"Spirit of the Kithara" - The Ancient Greek Modes
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- čas přidán 20. 03. 2013
- "Spirit of the Kithara" (original composition for solo lyre in the ancient Greek Dorian Mode) - track 1 from my album, "The Ancient Greek Modes"...
This album features original compositions for solo lyre, in each of the 7 original ancient Greek Modes, as described in the writings of Plato & Aristotle, some 2400 years ago. "Spirit of the Kithara" is in the ancient Greek Dorian Mode - the equivalent intervals as E-E on the white notes of the piano.
The ancient Greek Dorian Mode must not be confused with the misnamed Medieval "Dorian" mode we commonly refer to today (equivalent intervals as D-D) - due to a massive Medieval mix up, all the ancient Greek Modes were given the wrong Greek names...& we are still stuck with this confusing double-meaning musicological terminology to this very day!
The ancient Greek Dorian Mode is one of my favourite to compose in - it can sound very deep & intense when played softly (as in this piece), yet it can transform into a very masculine, war-like Mode when played with vigour (as in my composition "The Battle of Thermopylae" on my new compilation album, "Musical Adventures in Time Travel").
For full details on the ancient Greek Modes, please visit:
www.ancientlyre.com/blog.html/...
Also, the free PDF booklet of album notes for "The Ancient Greek Modes can be downloaded from this link:
ancientlyre.com/publicfiles/TH... - Hudba
Lovely, it takes you back in time.
Amazing
Michael Levy and Peter Pringle. I'd love to hear you both collab
The nearest we got was in the production of my 2013 single, "Ancient Lyre Strings" - this was recorded with a set of wound pure silk strings, which Peter himself actually took the trouble to make for me:
ancientlyre.com/ancient_roman_themed_albums/ancient_lyre_strings/
Like the unpolished gut, silk or other natural fibre strings used in antiquity, due to the non-uniform nature of each string, each string produces its own distinctive timbre.
Even almost 7 years later, 2 bass strings which Peter so kindly made for my 10 string lyre, still survive!
dude, this is cool
ωραιο!!!!
The description makes a lot of sense considering the minor second interval between the first and second tones of the mode/scale. So when Plato talks about Dorian he really means what we refer to as Phrygian?
The enharmonic / chromatic modes sound very different to the diatonic modes.
The intervals of the Dorian in the diatonic genus are like these of the "Phrygian" church mode, E-e
BUT... the tonic centre would sometimes be the "Mese", the middle note in the scale, usually a fourth above the first note. In the case of diatonic dorian in E that would be A.
ALSO the dorian mode is different in that it has an extra note, the proslambanomenos, a full tone below the first note in the scale. So Dorian is reall D-e with a tonality "A minor" most of the time.
I hope this helps.
Also... the fact that Plato seems to be versed in the Pythagorean tradition we could say that he would prefer the octave species that can be tuned with four perfect fifths, and there are three of those, C-c, D-d and E-e. In Timaeus Plato appears to describe the natural major (C-c) scale.
But to throw all of this into confusion, it appears that originally the enharmonic genus was seen as standard and the diatonic displaced the other two gradually, until Hellenistic and Roman times. So for example Diatonic Phrygian has a hypate of "D" and a mese of "G" BUT enharmonic Phrygian has a hypate of "C" and a mese of "F"... the pentatonic scale on which the enharmonic Phrygian is built upon is C-E-F-A-B, and since the mese is the most likely tonal centre, it's actually like an F natural mode (with a B natural)... And since it's enharmonic, the semitones E-F and B-C would be further resolved to two unequal divisions.
So there you go.
It sounds mad, but it actually makes sense.
Michael- may i use this music for my documentary on Indian History? It’s a non-profit hobby! I like ur music a lot. It’s takes us to another world altogether.
Raviraj Mahajankatti - do please tell me more! Here is the link to my website contact form:
www.ancientlyre.com/contact
really cool, I was transported to that time. Which strings do you use in this song?

This was actually recoded with the lyre I first taught myself to play on, back in 2006...and 15 years later, I still can't find a way to replace the original strings it came with! The knots are impossible to 'reverse engineer' - I think they are regular nylon harp strings.
My Luthieros lyres have much more authentic strings, made from unpolished gut. These have a warmer timbre and a crisper attack - but are not as stable in holding their pitch, particularly in humidity.
Sugar cane based or silk strings are a great compromise - they have the warmth and crispness of unpolished gut, but much more stable and unaffected by humidity.
I'll never forget the unfortunate episode in 2017 when I was meant to be demonstrating Luthieros lyres in a concert based in a very hot and humid venue in Thessaloniki - within a few moments of playing each one of them, each and every one of these otherwise lovely gut strung lyres went hopelessly out of tune!!
@@MichaelLevyMusic got it, thank you very much for the explanation

Hi Michael, I would like to learn about dorian rhythm. Maybe you can help me with one text or music. Thank you
❤️
Michael can you tell me what tuning you have on this piece? Does it starts from D3 as Luthieros suggest?
This was actually recorded on my first Mid East 10-string lyre, not on any of my later (and much better quality!) Luthieros lyres. I think the 2nd string was more or less a Eb - as there is no standardized instrument size, I basically have to tune my lyres according to their varying string length.
@@MichaelLevyMusic I see thanks
Hello, Michael ! How much hard is to harmonize a melody written in an ancient greek mode ? It is known that ,as a rule,
the ancient greek music was monophonic. Is it possible to write homophonic music in an ancient greek mode and play on such instruments as a guitar or piano ?
There is actually plenty of evidence that polyphony was alive and well back in the time of Plato's classical Greece, as can be clearly seen in the words of Plato himself - in his "Laws", Plato actually describes all the ornate use of polyphony in use in the music of his time, and how this should be avoided when teaching the basics of music to young boys:
"... the teacher and the learner ought to use the sounds of the lyre, because its notes are pure, the player who teaches and his pupil rendering note for note in unison; but complexity, and variation of notes, when the strings give one sound and the poet or composer of the melody gives another -also when they make concords and harmonies in which lesser and greater intervals, slow and quick, or high and low notes, are combined - or, again, when they make complex variations of rhythms, which they adapt to the notes of the lyre - all that sort of thing is not suited to those who have to acquire a speedy and useful knowledge of music in three years; for opposite principles are confusing, and create a difficulty in learning, and our young men should learn quickly, and their mere necessary acquirements are not few or trifling, as will be shown in due course. Let the director of education attend to the principles concerning music which we are laying down."
Thank you for the answer. But I am curious if there are texts, books, either ancient or modern, on the subject of the ancient greek harmony? I mean harmony in a modern sense of the term. In the Western musical theory we have the rules on how to connect chords, lead voices, which chords to use in cadences and so on.
But this theory applicable to the modes based on major/minor scales. But if we have a melody composed in an ancient greek mode based on the scale different from the modern major/minor one, how we could harmonize such melody, add a chordal accompaniment to it? Is there any developed techniques or one
should just find empirically which chords to use?
I am no musicologist, but what I do know, is that rather than 'harmony' as we understand it (specific chord progressions created from triads), the most common means of accompanying a melodic line, was the use of consonant intervals in just intonation (5ths and 4ths), to 'sweeten' the melodic line - this is attested in 1st century musical texts.
This style is also perfectly suited to lyre playing - just a lovely pure finger plucked 5th with my left hand is all that is needed to sweeten the melody being played with the plectrum in my right hand.
I wonder if you could play modern songs on the Kithara?
Ajin Anglyx - any modal folk melody works great, as these type of tunes all use the same modes used in ancient Greece, for example, any traditional old Irish Air, such as 'Spancil Hill':
czcams.com/video/cjYP-CPup8E/video.html
Or folk songs such as 'Scarbourgh Fair':
czcams.com/video/1jwTdIBTnq8/video.html
Also, the Beatles song 'Norwegian Wood' is in exactly the same mode as the most famous surviving piece of ancient Greek music - the fully notated, complete "Song of Seikilos":
czcams.com/video/H4IUGe2a8-s/video.html
Michael Levy μπράβο ,εύγε,για το σθένος σας κ Λεβί.!!! Θέλει πολύ μεράκι κ αγάπη, αυτό που κάνετε.!!!κ αποστασιοποίηση, όπως το καταλαβαίνω.!!! Πράγματι όμως ,είναι πολύ πνευματική κ ψυχα,- αγωγικη,δημιουργεί ένα αίσθημα που έλκει,την ψυχή, κ δίνει κ στο σώμα, μια κίνηση περιπάτου, κ συζητήσεως, κ συγχρόνως διαλογισμού κ οραματισμό εικόνων κ γεγονότων κ εποχών.!!! Κ απολέσει τις χρονοπεριοδους, κάτι σαν να είναι εξωκοσμια.!! Τέλος πάντων βάζω κ λίγη φαντασία, για να καλύψω την ανακρίβεια των λέξεων μου.!!! Ευχαριστώ.!
you could surely compose modern music on it
is that a phrygien in B ?
Is there also an Ionian mode?
The really confusing thing about the names of the original ancient Greek mides was that they were all mistakenly given the wrong Greek names by scholars in the Middle Ages - to distiguish them, the misnamed Medieval modes are called the "Church Modes" of which the Ionion is one of these (equivalent intervals as C-C on the white notes of the piano)
The original ancient Greek mode names were:
Lydian - C-C
Phrygian - D-D
Dorian - E-E
Hypolydian - F-F
Hypophrygian - G-G
Hypodorian - A-A
Mixolydian - B-B
there are 7 modes
@@MichaelLevyMusic WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT xDD !! with all my respect how mai i believe you ??
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