All Queries 5. Music, Temperament, and Social Concord
All Queries
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“It is not easy to determine the nature of music, or why any one should have a knowledge of it. Shall we say, for the sake of amusement and relaxation, like sleep or drinking, which are not good in themselves, but are pleasant, and at the same time ‘care to cease,’ as Euripides says?”
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It is close to this source:“But professional musicians we speak of as vulgar people, and indeed we think it not manly to perform music, except when drunk or for fun.”
Should we change the citation link and add a footnote for this other source, or do you have one that is closer to the quotations used in all instances to use across this chapter?“In fact we call the performers ‘mechanics’ and think that a man should not perform except for his own amusement or when he has had a good deal to drink.”
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Marshack (1990: p. 20) observed that such clothing “would probably not have been worn in the activity of hunting, butchering or daily domestic activity.” He added that “The assumption that ivory beads, bracelets and head bands evidence the beginnings of an awareness of ‘self’ is Eurocentric.” The “self” is still merged into the kosmos.
For portable art, the practice of covering images such as the Willendorf “Venus” with red ocher may be more than merely decorative. The red color may have symbolized the blood of life. Whatever was being signified, red ocher coloring predates the Cro-Magnons, being found as early as 100,000 BC in Neanderthal burials (Marshack 1990: p. 3).
Art became more cognitive by the late Ice Age. Marshack has shown the extent to which images from the Magdalenian period (15,000–10,000 BC) through the neolithic “were essentially ‘time factored,’ that is they were not simply ‘art,’ but were made at the right time, to be used at the proper moment, in the proper way, and for proper cultural reasons. … In fact symbolic carvings may in some measure have been made so they could be used ritually and ceremonially.” Cave art probably helped heighten and even coordinate seasonal rituals. “The ritual and symbolic use of the caves found in the Franco-Cantabrian area may have been ‘scheduled’ to that calendar frame, along with the manufacture and use of different classes of imagery and the performance of different types of rituals both inside and outside of cave sanctuaries” (Marshack 1990: p. 9).Transition Note
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What kind of creation? This question brings us back to the ultimate purpose of art. What was being expressed was a re-creation not of the artist’s personal experience but something more universal—the kosmos. Antiquity’s major public ceremonies were kosmos-renewing, and it was at these ceremonies that music was most pronounced. The celestial movements of the planets were emulated in song, dance, and instrumental playing (harps or lyres and flutes).
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[Omitted text: “What once seemed to be realistic representational art now is perceived as reflecting a cosmological iconography.”]
Chapter 16 of Athenaeus’s Banquet of the Sophists dealt largely with the role of music in banquets and related occasions. He reported that:Originally here there were two short paragraphs that did not fit and needed explication and transitions. Could you help us work them in?
The paragraphs were:“Whatever could be measured by number was standardized.”
“What once seemed to be realistic representational art now is perceived as reflecting a cosmological iconography.”
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“while most persons devote this art [of music] to social gatherings for the sake of correcting conduct and of general usefulness, the ancients went further and included in their customs and laws the singing of praises to the gods by all who attended feasts, in order that our dignity and sobriety might be retained through their help. For, since the songs are sung in concert, if discourse on the gods has been added it dignifies the mood of every one.”[6]
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Most artists were public servants (Greek demiourgoi, literally “workers for the demos”), and as such dependent on the civil state, palace, or temple for their livelihood. Some were outright slaves.[7]
Supervising them were various officials such as the choregos (originally in charge of the chorus, later the person who financed it), and the aesymnetes who beat the time for the choral dances. (I will discuss these officials in greater detail below.)
They were Greek demiourgoi, from the many blind men who were trained as musicians to the metic foreign “guest workers.”Translation Check
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Should this be XVI instead of XIV since Chapter 16 was mentioned a few paragraphs earlier? And can you help us confirm it’s 627 and not 6–27? (We don’t have a source with line numbers.)Translation Check
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If you tell us a link to add over “Athenaeus (XIV.618),” then we can add a footnote citation once you have checked this point is made at this point in a text.
Hint: it may be near page 1,001 of The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned, C.D. Yonge (tr.), Vol. 3 (London: 1854).
Another hint: It may be: this source.Translation Check
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Can someone who knows Greek pronunciation please help us confirm: Originally the author wrote a ioulos instead of an ioulos.
One source we found was this one.
Another was on Perseus from Tufts University.
This translation of Athenaeus gives it spelled “Ioulis”; should we use i instead of o at the end? See: this source.Verify Citation
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The seven notes of the scale equated to the seven movable bodies in the heavens. The numerological symbolism of the time described the number eight as the “rebirth” number, probably because it started a new octave or, in Semitic cultures, a new seven-day week.
Also of a periodic nature in both music and calendar-keeping was the number 12. It signified the octave’s 12 tones, and also the 12 months of the year. And, as noted in Alphanumeric Notation and the Calendrical-Musical Kosmos, music and astronomy may have shared similar symbols for their notation.
Plutarch stated in Moralia: “The Chaldeans say that Spring stands to Autumn in the relation of a Fourth, to Winter in the relation of a Fifth, and to Summer in the relation of an Octave.” And Curt Sachs also pointed out that “the ancient Chinese also viewed the Spring as distant from the Autumn by a Fourth and from the Winter by Fifth.”[11] But they viewed the spring as distant from the summer by a second, not by an octave as the Babylonians did.Verify Citation
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The author wanted to reproduce Plutarch’s diagram (originally he had a note at this location in the chapter text: “[Reproduce his diagram.]”). Can you please identify and provide a link, especially if one is in the public domain? Or link to one?
