (in countless pop songs) part of the original? Or something added by modern musicians?

7

And I can’t be the only one expecting this when I clicked on this thread:

Mel Brooks’ 2000 Year Old Man - National Anthem for Cave 76

8

Hank Green did a good version of this song here.

9

LOL. You were not the only one.

10

The intro is modern, the original starts at around 0:35 and it’s repeated in one way or another four times.

11

I would say that a lot of music is lost today too, improvisations that don’t get recorded or repeated; The Who had to get a bootleg recording of Amercian Woman so they could play it again, because it came out of some time filling jam they improvised during a concert.

12

Guess Who and the Who aren’t the same band.:stuck_out_tongue:

13

Whooops… that should teach me not to post on the way out to work. :smack:

Anyway, you guessed who it was.