Greek Please!

In my last post I gave a glimpse into Mycenaean music culture. Adding more to that, yesterday I had the opportunity to talk with Dr. Luke Howard from the School of Music about ancient Greek Music. After I was referred to him from my roommate who is taking his Music History class, I caught up with him and he was obliged to answer a few of my questions.

From his college web page, Dr. Howard specializes in the culmination and influence of classical music in the pop culture as well as music history in general. He enjoys relating the ancient to the modern and looking for those traditions passed down from each respective culture. Here are a few of his responses:

For a Greek citizen how did music play into daily life? 

Well, it depends. There was limited tradition for those educated elite. For others in the lower classes there was very limited musical influence. Most everyone is involved in religious festivals and large events but that was the extent. The lower classes still had music, song and singing although it wasn't as prominent.

A Double Aulos

Did the average family have instruments in the home or musical abilities?

There were some instruments that the typical home might have, like the double reed instrument called the Aulos. These were relatively easy to obtain and were the more common at the time. Some of the instruments that you would think of like the lyre and others were more for the elite class.

What do we learn from the elements in the music about Greek Culture?

Greek music shows some of the elements that today's western music contains, including the importance of the perfect fifth, other intervals like the third.

What is something that the culture has contributed to today's music theory?

Interestingly, there are almost no remnants of Greek music in today's theory. The Dorian mode, although named after the Greeks, is actually more a system from the medieval times and misnamed. Western music derives predominantly from the Judaism music system, which as Christianity changed the European thought and belief system, their music was also a part of this. It was not until after the renaissance that the Arab world brought Greek music back.


Music in Greek life is a way of seeing into the way of thinking for the Greeks. The types of music, their chord structures and rhythms, the amount of involvement in music and musical instruments all serve to teach a bit about what kind of a people lived in the prominent isles of the Mediterranean thousands of years in history.