Any image suggested for inclusion in The Creation of Order must be licensed under Creative Commons 4.0 or in the public domain if it is to be embedded in the chapter. If it is not CC4.0 or PD, please suggest a link to somewhere externally readers might find the correct image. Please include a source link and attribution information for any image suggestion (Wikimedia Commons links are preferred if available).Verify Citation
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Can you help us find the place in the Sachs text identified earlier (Curt Sachs, The Rise of Music in the Ancient World: East and West [New York: 1943]) where this might be relevant?
Please confirm if Boethius is excerpted here and/or if this concept about sex and stringed instruments is in here; if so, what page(s) is/are it/they on?Verify Citation
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Sound was made on the stringed instruments by rubbing, that is, friction. The primordial creative friction was of course that of sex.
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Example 1 (Key Concepts section):
Each octave renewed itself from A to A’, making the number eight (for A’) the signifier of rebirth.
Example 2 (Chapter 5 body):
CC’cc’
Example 3 (Chapter 5 general queries):
C, C’ c, c’, c”Should the musical notation about octave be a curved apostrophe and/or quotation mark like this, or should it be a straight apostrophe/quotation mark? Or should it be noted entirely differently? (This occurs throughout this chapter.)
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Examples:
- The ratio 3:2 creates the most basic musical interval next to the octave: the fifth. This is the second overtone (Table 5.1).
- The most basic musical ratio is that of the first overtone: the octave (from C to c; see Table 5.1).
We need someone with musical expertise to help us arrange Table 5.1 and insert it in Chapter 5. See this General Queries for Chapter 5 link to view the table notes. (If the table has been inserted into the chapter body already, please notify us here so we can remove this query and insert an internal link to the table over the words “Table 5.1” instead.)
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Can someone who knows Greek check this for us: We weren’t sure what the single quotation punctuation mark should be—a curved normal raised comma as in a contraction, or “harmonia,” or just a typo that should be removed? For now we went with a curved normal raised comma-style apostrophe.
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Mathematics of Tuning the Scale
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Originally the author had a note here to insert an illustration: “[Illustration: scale.]” Can you help us figure out what might have been meant here, and find us a public domain or Creative Commons image to insert?
Any image suggested for inclusion in The Creation of Order must be licensed under Creative Commons 4.0 or in the public domain if it is to be embedded in the chapter. If it is not CC4.0 or PD, please suggest a link to somewhere externally readers might find the correct image. Please include a source link and attribution information for any image suggestion (Wikimedia Commons links are preferred if available).Fact Check
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Was the number 1 conceived of as unrelated to other numbers, a case of “itself” (a parthenogenic number)?
Was number 2 thought of as a “female number”?
Citation(s) needed.
Some hints about the citation for male/female numbers may be found in Chapter 3 in the section titled Birth Metaphors for the Generation of Fractions and Interest:
Hint 1: “By the same token, numbers beyond 1 and 2 have been imbued with maleness and femaleness by classifying them as odd or even. The Pythagoreans held that ‘odd numbers are male, even numbers are female’ (Aristotle, Metaphysics 986a, quoted in Seidenberg[17] 1962b: p. 2).”
Hint 2: “Robert Stieglitz[18] (1982: p. 257) called this line of reasoning mathopoeic: ‘the poet might say that the “One” gave birth to a “Female” (= 2) and a “Male” (= 3), who in turn mated and thus begot successive generations of “sons” and “daughters” (2p3q5r), formed in the “image” of their prototypes.’”
Hint 3: “Plutarch (Isis and Osiris, Chapter 56) asserted that the ancient Egyptians knew the 3 x 4 x 5 right triangle and the male and female deities associated with it. The upright perpendicular measuring 3 represented Osiris, while the base measuring 4 (an even number, and horizontal, as it is presumed they thought a woman should be) signified Isis. Their offspring was Horus, the hypotenuse 5, a male odd number. Pythagoreans thus built on an old tradition in asserting that “Five is the marriage number.” Plutarch called this triangle the Nuptial Figure.”
Hint 4: “Inasmuch as 4 could be expressed as 22, the number 60 could be rendered as 22 x 3 x 5. In any case, 60 could be generated by multiplying twos and threes and their combinations (‘offspring’).”Fact Check
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The first fifth—from C to G—is thus 3:2. But to go up another fifth, we must multiply the first 3:2 by another 3:2. In other words we must square it. This produces 9:4—the note D. It relates to C’ as 9:8, and this fraction thus represents the whole tone—C to D.
We thus see that to add one fifth to another, we must multiply their ratios. And this is what is meant by “geometric” growth.Citation Needed
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A whole tone scale can be made by proceeding by whole tones. On the piano, we would get the series C, D, E, F♯, G♯, A♯ (=B♭), then back to C. But we would not get the other six tones. To do this, we must continue tuning by fifths.
For ease of visualizing this on the black keys of a piano, let us begin by a fifth below middle C: F. This gives us what musicians call the “circle of fifths,” consisting of F, C, G, D, A, E, B, F♯, C♯, G♯, D♯, A♯—and then, a fifth above A♯, E♯. (Alternatively, if we begin with C, we will end up with B♯.)
However, as every pianist knows, there really is no E♯ (or B♯). That is F. We would seem to have arrived back at our starting point.
But in fact, we have not done so, for a very good reason. To return to a higher octave of our starting F (or C), we would need some doubling, that is, power of 2 in the denominator of whatever fractional system we are using. Its powers are 9, 27, 81, 243, and so forth, with the power always ending in an odd number—a 9, a 7, a 3, or a 1. Thus, as we reach the circle’s return at the seventh octave, we get a slight dissonance, an out-of-tuneness. Since antiquity, musicians have called this a “comma” (Greek “komma”). This represents the ratio of tuning by odd-numbered intervals relative to even ones.
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Yet in the numerator we have powers of the “male” 3. And this is a “dominant” gene, so to speak.
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A whole tone scale can be made by proceeding by whole tones. On the piano, we would get the series C, D, E, F♯, G♯, A♯ (=B♭), then back to C. But we would not get the other six tones. To do this, we must continue tuning by fifths.
For ease of visualizing this on the black keys of a piano, let us begin by a fifth below middle C: F. This gives us what musicians call the “circle of fifths,” consisting of F, C, G, D, A, E, B, F♯, C♯, G♯, D♯, A♯—and then, a fifth above A♯, E♯. (Alternatively, if we begin with C, we will end up with B♯.)
However, as every pianist knows, there really is no E♯ (or B♯). That is F. We would seem to have arrived back at our starting point.
But in fact, we have not done so, for a very good reason. To return to a higher octave of our starting F (or C), we would need some doubling, that is, power of 2 in the denominator of whatever fractional system we are using. Its powers are 9, 27, 81, 243, and so forth, with the power always ending in an odd number—a 9, a 7, a 3, or a 1. Thus, as we reach the circle’s return at the seventh octave, we get a slight dissonance, an out-of-tuneness. Since antiquity, musicians have called this a “comma” (Greek “komma”). This represents the ratio of tuning by odd-numbered intervals relative to even ones.
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Ancient harmonic theorists represented this by the following “fork”: 1, 3, 9 on the left, and 2, 4, 8, 16, etc., on the right.
[Omitted text: [Reproduce Illustration 5.]]
Originally here the author had a note to insert an image here, but we’re not sure which image. Can you help us figure out which might have been meant? Perhaps Plutarch’s diagram mentioned in this query, or a scale illustration mentioned in this query, both of which we ask about a little earlier in this chapter body? His original note was: “[Reproduce Illustration 5.]” and we don’t know if there was a numeral after the period after 5 or not, but we don’t know what Illustration 5.1 would have been based on our two aforementioned queries.
Any image suggested for inclusion in The Creation of Order must be licensed under Creative Commons 4.0 or in the public domain if it is to be embedded in the chapter. If it is not CC4.0 or PD, please suggest a link to somewhere externally readers might find the correct image. Please include a source link and attribution information for any image suggestion (Wikimedia Commons links are preferred if available).Fact Check
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Originally, instead of a period after the word “comma” the author had added a colon and a note with a missing term at the end; can you help us figure out what it was so we can add it back?
Original Text: “comma: what the ancients called the __.”
Was it Greek komma from earlier, maybe, or a symbol (more likely)?Fact Check
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Setting the intervals by fifths (3:2 ratios) produced one mathematical-tonal series, doing so by thirds (5:4 or 6:5 for the major and minor third respectively) another.
Calendar-makers solved this problem by setting a year-end “time out of time.” After all, they hardly could take an average of 360 days and lengthen each day. The sun rose and set 365 1/4 times each calendrical year as measured by the sun, and there was nothing to do but add some extra days.
But musicians found a different solution available—indeed, dictated. They hardly could add an “extra note” to the gamut of octaves. (If they had, there would be two separate keys for G♯ and A♭ in one of the higher octaves.) Musical tuners did what calendar-makers could not do: Having drawn an analogy comparing musical tones and octaves to the days and months of the year, they then adjusted each tone slightly, so as to temper each tone by just enough so that there would be no “large” disparities developing among the “later generations” of tones such as G♯/A♭. At least, this was the “equal temperament” system developed thousands of years before Bach took the great step toward re-establishing the tendency with his Well-Tempered Clavier in 1722.Verify Citation
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a. The sequence of overtones: 2:1, 3:2, 4:3, 5:4… versus circle of fifths.
The tones can be generated mainly from the first six numbers: 6:5:4:3:2:1.a. The sequence of overtones: 2:1, 3:2, 4:3, 5:4… versus circle of fifths.
The tones can be generated mainly from the first six numbers: 6:5:4:3:2:1.
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But just as calendars became solarized, so did the mathematics of tuning the scale. And just as the solar calendar rounded off the dimensions of the year, so did musical temperament.
[Omitted text: Insert Table 5.1 here. Notes on its creation are at this link in Chapter 5’s General Queries.]
Generation of Notes by Threes Versus by Twos and FoursTable 5.1 is supposed to go here. We need someone with musical expertise to help us arrange this table. See this General Queries for Chapter 5 link to view the notes on how to create the table.
