Re: Roman Music (?)

From: Martyn Harrison (nospam_at_spammers.of.the.world.unite)
Date: 07/14/04 

Date: Wed, 14 Jul 2004 22:38:26 GMT

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/sa/SAIRC/1997/50.html

Apparently on date 14 Jul 2004 01:41:20 -0700, foggytown@aol.com (Mike
Girouard) said:

>I have often wondered what kind of music the ancient Roman musicians
>would have been playing whilst their masters were banqueting, bathing,
>etc. A thread in a music NG produced the apparent consensus that
>there are no surviving examples of pre-fall Roman music. I find this
>so difficult to believe. Excavations over the centuries have turned
>up everything from laundry lists to slave sale receipts. No music?
>Not a bar?

Not bars, no, the Romans didn't use the same musical notation as we use today,
so notes and bars wouldn't exist.

In fact, I don't know we have any reason to think that the Romans used any sort
of musical notation at all, as opposed to just copying melodies from each other
by ear.

There's plenty of material about music in the records, just nothing much that
relates to actual bars / notes. E.g. Nero fiddled while Rome burned, well a
lyre might be what he used in practice, and I think there's references to him
butchering the melodies of Menicrates, who was a "pop star" of the time. The
instruments go back to Egypt, etc, but I seem to recall Rome invented the brass
section for use by their military.

But yeah, I'd agree with the people saying we don't have any actual music from
the Romans, as yet.