Download Ancient Music Study Guide

Ancient/World Music Study Guide
 Chinese Music
o What did the Emperor of the Huang Di
Dynasty ask his court musician (Ling
Lun) to do?
 To create a standard form of music
notation.
o How did Ling Lun determine the perfect
pitch to tune to?
 Perfect piece of bamboo, made a
flute, tuned to the song of a phoenix
– the Yellow Bell
o How many notes in a Pentatonic Scale?
 5!
o Confucius (Kong Fuzi) – Music influences
people and should be regulated by the
government
o Lao Zi – Music should be used only for
ritual, not entertainment
o Early Chinese music was mostly sacred
o Eight Tones:
 Wood
 Silk
 Clay
 Leather
 Stone
 Metal
 Bamboo
 Gourd
o Pipa – earliest form of guitar (China)
 Japanese Music:
o Ma – the sense of space in art
o Shinto – Ancestor worship
 Kagura – sacred Shinto music
 Percussion, dancing
o Buddhism
 Shomyo – sacred Buddhist chants
 Accompanied by bells
 Call and response
o Secular Japanese Music
 Taiko – secular percussion
 Military
 Gagaku – court orchestra
 Played for aristocracy
 Percussion, String, Wind
 Noh (musical theatre)
 Nohkan – flute for noh
 3 drums
o Shakuhachi – vertical bamboo flute for
Buddhist meditation
o Koto – zither instrument to accompany
female singers
o Shamisen - long necked lute for
accompanying puppet theatre
- -------------------------------- Celtic Music
o Carynx – curved bronze horn with
animal head figure – to frighten
enemies
o Crwth (lyre) – used by wandering
musicians
- - - - -- - - - - - - - - -- -- - - -- - -- - - - - - African Music
o Polyrhythm – different meters going on
at once
o Percussion – drums, shakers, bells, and
rattles, and anything you can hit
o Call and Response
o “background shimmer” – small items
that rattle when an instrument is played
o Music is a language that is used for
EVERYTHING.
 Communication
 Introductions
 Celebrations
 Rituals/religious ceremony
o Drum that resembles speaking: talking
drum
o Mbira – thumb-piano
 All night ceremonies to invoke spirits
o Membranophone – drums with animal
skins
o Idiophone – percussion made from
hollow logs and pottery
o Aerophone – flutes that imitate human
speech
o Chordophone – string instrument
 Musical Bow
o Jalolu (jali) – traditional musicians that
keep the historical traditions of a tribe
 Jali play the Kora (a lute/harp)
- ------------------------------- Rome as conquerer
o Adopted Greek music and culture
- Boethius – The Principles of Music (book)
o Music of the Universe
 Musica mundana
o Music of Human Beings
 Musica humana
o Music of Instruments
 Musica instrumentalis
o Who became slaves when the Romans
conquered Greece?
 Educated elite – musicians, poets,
etc.
o Musicians in Rome were NOT well
respected, but musicians in Greece
were.
o Rome: music as entertainment and part
of daily life
o Greece: music as an art form
o Rome (later) – musicians, artists, etc.
organized into guilds/unions
o The oldest existing piece of notated
music is what?
 Greece, Epitaph of Seikilos
o Hydraulis – Greek pipe organ – water
powered
o Philosophers
 Aristotle
 Socrates
 Plato