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Examples in Chapter 5 (in many footnotes and in-text links, as well as in the Bibliography):
- Ernest G. McClain, The Myth of Invariance: The Origin of the Gods, Mathematics and Music from the Rg Veda to Plato (Maine: 1976)
- (McClain 1976: p. 4)
- 1976: glossary [multiple times]
- 1976: p. 119
- 1976: p. xi
- 1976: pp. 102–103
- discussed his Chart 23: “The gap which remains between a♭ and g♯ at the bottom of the circle is now narrowed to a diaschisma worth about 20 cents or 3/10 x 20 = 6 degrees, wondrously close to the 5 1/4-day shortage between the ancient calendar base of 360 days and the true solar year… The ratio results from the reciprocal meanings of 45:32…”
- 1976: p. 80
- 1976: p. 163
- 1976, p. 142
- 1976: p. 112
Example in Chapter 5’s General Queries:
Example in the book’s Bibliography:
- Ernest G. McClain, The Myth of Invariance: The Origin of the Gods, Mathematics and Music from the Rg Veda to Plato (Maine: 1976).
The material of the work of the title The Myth of Invariance by Ernest G. McClain appears to have been removed from the Internet Archive sometime between 2025 and 2026. Please help us find a different publicly accessible source link to the cited work, if one is available.
If you determine it is not in the public domain nor available under Creative Commons 4.0, please let us know.Stub
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A “comma” is “a small disagreement between two different definitions of a tone”; e.g., the Pythagorean, diaschisma, diesis (McClain[22] 1976: glossary).
- ↑ St. Augustine, De doctrina christiana, II.xvi.25.
- ↑ Euripides, Bacchae, line 381, from The Tragedies of Euripides, translated by T.A. Buckley, Bacchae (London: 1850).
- ↑ Euripides, Bacchae, line 381, from The Tragedies of Euripides, translated by T.A. Buckley, Bacchae (London: 1850).
- ↑ Aristotle, Politics, Book 8, section 1339b.
- ↑ Aristotle, Politics, Book 8, section 1339b.
- ↑ Athenaeus, “From the Sophists at Dinner,” in “The Greek View of Music” in Oliver Strunk (selected and annotated by), Source Readings in Music History: From Classical Antiquity through the Romantic Era (New York: 1950), p. 53.
- ↑ The blind musician is a familiar character from the Bronze Age through classical antiquity. It was because they were blind that they were turned over to the temples or other public institutions, which trained them in music, gardening, or other craft for which eyesight was not essential. See Samuel Noah Kramer and John Maier’s Myths of Enki, The Crafty God, for Sumerian practice. This spread to classical Greece.
- ↑ Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned, C.D. Yonge (tr.), Vol. 3 (London: 1854), via the Internet Archive, p. 1,001.
- ↑ Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned, C.D. Yonge (tr.), Vol. 3 (London: 1854), via the Internet Archive, p. 1,001.
- ↑ Joseph T. Shipley, The Origins of English Words: A Discursive Dictionary of Indo-European Roots (Baltimore: 1984), pp. 16ff.
- ↑ Curt Sachs, The Rise of Music in the Ancient World: East and West (New York: 1943).
- ↑ Curt Sachs, The Rise of Music in the Ancient World: East and West (New York: 1943).
- ↑ Curt Sachs, The Rise of Music in the Ancient World: East and West (New York: 1943).
- ↑ Curt Sachs, The Rise of Music in the Ancient World: East and West (New York: 1943).
- ↑ Ernest G. McClain, The Myth of Invariance: The Origin of the Gods, Mathematics and Music from the Rg Veda to Plato (Maine: 1976), pp. 19f.
- ↑ Ernest G. McClain, The Myth of Invariance: The Origin of the Gods, Mathematics and Music from the Rg Veda to Plato (Maine: 1976).
- ↑ A. Seidenberg, “The Ritual Origin of Counting,” Archive for History of Exact Sciences, Vol. 2 (1962b), pp. 1–40.
- ↑ Robert R. Stieglitz, “Numerical Structuralism and Cosmogony in the Ancient Near East,” Journal of Social and Biological Structures, Vol. 5 (1982), pp. 255–266.
- ↑ Ernest G. McClain, The Pythagorean Plato: Prelude to the Song Itself (Maine: 1978), p. 33.
- ↑ Plato, Republic, via Tufts University’s Perseus Digital Library Project, 572b.
- ↑ Ernest G. McClain, The Myth of Invariance: The Origin of the Gods, Mathematics and Music from the Rg Veda to Plato (Maine: 1976), p. 197.
- ↑ Ernest G. McClain, The Myth of Invariance: The Origin of the Gods, Mathematics and Music from the Rg Veda to Plato (Maine: 1976), glossary.
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Note that McClain switched the order of numbers in this ratio and wrote: 49:50 (with the smaller number first).
Can you help us figure out if we should reverse the order written in Chapter 5 too?
Maybe Hudson had a reason to swap them, or maybe it was unintentional and should be reversed for consistency?
See also: Query about 1,260:630.Fact Check
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Note that McClain switched the order of numbers in this ratio and wrote: 630:1,260 (with the smaller number first).
Can you help us figure out if we should reverse the order written in Chapter 5 too?
Maybe Hudson had a reason to swap them, or maybe it was unintentional and should be reversed for consistency?
See also: Query about 50:49.Omitted Text
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I point the interested reader to the works of McClain.[3] He may have gone too far in trying to find in the archaic Vedic, Mesopotamian, and Greek mathematics of musical temperament a conscious analog to the 25,920-year precession of the equinoxes. But his basic premise of parallels being drawn between adjusting the calendar and tuning the musical scale were certainly correct and “in the spirit” of ancient higher wisdom.
