§ 26. The Ethos of the Genera and Species.
Although the pitch of a musical composition—as these passages confirm us in believing—was the chief ground of its ethical character, it cannot be said that no other element entered into the case.
In the passage quoted above from Aristides Quintilianus (p. 13 Meib.) it is said that ethos depends first on pitch (hetera êthê tois oxyterois, hetera tois baryterois), and secondly on the moveable notes, that is to say, on the genus. For that is evidently involved in the words that follow: kai hetera men parypatoeidesin, hetera de lichanoeidesin. By parypatoeideis and lichanoeideis he means all the moveable notes (phthongoi pheromenoi): the first are those which hold the place of Parhypatê in their tetrachord, viz. the notes called Parhypatê or Tritê: the second are similarly the notes called Lichanos or Paranêtê. These moveable notes, then, give an ethos to the music because they determine the genus of the scale. Regarding the particular ethos belonging to the different genera, there is a statement of the same author ([p. 111]) to the effect that the Diatonic is masculine and austere (arrhenôpon d' esti kai austêroteron), the Chromatic sweet and plaintive (hêdiston te kai goeron), the Enharmonic stirring and pleasing (diegertikon d' esti touto kai êpion). The criticism doubtless came from some earlier source.
Do we ever find ethos attributed to this or that species of the Octave? I can find no passage in which this source of ethos is indicated. Even Ptolemy, who is the chief authority (as we shall see) for the value of the species, and who makes least of mere difference of pitch, recognises only two forms of modulation in the course of a melody, viz. change of genus and change of pitch [25].
§ 27. The Musical Notation.
As the preceding argument turns very much upon the practical importance of the scale which we have been discussing, first as the single octave from the original Hypatê to Nêtê, then in its enlarged form as the Perfect System, it may be worth while to show that some such scale is implied in the history of the Greek musical notation.
The use of written characters (sêmeia) to represent the sounds of music appears to date from a comparatively early period in Greece. In the time of Aristoxenus the art of writing down a melody (parasêmantikê) had come to be considered by some persons identical with the science of music (harmonikê),—an error which Aristoxenus is at some pains to refute. It is true that the authorities from whom we derive our knowledge of the Greek notation are post-classical. But the characters themselves, as we shall presently see, furnish sufficient evidence of their antiquity.