How did ancient Greek musicians tune their instruments?
Upvote:6
The tuning fork has only been around since 1711 so there is no way that the ancient Greeks used a tuning fork to tune their instruments.
The tuned musical instruments that we know of from ancient Greece are primarily string and wind instruments. There are some percussion instruments, including bells, but it seems that few (none?) of the percussion instruments were tuned to definite pitches and that bells in ancient Greece were largely used for signaling and ceremonial purposes.
The string instruments were easily tuned, similar to how modern string instruments are tuned by adjusting the tension in the strings. The wind instruments could be tuned less easily which means that if a string instrument were to be played with the wind instrument, the string instrument would be tuned to the wind instrument.
I suspect, though, that the question is really about how was a pitch reference maintained and used in ancient times. And the answer is that...it wasn't! Before large-scale manufacturing and global shipping became available musical instruments (and their musicians) did not tend to travel far. Of course, the ideas of music and the instruments spread far and wide, but the actual instruments didn't tend to go far from where they were built. Thus, instruments played together in an ensemble need only be in tune with each other in order to sound good when played together. There is a reasonably good history of the pitch standard on Wikipedia, which is worth reading. So, the use of relative tuning is exactly what musicians have done throughout history, and would be a likely method for ancient Greek musicians.
A question that we might ask is: how often did these musicians need to tune their instruments to play with other instruments? It's not clear to me if we know enough about the musical traditions of ancient Greece to know how common it was for instruments to be played in an ensemble. It seems the ancient Greek musical traditions were primarily centered around instruments accompanying vocals. Given that surviving ancient Greek musical scores are still being interpreted for performances by musicians today, I'm also not sure if there is a definitive answer to this. It seems likely that at some point in ancient Greece there should have been instruments attempted to be played with each other. I suspect the musicians would try to tune the instrument that is most fixed in pitch and then play to that particular tuning.
More post
- 📝 California land cases to the US Supreme Court
- 📝 What was the timetable for Germany's Invasion of the Low Countries (Fall Gelb) in WW2?
- 📝 Does the ending of "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage" by Alfred Lansing sound reasonable?
- 📝 Was an adobe fort or a palisade fort more defensible?
- 📝 How do Dambadiva kings fit in Indian history?
- 📝 Did Nazi leaders consider continuing guerrilla warfare after the collapse of Germany?
- 📝 Which party did early trade unions identify with in the antebellum USA?
- 📝 Did the passage from Latin to English, in England, help science flourish?
- 📝 How was the Baalbek Trilithon dated?
- 📝 Do the Chadwyck-Healey baronets have a coat of arms?
- 📝 How were ship kills accounted in WWII?
- 📝 Is there documented evidence of Israel concentration/death camps used against the Arabs?
- 📝 Which cultures did *not* produce alcohol?
- 📝 Is there any evidence that Cleopatra and Caesarion considered fleeing to India to escape the Romans?
- 📝 Why, in the US, is Japanese brutality ignored compared with the Nazi brutality in WW2?
- 📝 Eohric of East Anglia and the usage of lion heads on banners
- 📝 How do war elephants fight?
- 📝 Was the Earth's sea-level significantly lower in ancient times?
- 📝 Which war games did Napoleon practice with his generals?
- 📝 Book about the story of a WWII photo analyst looking for V1 launching ramps
- 📝 How important was currency inflation in Fall of Roman Empire?
- 📝 Were there US troops on the WW1 eastern front?
- 📝 Why was decimal time unsuccessful?
- 📝 What are the stages of traversals of the Mediterranean Sea?
- 📝 Was Roosevelt the "biggest slave trader in recorded history"?
- 📝 When did Sultan Saif ad-Din Qutuz escape from Mongol swords?
- 📝 Were short stem coupe glasses common in the 1920's?
- 📝 How did residents of Estonia and Latvia prove that their family settled in the country prior to 1940, in order to become citizens in 1989?
- 📝 How thick was Late Medieval horse armor?
- 📝 For Alexander, what were the incentives of expanding to the west vs to the east?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 How did ancient Greek musicians tune their instruments?
- 📝 How did the ancient Romans count with their fingers?
- 📝 How did ancient empires account for slow propagation of information e.g. in their legal codes?
- 📝 How did ancient armies keep the route of supplies to their battlefield?
- 📝 How many lines did an ancient Greek copyist write per day?
- 📝 Why did Ancient Greek city-states fight each other and how did they morally justify it?
- 📝 How did people distinguish slaves from free people in Ancient Rome?
- 📝 Did ancient peoples ever hide their treasure behind puzzles?
- 📝 When did worshipping of ancient Greek gods come to an end?
- 📝 How did they cook on ancient ships?
- 📝 How did the ancient Greeks synchronize time?
- 📝 How did early adopters of the automobile fill up their cars?
- 📝 When did the term "Nationality" first come into use? How did ancient civilizations refer to themselves? By ethnicity?
- 📝 How much did it cost to attend events at the ancient Roman colosseum?
- 📝 Did the Persian Immortals instill fear in their Greek adversaries?
- 📝 How would slaves have addressed their masters in Ancient Greece?
- 📝 How did the Bolsheviks fund their government?
- 📝 How quickly could the Roman legions march? How did it compare to their cavalry?
- 📝 How did Christianity replace Roman Paganism and other ancient religions?
- 📝 What names did the ancient Egyptians give to different stages of their history?
- 📝 How much of an impact did the Roman emperors' civil wars have on their decision to debase the coinage?
- 📝 How did the Druids learn the Greek language by the time of Caesar's campaign in Gaul?
- 📝 If salt was scarce and expensive, how did people "salt the earth" to ensure their enemies would stay defeated?
- 📝 How did ancient Roman family names survive to current day use?
- 📝 How did the ancient Chinese coordinate armies of tens and hundreds of thousands?
- 📝 How much did a ship cost in Ancient Greece?
- 📝 How did residents of Estonia and Latvia prove that their family settled in the country prior to 1940, in order to become citizens in 1989?
- 📝 How did Romans organise their files?
- 📝 Why did Ancient Greek religious monument (herms) have genitalia?
- 📝 How did lecturers magnify their voice in the days before amplification?