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The three Fates were Clotho, Atropos, and Lachesis.Verify Citation
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He went so far as to try and make sense out of the numerology found in the Bible’s closing Book of Revelation (historically a pitfall which one enters only at the risk of losing one’s sanity).
[Omitted section of text: The Role of the Square Root of Two]
The section The Role of the Square Root of Two was meant to go above Summary: ‘Natural’ Tuning Versus Equal Temperament in the Chapter 5 body. Can you help us solve the queries in the section draft at this link so we can move it back into the chapter body?
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McClain[5] (1976: p. 163): “Ernst Levy pointed out that the ratio 4:3 produces tones linked by perfect fourths and fifths, that ‘mating’ with 5 produces pure musical thirds, and that the ‘unmusical children’ Socrates predicted from his formula must therefore be those plagued by the notorious commas which make ‘Just tuning’ impractical and motivate the eventual adoption of some form of ‘temperament.’”
[Omitted section of text: Social Analogies Based on Musical Temperament]
The stub subsection Social Analogies Based on Musical Temperament was meant to go above the section Ruler/Noise/Harmony in the Chapter 5 body. Can you help us expand the stub section draft at this link so we can move it back into the chapter body?
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Originally this quotation ended in “if some” and had no close-quotation mark. We found the original quotation and added it: “higher power of 2 agreed with some higher power of 3, an obvious impossibility since the first series is even and the second is odd.” Does it work, or would you cut it sooner?
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Example 1:
Athenaeus[7] (XII.3–41) reported that “To such a point had they carried their luxurious refinement that they had even trained their horses to dance at their feasts to the accompaniment of pipes. Now the people of Croton knew this when they made war on the Sybarites, as Aristotle records in his account of their Constitution.”
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Croton went to war with Sybaris. On this topic, Athenaeus[8] (XII.3–41) repeated an anecdote that shows the power of music, so much praised by the Pythagoreans.Translation Check
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There was a close-quotation mark but no open-quotation mark here; can you help us find a translation that might have been close to this text so we know if it was a quotation, which part was quoted and which was added?
Originally it was written (the missing open-quotation mark is as originally written):We removed the close-quotation mark and the brackets until we know the quotation. It seems approximate to this source or p. 834 of this one, but not exact.At a signal in the battle all the Crotonite pipers played the melody to which the horses were accustomed, whereupon they rose on their hind legs, throwing off their riders [, and so caused an easy victory for Croton.]”
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Athenaeus[11] (XII.3–41) reported that “To such a point had they carried their luxurious refinement that they had even trained their horses to dance at their feasts to the accompaniment of pipes. Now the people of Croton knew this when they made war on the Sybarites, as Aristotle records in his account of their Constitution.” Apparently some Sybarite had insulted (probably made unwelcome advances on) one of the flute-players, who resolved to avenge the insult by playing the tune to the Crotonites. At a signal in the battle all the Crotonite pipers played the melody to which the horses were accustomed, whereupon they rose on their hind legs, throwing off their riders, and so caused an easy victory for Croton.
This last is the editor’s summary from Julius Africanus, Cesti 293. Athenaeus says simply, the Crotonites “struck up the dance tune for the horses; for they had with them pipers in military uniform.”[12]Translation Check
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Can you help us confirm and cite Athenaeus (is XIV.631 correct, or is it 6–31?)? And can you identify a full citation to link to?
Is it one of these:
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Can you help us cite this quotation from Athenaeus?
Is it: this source link?Stub
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Democratic Theory
The democrats never responded with a temperament theory of their own. What they did was simply to maintain the tradition of Nemesis, the fair “divider” and avenger of hubris and arrogance of the wealthy.Expand Section
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Democratic Theory
The democrats never responded with a temperament theory of their own. What they did was simply to maintain the tradition of Nemesis, the fair “divider” and avenger of hubris and arrogance of the wealthy. [Omitted text:] (I will leave to Chapter 9 an elaboration of how distributive justice was sanctified by religion.)
Theory of temperament = BALANCE.
Subordination of individual egoism—above all that of self-promotion and wealth-seeking—to the common weal.
[/End of omitted text]Originally here was more text that may be notes:
1. At the end of the paragraph ending with “the wealthy.” was added this parenthetical:
(I will leave to Chapter 9 an elaboration of how distributive justice was sanctified by religion.)
Note that Chapter 9 may have been meant to be Chapter 8 due to renumbered chapters; check when Chapter 8 is fleshed out more.
2. Two further paragraphs of notes after the first paragraph in this section that give hints at how to flesh out this stub section were:
Theory of temperament = BALANCE.
Can you help us enact what was hinted at here?Subordination of individual egoism—above all that of self-promotion and wealth-seeking—to the common weal.
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Commenting on this passage, Miller[15] (1986: p. 73) wrote that “The Mosaic choreia is more than a display of universal rationality. It is essentially a religious movement, a… ‘wholly sacred chorus’ expressing the love felt by man and nature for the transcendent Ruler of the universe.”
Yet at the same time, “Astronomy, music, mathematics, and all the branches of philosophy were not ends in themselves, …but simply preparations for leading the life of virtue and piety which allowed the human spirit to leap into the Kingdom of Heaven.” Philo thus “imagined the Lord as a Socratic teacher.” In his essay “On the Change of Names”[16] (72–73) Philo asked…Verify Citation
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“For what purpose do you investigate the choral dances and revolutions of the stars? Why have you leapt from earth up to the region of the ether? Is your purpose merely to busy yourself idly with what is there? And what great advantage may be gained from all that idle labor? How does it serve to purge pleasure, to overthrow lust, to suppress grief and fear? What surgery has it for passions which rock and confound the soul? For just as trees are useless if they bear no fruit, so also is the study of nature useless if it does not lead to the acquisition of virtue.”[18]
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(See [tk] on the Persian kings being authoritarian in their art.)
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Social Setting for Art
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From “art” and “armos” comes “arete,” “virtue.” The superlative “aristos” (“fittest,” “best”) now connotes the doctrine of survival of the fittest.
I began this chapter with a quotation from Aristotle distinguishing high culture from barbarism. Let us return to his argument, for at this very moment in time an ossification was setting in. Art was becoming bourgeois.
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Aristotle (Politics VIII.3 at 1337b) stated that high culture required leisure time for contemplation, and hence wealth (much as to be a member of the aristocratic cavalry, one needed enough wealth to spend one’s time training with one’s horse). But there also was a danger here: The ruling class might become conservative.There was omitted text here that was a stub. Would you like to help us expand it so we can add it back to the Chapter 5 body?
Note: The “quotation from Aristotle” was most likely:“The poets do not depict Zeus as playing the lyre and singing in person,” pointed out Aristotle[28] (1339b). “In fact we call the performers ‘technicians’ and think that a man should not perform except for his own amusement or when he has had a good deal to drink.” Thus, like his contemporaries, Aristotle dismissed musicianship as being a mere craft (“techne”), and as such, unbecoming to men of leisure.
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Aristoxenus (according to Athenaeus[29] XIV.632) decried the decadence of his times (already over two thousand years ago): “Now that our theatres have become utterly barbarized and this prostituted music has moved on into a state of grave corruption,” he accused; few people recalled the old musical arts. Athenaeus added his own view that “It happened that in ancient times the Greeks were music-lovers; but later, with the breakdown of order, when practically all the ancient customs fell into decay, this devotion to principle ceased, and debased fashions in music came to light, wherein every one who practised them substituted effeminacy for gentleness, and license and looseness for moderation. What is more, this fashion will doubtless be carried further if some one does not bring the music of our forebears once more to open practice.”[30]
[Omitted text: [Calliope story.]]The Key Concept of “Calliope, the ninth muse, integrating the other eight muses by virtue of the aid to memory provided by music” is not discussed in this chapter’s body. Originally there was a note at this place in the chapter body that we omitted to add [Calliope story] here. Can you help us add it to the chapter body discussion and relate it to the chapter thesis? Please include what to add and where in the chapter to add it, and any sources.
Can you help us find and write out the relevant Calliope story here?
It probably relates to what was written in this first query in the Key Concepts section about ancient Calliope in the Key image section:And possibly also this second query in the Key Concepts section about modern calliope in the Ultimate dissolution section:“Key image: Calliope, the ninth muse, integrating the other eight muses by virtue of the aid to memory provided by music.”
“Ultimate dissolution: …‘Calliope’ descended from being the highest muse to the raucous merry-go-round organ.”
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According to McClain[31] (1976: p. 112), in the 16th century AD “the new ‘chordal’ harmonies… made the ‘human number 5’ (in the triad ratios of 4:5:6) a factor to be reckoned with.” The result was called “Just tuning.” “[I]ts plague of commas” made music a cacophony, until Bach helped right matters with his Well-Tempered Clavier in 1722. (It would take another century for truly even temperament to establish itself throughout Europe and its overseas culture area.)
Note: The Chinese had used the number five to come up with pentatonic music. Thus, there were many ways of applying any given cosmology to history, calendar-making, etc.Let us know if you think this was already covered sufficiently in the main body earlier, and/or help us expand these paragraphs with more information.
Below is one note from the author that didn’t fit elsewhere, so we omitted it; can help you help us expand this:[Omitted text:] 2. The scale really got out of tune. The doctrine of Just Temperament as taught by the Church Fathers through the Middle Ages reduced music to the homophony of the Gregorian chant. It would be more than a millennium before polyphony developed. (Capsule history of tuning through Bach and the moderns.)
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Can you help us figure out where this belongs and add more context around the quotation to support the Key Concepts short point and paragraph here?
See also this query about the Chapter 5 Key Concept:“Ultimate dissolution: …The ‘choregos’ shifted from being ‘master of dance’ to its wealthy patron, while ‘choreia’ became a convulsive disease.”
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Originally this was written as 'hapiru (straight apostrophe was not intentional). We decided it should be either ‘apiru or hapiru, but not both apostrophe and h per Wikipedia, so we changed it to ‘apiru for now. If you have any insight into the term, let us know, including the orientation of the apostrophe.Citation Needed
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Originally this was written “(It was pointed out by [name/citation missing] that most of the Seven Sages were tyrants. Such was the mentality of the archaic Greeks.)” before we removed the first part. Can you help us find the name/citation that was missing? We thought it might be Burkert but can’t find exactly this point about tyrants and the Seven Sages.
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For propagandistic history, an oligarch would assign personal motives to their enemies (and imply that the oligarch’s own motives are of course only objective and pure). Thus the opponents of Croton’s Pythagorean oligarchs were accused by Iamblichus of being resentful at having been rejected as students of Pythagoras, corrupted by whatever success they may have won.
