Music 360 Research Paper:
Ancient Greek Instruments and Performance Practice

The ancient Greeks have always been knows from their innovations. They revolutionized agriculture, architecture, education, and music (to name just a few of the advances they made).
The philosophers and educators made music one of the main focuses in education, and with this focus came progress. The musical instruments that were made were both unique and new to the world. From new stringed instruments to winds to instruments that use water the music of ancient Greece was truly something new to the world. Unfortunately, not much about the performance practices is known due to the effects of war, time, and most of the music was passed down through word of mouth. …show more content…
Eventually Apollo would go on to teach the hero Orpheus how to play the instrument. The tale of Orpheus would go on to influence much of early baroque opera. There are several other references to the lyre in mythology, too many to account for here. The instrument is very similar to the phorminx and the kithara. The lyre is plucked with a varying amount of strings. Size is the main difference between the instruments. Lyers are also very common to see in Greek art. Pottery, statues, carvings, and architecture are just a few of the ways the lyre was depicted by the Greeks. Like the rest of the instruments there is no surviving music for this instrument. This is likely because the music created for the instruments was passed down by word of mouth and not notated. The keyboard and plucked instruments had
Galbreath 4 the capability of playing multiple notes at ounce, but there were also a few wind instruments that could produce multiple tones at once. Thousands of years before the Greeks had control of most of the world primitive humans created instruments from random objects. One of these random objects became the earliest form of recorder in existence. This instrument apparently stuck with humanity …show more content…
Having this piece of music gives us a glimpse to the way music would have been performed in ancient Greece. Music would have been very prevalent in ceremonies and used for many different purposes. The educated man of Greece would be very well versed in the ways of music. Greeks thought music was extremely important to human development, and that music influence the way humans behave in their day to day lives. With music being such an important part of Greek life performances would have been happening constantly. There would have been small chamber ensembles, minstrels, large outdoor ensembles played for festivals, and even military groups to inspire the mood of the soldiers. The ideas the Greeks had about music were extremely valuable and should be considered today. The instruments of ancient Greece were extremely innovative for the time, and they had a huge influence on what today’s instruments are like. From the recorder to the organ the
Greeks had a foothold in all of the major musical groups. It’s a shame that most of the music was destroyed or not recorded, but hopefully archeologists will discover something in the coming years that will shed even more light onto the Greeks musical