Harmonizing a melody

[JonR]

I have no real knowledge in this area. I think that what we know is via many different little bits and pieces. They might find some flutes that tell them what scale was used at a given place and time. Then join to that 99 other similar disparate facts. My understanding is that the melody is reliable. The meter more flexible. If you want to get serious about it, I think that the single best text is this one:
Amazon.com: Ancient Greek Music (Clarendon Paperbacks) (9780198149750): M. L. West: Books
If you look at the amazon preview, there is some good stuff right there that addresses the sources of our understanding. West says we have 1) some old instruments and depictions of instruments in art, 2) many general references to music throughout ancient literature, and 3) some specialist, i.e. musical theory, texts that have survived including three books of On Harmony by Aristoxenus who disagreed with Pythagoras. Seems Aristoxenus was more about the ear while Pythagoras was more about the math. Evidently they differed on which actual scales to use.

I might read it in the next few years. If I do, I'll re-inflate the thread and give you a better answer.

Thanks. I did do some reading on Ancient Greek music some years ago, so I have a vague idea of the background.
There's also this (apparently) excellent site on scale principles and construction:
Ancient Greek Origins of the Western Musical Scale

It just struck me that the transcription of the Seikolos melody seemed confidently precise. I'm a natural cynic! I guess the scholars have a reasonable confidence in their methods. I was just a little surprised not to find something deeper online - maybe I need to look a bit harder!

Of course, it doesn't matter too much how accurate it is - we can never know! (The tuning/intonation would be different to start with, to name just one thing.) And we inevitably make sense of historical music through our own ears and prejudices. Even if the original Greek tune did sound like this, we have little idea what that sound meant to the Greeks. (I know we have the broad philophical texts, but even with music much closer to our present time, contemporary written descriptions often don't match how we hear the music today.)

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

The melody is the oldest complete tune we have: The Song of Seikilos. Seikilos, a Greek musician who lived 1900 years ago in present day Turkey, had the melody and lyrics engraved on his tombstone.

Ὅσον ζῇς, φαίνου,
Hoson zês, phainou,
While you live, shine,

μηδὲν ὅλως σὺ λυποῦ·
mêden holôs su lupou;
don't suffer anything at all;

πρὸς ὀλίγον ἐστὶ τὸ ζῆν,
pros oligon esti to zên,
life exists only a short while,

τὸ τέλος ὁ xρόνος ἀπαιτεῖ.
to telos ho chronos apaitei.
and time demands its toll.

If you go to Copenhagen, you can see the cylindrical tombstone. You can see the melodic notation on the bottom half over the words. (Not sure why the museum mirror imaged the cylinder.)

http://www.nationalmuseet.dk/graphic...k/seikilos.jpg

I thought it would be interesting because Seikilos didn't provide a harmony for it. The melody can be tweaked a bit because it is determined by the time it takes to sing the words, i.e. poetic rather than musical meter.

Cool lyrics -- they could have been written today. I was just reading about an ancient Egyptian text, "The world-weary man in search of his ba (soul)". I'm thinking phrygian for that one.

[jster]

Very sweet fep. I really liked your harmonization and I like your recording. Alas, like life, it ends too soon.

[jster]

Basic harmonization follows fairly simple rules,

Thanks Jon for the great summary. Where the heck were you guys in 79? If you were around then, I might be playing the Vanguard now!

[jster]

I'm a natural cynic! I guess the scholars have a reasonable confidence in their methods.

Well, it does seem there is some consensus. If you want to see lack of consensus, look at debates about how to pronounce Ancient Greek. Evidently we know better what the music sounded like than the lyric!