Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Music by Farya Faraji. This is another historically informed approximation of what Ancient Greek music may have sounded like based on our current available working theories and evidence.
This time, instead of going with the monophonic model, I followed Stefan Hagel's and other academics who propose that Ancient Greek music may have been fully polyphonic, and that the aulos' double flutes could have been used to harmonise two notes with one another. Whilst extant Ancient Greek music theory texts overwhelmingly speak of the music in modal and monophonic terms, never mentionning polyphony or harmony, we do posess a few tantalising pieces of evidence pointing to an undeniable presence of harmonic polyphony, with writers pointing to archaic styles that used "concordances and discordances" where the notes of the main melody where mixed with other notes, the fourth and fifth harmonies considered concordant, the third and others discordant, all enjoyed and allowed for their sonority. The degree to which these extremely scarce mentions of harmony and polyphony can be extrapolated to apply to all of Ancient Greek music is a matter of debate, but they offer a fascinating and tantalising possibility of a yet largely unimagined ancient soundscape.
The mode used for this piece is from the chromatic genus of Ancient Greek music, with close clustering of semitones resulting in a somewhat strange effect to most of our modern ears, especially with the second voice harmonising.
For more information on the matter, watch my interview with Stefan Hagel on the channel titled "Polyphony & Harmony in Ancient Greek Music."
Music by Farya Faraji. This is another historically informed approximation of what Ancient Greek music may have sounded like based on our current available working theories and evidence.
This time, instead of going with the monophonic model, I followed Stefan Hagel's and other academics who propose that Ancient Greek music may have been fully polyphonic, and that the aulos' double flutes could have been used to harmonise two notes with one another. Whilst extant Ancient Greek music theory texts overwhelmingly speak of the music in modal and monophonic terms, never mentionning polyphony or harmony, we do posess a few tantalising pieces of evidence pointing to an undeniable presence of harmonic polyphony, with writers pointing to archaic styles that used "concordances and discordances" where the notes of the main melody where mixed with other notes, the fourth and fifth harmonies considered concordant, the third and others discordant, all enjoyed and allowed for their sonority. The degree to which these extremely scarce mentions of harmony and polyphony can be extrapolated to apply to all of Ancient Greek music is a matter of debate, but they offer a fascinating and tantalising possibility of a yet largely unimagined ancient soundscape.
The mode used for this piece is from the chromatic genus of Ancient Greek music, with close clustering of semitones resulting in a somewhat strange effect to most of our modern ears, especially with the second voice harmonising.
For more information on the matter, watch my interview with Stefan Hagel on the channel titled "Polyphony & Harmony in Ancient Greek Music."