[Omitted text: Iamblichus in Guthrie[39] 1987: p. 118: “When they captured Sybaris, and the land was not divided by lot, according to the desire of the multitude, this veiled hatred against the Pythagoreans burst forth, and the populace forsook them.”]This paragraph was a stub, included as the last paragraph of Chapter 5. Can someone help expand it so we can add it back to the chapter as the final paragraph?
The omitted paragraph was:Iamblichus in Guthrie[40] 1987: p. 118: “When they captured Sybaris, and the land was not divided by lot, according to the desire of the multitude, this veiled hatred against the Pythagoreans burst forth, and the populace forsook them.”
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This Key Concept of ancient Calliope is not discussed in this chapter’s body. Can you help us add it to the Chapter 5 body discussion and relate it to the chapter thesis? Please include what to add and where in the chapter to add it, and any sources.
For a hint at where in the chapter body it might go, see also this query in the Chapter 5 body: There was originally a note at the end of the chapter in the author’s notes for “END OF CHAPTER 5” to add “[Calliope story]” after the paragraph beginning “Aristoxenus (according to Athenaeus[41] XIV.632) decried the decadence of his times (already over two thousand years ago)…” That was probably a note to add something about Calliope there. Can you help us fulfill that?
And see also this second query in the Key Concepts section about modern calliope in the Ultimate dissolution section:“Ultimate dissolution: …‘Calliope’ descended from being the highest muse to the raucous merry-go-round organ.”
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Example 1 (Key Concepts section):
Each octave renewed itself from A to A’, making the number eight (for A’) the signifier of rebirth.
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CC’cc’
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C, C’ c, c’, c”Should the musical notation about octave be a curved apostrophe and/or quotation mark like this, or should it be a straight apostrophe/quotation mark? Or should it be noted entirely differently? (This occurs throughout this chapter.)
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We could use a music expert’s eye on this and other music facts throughout this chapter.
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There is no mention of early sports contests (Olympics nor Pythian Games) and how they relate to music in this chapter, except in the keywords section. Can you help us add it to the appropriate spot in Chapter 5’s body?
Note that may be helpful: the Pythian Games are also mentioned in Chapter 6 (The Distributive Justice of Group Feasts and Banquets).Key Concept Missing in Chapter Body
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This Key Concept is not discussed in this chapter’s body. Can you help us add it?
For a hint at where in the chapter body it might go, see also this query in the Chapter 5 body: There was originally a note at the end of the chapter in the author’s notes for “END OF CHAPTER 5” about this, although these notes need editing and fleshing out. It was probably a note to add something about “choreia” there. Can you help us fulfill that? That note is located in this spot of the Chapter 5 body:James Miller[42] (1986: p. 17) explained his disappointment at discovering that “Choreia,” via Latin “chorea,” survives in modern English (according to the Oxford English Dictionary) “as a medical term signifying ‘a convulsive disorder… characterized by irregular involuntary contractions of the muscles, especially of the face and arms,’” much as “arthrum”—the root of “joint,” “harmony,” and “art”—survives as “arthritis.” “The tragic fate of my noble Greek word forced me to question my naïve assumption that the mighty themes of order and harmony could be conveyed through the centuries on a verbal vehicle so frail and easily overturned.”
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This modern look at Calliope is not mentioned in the chapter body. Can you help us add it?
See also: This query in the Key Concepts section and this query in the chapter body where the ancient Calliope story might go.
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See this link.
- ↑ Ernest G. McClain, The Myth of Invariance: The Origin of the Gods, Mathematics and Music from the Rg Veda to Plato (Maine: 1976), p. 119.
- ↑ Ernest G. McClain, The Myth of Invariance: The Origin of the Gods, Mathematics and Music from the Rg Veda to Plato (Maine: 1976), p. 119.
- ↑ Ernest G. McClain, The Myth of Invariance: The Origin of the Gods, Mathematics and Music from the Rg Veda to Plato (Maine: 1976) and The Pythagorean Plato: Prelude to the Song Itself (Maine: 1978).
- ↑ Ernest G. McClain, The Pythagorean Plato: Prelude to the Song Itself (Maine: 1978), p. 55.
- ↑ Ernest G. McClain, The Myth of Invariance: The Origin of the Gods, Mathematics and Music from the Rg Veda to Plato (Maine: 1976), p. 163.
- ↑ Ernest G. McClain, The Pythagorean Plato: Prelude to the Song Itself (Maine: 1978), p. 19.
- ↑ Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists: Or Banquet of the Learned of Athenaeus, C.D. Yonge (tr.), Vol. 3 (London: 1854), via Tufts University’s Perseus Digital Library Project, Book XII, Chapter 1.
- ↑ Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists: Or Banquet of the Learned of Athenaeus, C.D. Yonge (tr.), Vol. 3 (London: 1854), via Tufts University’s Perseus Digital Library Project, Book XII, Chapter 1.
- ↑ Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists: Or Banquet of the Learned of Athenaeus, C.D. Yonge (tr.), Vol. 3 (London: 1854), via Tufts University’s Perseus Digital Library Project, Book XII, Chapter 1.
- ↑ Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists: Or Banquet of the Learned of Athenaeus, C.D. Yonge (tr.), Vol. 3 (London: 1854), via Tufts University’s Perseus Digital Library Project, Book XII, Chapter 1.
