THE ENHARMONIC GENUS OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS

Ivor Darreg

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Well over two thousand years ago, the Ancient Greeks had developed an elaborate musical theory and practice. We still use many of their terms: Melody, Rhythm, Harmony, chord, tone, chorus, symphony, lyric, music, poetry, acoustics, dynamics, symmetry, triad, monophony, antiphon, hymn, organ, thematic, *** the list is endless. Some of their meanings, and considerable knowledge, have been lost over that vast time-span. In particular, I must make it clear that I am not using the term enharmonic in its 19th-century meaning of "synonymy of two or more different names for one and the same pitch on the piano keyboard" such as G-sharp and A-flat on that keyboard.

On the contrary! I am using it in the Ancient Greek sense. The Greek Enharmonic uses small intervals. The Ancient Greeks recognized three genera: Diatonic, Chromatic, and Enharmonic. Let us set out in musical notation examples of each genus in a tetrachordal pattern.

The 4-note groups above (tetrachords as being for example groups of 4 consecutive strings on a lyre) are presented as descending since that was the way the Greeks generally discussed them. The intervals are shown as whole- or half- or quarter-steps but while this may include the ordinary 12-tone temperament and the quartertone or 24-tone system, it doesn't have to: it can be just intonation or some other temperament such as the 22-tone equal temperament in which latter all three genera sound very well.

Obviously the Diatonic Genus is that in which most of our Western European Derived music is and has been performed. So the diatonic tetrachord above and scales made with its aid are readily performable on our conventional instruments. The Greek Chromatic also is easy enough to perform on pianos and other ordinary instruments, even though it is not quite what we usually mean by the term "chromatic" it has a somewhat different emotional effect than other Wagnerian-style chromaticism. Try it and listen!

The Enharmonic Tetrachord Pattern such as above or the which would make it a one-octave scale, where is a semi-flat indicating an exact or approximate quartertone flat, cannot be performed on our ordinary keyboard or fretted instruments, although violinists can play it and you can learn how to sing it with some practice. Indeed our western European musical world has been starved for many centuries by the loss of this valuable and emotionally-powerful resource.

Some of the exotic cultures have retained the small intervals necessary to perform the enharmonic, and it is probable that the Greeks got it from sources in the Near East, who in their turn must have picked it up from elsewhere. At any rate, it is very old. The inflections of the voice in most languages use very small intervals, so that could be one source for scale-patterns; and another important one is the Harmonic or Overtone Series, the integer multiples of a given frequency produced by the voice and most instruments.

For over two centuries, our Classical, Romantic, and Popular music has used a scale limited to twelve notes per octave, usually equally-spaced. The 12 sounds are tempered, i.e. distorted, to reduce the number of keys or frets on instruments and to simplify learning and performance. Some idea of this distortion can be gained by comparing the typewritten letters here with the printed letters in a book which latter have different widths: I is narrower and M and W are wider than these distorted tempered typewritten letter-forms.

For some kinds of music the 12-tone equally-tempered system has not done much harm, but with thousands of composers and musicians using it for centuries it has been worn threadbare and signs of its exhaustion are now clear. As a mere matter of Wounded Pride, I don't want, as composer, me rely to be repeating what someone else already did; and I certainly don't appreciate the left-handed compliments like "Mozart might have written that" or "This reminds me of Debussy!"

With the spectacular progress in other arts and sciences during the 20th century, it is a shame that there has been no such progress in music, and with our new instruments and the revival of certain ancient instruments, progress can and should be resumed. The late Harry Partch investigated Ancient Greek music and then built some instruments and composed for small intervals--this started a movement and furnished a powerful example for us. Quartertones and other micro-intervals were tried by Carrillo in Mexico and Haba and Vyshnegradski in Europe--but the Musical Establishment retarded this till just recently, when electronic instruments and computers have made it easy to reduce new scales to practice. Thus we can now revive the Enharmonic Genus and go on from where the Greeks left off. We can also perform the music of exotic cultures without distorting it into the 12-tone equal temperament. The greatest gain for us is the palette of new moods that composers can now have, and which can even be applied to a considerable body of existing music.

We can render the Ancient Greek Enharmonic with the quartertone system (24-tone equal temperament) and the 22-tone equal temperament (this 22 system is not the same as the 22 srutis of India) and 22 is more restful in mood than 24. There are quite a number of other tuning systems that can deal with it, changing the mood and coloring of course. Just or untempered intervals have been proposed for the three Greek genera, and some of these have been tabulated by theorists of the past and present. Ervin Wilson and John Chalmers sometime ago went into this subject and made their respective charts and tables.

ADVICE TO COMPOSERS: Don't limit yourself to tetrachords and 7-note scales! You can add more notes and change the order etc. After all it is more than 2400 years later.