[Major pentatonic scale] [Minor pentatonic scale]
The Greek Enharmonic Scale.—The scale called Enharmonic was made thus: The fourth and seventh strings were lowered a whole tone; that is, to the pitch of the second and sixth, the second and sixth were lowered a quartertone, thus:
C-flat is supposed to be halfway between B and C; F-flat halfway between E and F. Our modern system does not provide for the notation of quartertones.
Lyre. Cithara. Lydian Magadis.
Greek Instruments.—The standard instrument of the Greeks was the Lyre. It bore many names, as Lyre, Tetrachordon, Chelys, Phorminx, Cithara, etc. There may have been slight differences in the size and the number of the strings, but great uncertainty prevails on this point. Under the name of Flute (Aulos) they seem to have included both Flutes proper and instruments of the hautboy or clarinet family. These instruments bore a bewildering number of names, the exact meaning of which is lost. Judging from the pictorial representations that remain, the Greek instruments were inferior both in variety and extent to those of the Egyptians. They seem to have made little use of the Harp, of which instrument the Egyptians had a great variety. The Greeks seem to have used instruments chiefly, if not solely, to accompany the voice; and they appear never to have combined large numbers of instruments for any purpose. Even in their tragedies, which were performed in immense theatres open to the sky, the Chorus was limited to fifteen men, accompanied by two flutes. When accompanying the voice with the lyre they may have occasionally struck the fourth, fifth or octave of the vocal melody; but, in general, they played the voice part. Their most highly developed instrument was a variety of lyre, the strings of which passed over a bridge placed one-third of the strings’ length from the lower end of the lyre, thus causing the lower part of the string to sound the octave of the upper part. The shorter part of the string was played with a plectrum in the right hand, the longer part by the fingers of the left hand. This instrument was called Magadis—from Magas, a bridge. The term Magadize was eventually used to signify playing or singing in octaves, and was synonymous with Antiphony.
Greek Musical Notation.—Our knowledge of Greek musical notation is very defective, being derived from only four or five specimens of ancient music, and a few small fragments. They appear to have used a separate notation for each mode, and these four hymns are apparently all in the same mode, but authorities differ as to the mode. They used the letters of their alphabet, both capital and small, written in various positions, sometimes upright, sometimes lying on one side. The notation for the lyre differed from that used for the voice. The letters representing the vocal part were written above the words, those representing the instrumental part, below the words. These letters represented the pitch of the sounds, but not their duration. The duration was regulated by the meter of the poetry. Instead of a portion of one of these hymns, the first three lines of our National Hymn are given as a sample of this notation: