NOTATION-BASED ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC SYNTHESIS

WITH

Dionysios Politis Konstantinos Vandikas Dimitrios Margounakis

Computer Science Department Computer Science Computer Science Department

Aristotle University of Department Aristotle University of
Thessaloniki University of Crete Thessaloniki
GREECE GREECE GREECE
http://www.csd.auth.gr/~dpolitis

ABSTRACT like West [15] and Pöhlmann [13] have managed to

collect and organize a very large amount of documents
This paper describes an instrument that can compose a and actual music scores and have given a scientific
song using predicates of Ancient Greek Music. It insight for a music system over 2000 years old.
employs the methodology and musical notation of this This project takes their work and tries to make
specific music system and at the same time, it provides a a connection between that music and prevailing modern
mapping mechanism that depicts the whole process to Western Music. A software instrument is produced,
composition predicates of the usual notation of Western ARION, capable of reproducing whole songs both
Music. The aim of this application is to facilitate the musically and vocally and the same time the user can
efforts of Ancient Greek Music researchers in getting experiment with the various scales, symbols and
closer to what Ancient Greek Music really was by frequencies having the total freedom to “imagine” and
parametrically performing melodic pieces. hear how AGM music really was.
The graphical user interface of ARION can be
ARION provides ethnomusicology with an
seen in Figure 1.
experimental tool for notation-based Ancient Greek
Music synthesis. The project approaches Ancient Greek
Music by introducing a virtual Ancient Greek singer,
who is able to sing in the Ancient Greek accent, while a
musical instrument accompanies him. An easy-to-use
and functional interface is provided for adding music
and lyrics in a composition, using modern or Ancient
Greek symbols of writing and music.
Key-Words: - Ancient Greek Music, Music Composers,
.NET Framework, Csound, Singing Synthesis.

1. INTRODUCTION
“Ancient Greek culture was permeated with music.
Probably no other people in history have made more
frequent reference to music and musical activity in its
literature and art. Yet the subject is practically ignored
by nearly all who study that culture or teach about it. Figure 1. The Graphical User Interface of ARION.
Sometimes its very existence seems to be barely
acknowledged.” [15]
It is true that we know very little about Ancient 2. MUSIC IN ANCIENT GREECE
Greek Music (from this point and forth: AGM)
primarily because we have no actual recordings or 2.1. An overview
hearings and secondly because sources about Eastern
Music, the successor of AGM, are scattered and not A first elementary clue, which is extracted from the
thoroughly indexed as is the case with its counterpart, research on AGM, is that the singer possessed the main
Western Music. Furthermore, it is difficult for role on a musical performance. A musical instrument
researchers with a profound musical education in accompanied the sung Greek poetry. Ancient Greek
Western Music and culture, well advanced in poetry and tragedy was inseparable from music [2]. The
diatonicism and tempered scales to understand the term “lyric” stems from the word “lyre”.
chromatic [11][12] and enharmonic background of In ancient Greece, the roles of composers and
AGM [15]. On the other hand, researchers and pioneers performers intertwined with each other. The reason why
not so many handwritten scores from this era exist today,
is that performers used to improvise on the musical
instrument, while the soloist was singing the melody,
and not read notes from papers. In general, the performer
followed the singer’s tempo and sound, but he also tried
to achieve heterophony (by improvising). So, the
performer was also the composer at the same time.
The nature of Ancient Greek Music was purely
melodic and rhythmic. Aristides Quintilianus states:
“Music is the science of melody and all elements having
to do with melody”[16]. This definition of music goes all
the way with the monophonic and melodic structure of
Ancient Greek Music.
Numerous treatises on AGM theory in Greek,
Latin and Arabic have survived which, mingled with the
study of other material, became integrated into the