- ↑ Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists: Or Banquet of the Learned of Athenaeus, C.D. Yonge (tr.), Vol. 3 (London: 1854), via Tufts University’s Perseus Digital Library Project, Book XII, Chapter 1.
- ↑ Donald Freeman Brown, “In Search of Sybaris,” Expedition Magazine, Vol. 5, No. 2 (January 1963), https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/in-search-of-sybaris/.
- ↑ Donald Freeman Brown, “In Search of Sybaris,” Expedition Magazine, Vol. 5, No. 2 (January 1963), https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/in-search-of-sybaris/.
- ↑ Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists: Or Banquet of the Learned of Athenaeus, C.D. Yonge (tr.), Vol. 3 (London: 1854), via Tufts University’s Perseus Digital Library Project, Book XII, Chapter 1.
- ↑ James L. Miller, Measures of Wisdom: The Cosmic Dance in Classical and Christian Antiquity (Toronto: 1986), p. 73.
- ↑ Philo of Alexandria, “On the Change of Names,” in Philo: In Ten Volumes (And Two Supplementary Volumes), F.H. Colson (tr.), Vol. 5 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1929), p. 179, 72–73.
- ↑ Philo of Alexandria, “On the Change of Names,” in Philo: In Ten Volumes (And Two Supplementary Volumes), F.H. Colson (tr.), Vol. 5 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1929), p. 179, 72–73.
- ↑ James L. Miller, Measures of Wisdom: The Cosmic Dance in Classical and Christian Antiquity (Toronto: 1986), p. 74.
- ↑ Philo of Alexandria, “On the Creation,” in Philo: In Ten Volumes (And Two Supplementary Volumes), F.H. Colson (tr.), Vol. 1 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1929), pp. 55–57, 69–71.
- ↑ James L. Miller, Measures of Wisdom: The Cosmic Dance in Classical and Christian Antiquity (Toronto: 1986), pp. 56f.
- ↑ James L. Miller, Measures of Wisdom: The Cosmic Dance in Classical and Christian Antiquity (Toronto: 1986), p. 57.
- ↑ James L. Miller, Measures of Wisdom: The Cosmic Dance in Classical and Christian Antiquity (Toronto: 1986), p. 57.
- ↑ Plato, Laws, Book II, p. 672e. From Plato in Twelve Volumes, R.G. Bury (tr.), Vols. 10 and 11 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1967 and 1968), via Tufts University’s Perseus Digital Library Project.
- ↑ Plato, Epinomis, section 982c–e. From Plato in Twelve Volumes, W.R.M. Lamb (tr.), Vol. 9 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1925), via Tufts University’s Perseus Digital Library Project.
- ↑ James L. Miller, Measures of Wisdom: The Cosmic Dance in Classical and Christian Antiquity (Toronto: 1986), pp. 41, 5.
- ↑ James L. Miller, Measures of Wisdom: The Cosmic Dance in Classical and Christian Antiquity (Toronto: 1986), pp. 41, 5.
- ↑ Athenaeus, “From the Sophists at Dinner,” in “The Greek View of Music” in Oliver Strunk (selected and annotated by), Source Readings in Music History: From Classical Antiquity through the Romantic Era (New York: 1950), p. 55.
- ↑ Aristotle, Politics, Book 8, section 1339b.
- ↑ Athenaeus, “From the Sophists at Dinner,” in “The Greek View of Music” in Oliver Strunk (selected and annotated by), Source Readings in Music History: From Classical Antiquity through the Romantic Era (New York: 1950), p. 54.
- ↑ Athenaeus, “From the Sophists at Dinner,” in “The Greek View of Music” in Oliver Strunk (selected and annotated by), Source Readings in Music History: From Classical Antiquity through the Romantic Era (New York: 1950), p. 55.
- ↑ Ernest G. McClain,The Myth of Invariance: The Origin of the Gods, Mathematics and Music from the Rg Veda to Plato (Maine: 1976), p. 112.
- ↑ James L. Miller, Measures of Wisdom: The Cosmic Dance in Classical and Christian Antiquity (Toronto: 1986), p. 17.
- ↑ Walter Burkert,Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1972).
- ↑ Walter Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1972), p. 113.
- ↑ Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists: Or Banquet of the Learned of Athenaeus, C.D. Yonge (tr.), Vol. 3 (London: 1854), via Tufts University’s Perseus Digital Library Project, Book XII, Chapter 1.
- ↑ Walter Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1972), p. 116.
- ↑ Walter Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1972), p. 115.
- ↑ Walter Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1972), pp. 118f.
- ↑ Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie (ed.), The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library: An Anthology of Ancient Writings Which Relate to Pythagoras and Pythagorean Philosophy (Grand Rapids: 1987), p. 118.
- ↑ Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie (ed.), The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library: An Anthology of Ancient Writings Which Relate to Pythagoras and Pythagorean Philosophy (Grand Rapids: 1987), p. 118.
- ↑ Athenaeus, “From the Sophists at Dinner,” in “The Greek View of Music” in Oliver Strunk (selected and annotated by), Source Readings in Music History: From Classical Antiquity through the Romantic Era (New York: 1950), p. 54.
- ↑ James L. Miller, Measures of Wisdom: The Cosmic Dance in Classical and Christian Antiquity (Toronto: 1986), p. 17.
- ↑ Walter Burkert, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1972), page unknown.