cultures of all Western peoples, the heirs of Hellenic
learning [18].
2.2. Ancient Greek Musical Notation
The Greeks had two systems of musical notation, which
correspond note for note with each other: one for the
vocal and one for the instrumental melody [15]. The
instrumental system of notation is comprised of
numerous distinct signs probably derived from an
archaic alphabet, while the vocal system is based on the
24 letters of the Ionic alphabet.
The whole system covers a little over three
octaves. In particular, it contains notes between Eb-3
(155,6 Hz) and G-6 (1568,1 Hz). This range of notes has
been implemented and appears on the default form of
ARION. The symbols form groups of three. The first
symbol (from the left) in each triad represents a ‘natural’
note on a diatonic scale. The symbol in the middle
represents the sharpening of the “natural” note, while the
third symbol represents the flattening of the “natural”
note (Figure 2).
3. PROBLEM FORMULATION
3.1. The challenge
The challenge of the project is to be consistent to the
source material and create an AGM composer with
scientific accuracy and the same time to produce a
synthesizing instrument with an easy to use interface
targeting non-computer science experts.
How can you faithfully reproduce AGM when
you had never heard something like it (except for the
recording approaches of contemporary music bands from
all over the world)? The only safe way is to follow the
work of experts in the field and the actual musical
scores. Also, the instruments used at the time were very
different than modern or even medieval ones. Moreover,
the true Ancient Greek accent is different from the
Modern Greek one and from the one used by foreigners
today (the so called Erasmian) [7], so extended research
had to be carried out on the vocal reproduction of the
lyrics.
The synthesis of the singing voice is a research
area that has evolved over the last 30 years [8]. The
voice production in the ARION application takes into
account many inferences of the research experience and
uses real-time physical modeling voice reproduction
techniques. A phoneme modeler is embedded in the
application. The modeling of the phonemes of the
ancient Greek accent has carefully accomplished with
the assistance of related linguistic research.
3.2. Technical Aspects
This project was built using Microsoft’s .NET
Framework. This application implements extensive use
of the GDI+ calls that affect the Graphical User Interface
and provide us the ability to create our own controls or
to extend pre-existing ones. The application also uses
and XML table for storing the data of the Ancient Greek
notes and their association to modern ones.
The sound of the instruments that his project
performs was made with the use of Csound. The original
sound fonts used in ARION were taken from
reconstructed AGM instruments.
3.3. Ancient Greek Music Sources
Over 40 melodies, most of them fragmented, have
survived as stone inscriptions or musical papyri (scraps
of papyrus, the ancient equivalent of paper) containing
musical notation. While it is certainly true that the
hearings are lost recent research has satisfactorily
deciphered AGM notation and rhythm.
In fact, we know quite a lot: we know a great
deal about the rhythms and the tempo of the music, since
these are reflected in the metrical patterns of Greek verse
[13]. Adequate knowledge has been gathered about the
musical system, that is, how the scales were conceived
and the like, since the works of several Greek musical
theorists survive, like those of Aristoxenus1. Instead of
using ratios, he divided the tetrachord into 30 parts, of
which, in his diatonic syntonon, each tone has 12 parts,
each semitone 6 [1]. There are several writers, like Otto
Gombosi [9], that managed to interpret and recognize
the microtonal nature of Ancient Greek Music theory
and practice.
We can infer much about the instruments,
using as evidence surviving fragments of ancient
instruments [10][14], depictions on vases and wall
paintings, literary descriptions, and cross-cultural
comparison. In this first version of ARION, the sound of
the musical instrument, which accompanies the Ancient
Greek Singer, is an approach of the sound of avlos (wind
instrument).
1
Aristoxenus, of Tarentum (Magna Graecia, - 4th century BC), a
peripatetic philosopher, and writer on music and rhythm.

Figure 2. Notes for vocal performance, chosen from a pool of
symbols comprising the instrumental and vocal repertory.
3.4. Related Work
Lots of research has been done in recent years on the
field of text-to-speech synthesis. The digitized speaking
voice and vocoders are a major aspect of this area.
One step ahead, the research has performed an
amazing evolution over the last decades on the synthesis
of the singing voice. There are plenty of works
worldwide on singing synthesis [3][4][5]. Two text-to-
speech/singing projects on Greek Music are IGDIS [6]
and AOIDOS [17].
4. THE APPLICATION
The application consists of three major surfaces: The
Symbol Repertory surface, the Ancient Greek Music
Surface and the Modern Greek Music Surface.
The Symbol Repertory is the container of all
AGM Symbols used by the application.
Figure 3. Editing an AGM note – the dialog box.
By right-clicking the Edit Ancient Note Dialog
Box is invoked (Fig. 3). In that dialog box the user can
modify the type of the note and the note’s frequency.
The AGM Drawing Surface consists of three fields,
Vocal Symbols, Instrumental Symbols and Lyrics. The
user can either drag’n’drop a symbol from the Symbol
Repertory to the corresponding field or one can use the
Text Tool (which is located in the Toolbar) to change
each field. The Modern Music Surface has two modes,
the Vocal Mode and the Instrumental Mode (Fig. 4). The
user can interact with only one mode at a time.
Figure 4. AGM surfaces: notes for vocal and instrumental
melodic scripting along with the lyrics.
By right-clicking on a note the Edit Modern
Note Dialog Box is invoked where the user can modify
the note’s duration and frequency shifting it from double
flat to double sharp and in between.
Many notes of AGM have difficulty in their
correspondence with their Western music counterparts,
especially in modes like Phrygian and Lydian. The
instrument gives its users the flexibility to experiment by
assigning different pitch levels, and therefore the
fuzziness of scales can be resolved in a trial and error
manner by hearing the note.
The last function is used for creating an audio
representation of the current music document. The user
can configure the final audio output by choosing which
musical elements should it contain: instrumental, vocal
and lyrics. He can also define the tempo of the song (the
default value is 60). By clicking on “Export”, a
Microsoft Wave file is created in the current working
directory and a message about successful creation
appears on the screen. The audio file is produced by
using Csound’s rendering processes. In order to create
the musical sequence the program exports an
intermediate file containing information useful for the
module that translates this information to a C-sound file.
The information follows a certain format:
[i1, Note Duration, Velocity, Note Frequency, *]
For example the first three commands for the
sample file “To tragoudi tou Seikilou” (Song of Seikilos)
are:
R0
[i1,l0.5,v100,q392.1,*,
i1,l1,v100,q587.4,*,,
i1,l0.5,v100,q587.4,*……
5. LYRICS AND THE POLYTONAL SYSTEM
One unique characteristic of ARION is that the user can
add the lyrics of his/her AGM composition on their
original format, that is on the polytonal system of
writing at the ancient Greek language. Of course, the
tool gives the option to write immediately on Modern
Greek language.
The polytonal system (with accents and
breathings) was invented by Aristophanes- the Byzantine
- in about 200 B.C. The Help section of ARION contains
explicit instructions on how to install a polytonal
Ancient Greek font. Once installed the user can write on
the Ancient Greek format of writing, using several key
combinations for the polytonal symbols (e.g. “+” results
to rough breathing and circumflex, while “/” results to
smooth breathing and the acute accent).
6. CONCLUSIONS
In recent years several efforts have been recorded in
Greece and elsewhere in reconstructing AGM
instruments, both physically and with physical modeling
techniques [14]. The most notable was the reconstruction
of the ancient hydraulis by the European Cultural Centre
of Delphi in 1999. A wide range of other instruments has
been also presented in exhibitions and live performances
[10].
However, never before an electronic instrument
has been presented that can be used as an editor,
composer and synthesizer the same time. ARION is the
first instrument of its kind. Its main advantage is that it
provides researchers a user interface that alters scales,
accents and pitch assignments helping them experiment
with music forms and scales that have an inherent
fuzziness.
7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The ARION project is supported by “SEEArchWeb: An
Interactive Web-based Presentation of Southeastern
European Archaeology” – a SOCRATES funded
programme, code 110665-CP-1-2003-1-GR-MINERVA-
M. The Multimedia Lab of the Department of
Informatics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, is co-
ordinating this EU project. Project URL:
http://meteora.csd.auth.gr.
8. REFERENCES
[1] Barbour, J.M. Tuning and Temperament: a
Historical Survey. Da Capo Press, New York,
1972.
[2] Borzacchini, L. and Minnuni, D. “A
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music and mathematics”. University of Bari,
2001.
[3] Carlson, C., Ternstrom, S. and Sundberg, J. “A
new Digital System for Singing Synthesis
allowing Expressive Control”, ICMC 91,
International Computer Music Conference,
Montreal, 1991.
[4] Chowning, J. “Computer Synthesis of Singing
Voice”. ICMC 81, International Computer
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Melbourne, 1981.
[5] Cook, P. “Spasm, a real-time Vocal Tract
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T., and Philippis, G. “IGDIS: A Modern
Greek Text to Speech/Singing Program for the
SPASM/Singer Instrument”, ICMC 93,
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Tokyo, September, 1993.
[7] Devine, A.M., Stephens, L.D. The Prosody of
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[8] Georgaki, A. “Virtual Voices on Hands:
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Control of the Singing Voice”, SMC 2004,
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[9] Gombosi, O.J. “New Light on Ancient Greek
Music”, International Congress of Musicology,
New York 1939, New York, 1944, p. 168.
[10] Halaris, C. Music of Ancient Greece, booklet
and CD. Halaris has reconstructed Ancient
Greek Music instruments. He has exhibited
them and his ensemble performs with them.
[11] Politis, D., Margounakis, D., Mokos K.,
“Vizualizing the Chromatic Index of Music”,
WEDELMUSIC 2004, 4th International
Conference on Web Delivering of Music,
Barcelona, 13-15 September, 2004.
[12] Politis, D., Margounakis, D., “Determining the
Chromatic Index of Music”, WEDELMUSIC
2003, 3rd International Conference on Web
Delivering of Music, Leeds, 15-17 September
2003.
[13] Pöhlmann, E., West, M.L., Documents of
Ancient Greek Music. Oxford, 2001.
[14] Tsahalinas, K., et al, “Physical Modeling
Simulation of the Ancient Grek Auloi”, ICMC
97, International Computer Music Conference,
Thessaloniki, 1997.
[15] West, M.L. Ancient Greek Music. Clarendon
Press, Oxford, 1992.
[16] Winnington-Ingram, R.P. “Aristoxenos and the
intervals of Greek music”, The Classical
Quarterly vol. 26 no. 3-4, 1932, pp. 195-208.
[17] Xydas, G. and Kouroupetroglou, G., “The
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167-172, Perthshire, Scotland, August 29 –
September 1, 2001.
[18] Harmonia Mundi, Musique de la Grece
Antique. Booklet and CD, HMA 1951015,
France, 1979.
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