vulcanoes:

acerstella:

vulcanoes:

acerstella:

I’m not always in an imperialistic mood, but when I am, this is what I listen to.

I often pretend that the Roman Empire had their triumphs with music that has this type of fanfare to it. I’m not a music major so I don’t know if their music was anything like this but I like the sound of it. :)

Oh boy, it wouldn’t sound anything like this. I wish! I mean, they had horns, but this music is polyphonic and homophonic, and Roman music would have been monophonic.

Sadly, we have no written examples of Roman music. We have very little music from the Greeks, who were more “artistic” I guess, anyway, and thought more about ethos and its relation to music anyway. Not to say Rome didn’t have music, it did, and they loved it. (Nero being a diva, etc) The mosaics in Pompeii don’t show written music, but they do show musicians, of course. They had panpipes and a kind of bagpipe, percussion, lyres and lutes, and horn instruments.

Definitely would have been monophonic, as Greek music was. I would imagine that, having had borrowed so much else from Greece, they’d have borrowed their notation, too, as well as their modes, or scales. These scales are definitely not the sounds that we recognize as “normal” tonal centers today (which were not really set in place until after JS Bach actually). There were probably a lot of semi-tones and other pitches that may sound flat or sharp to our ears.

We also don’t know how people vocalized, either, whether the use of vibrato was encouraged, nasalization, etc. I mean, Chinese opera sounds way different than our opera.

Here are some interpretations of what we think Ancient Greek music sounded like based upon what little sheet music we have, and instrument replicas. We studied these last fall in my music history class. :)

Euripides Orestes

Epitaph of Seiklos v2*

*This is definitely not monophonic, and the instrumentation wouldn’t have sounded like this. Music back then wasn’t thought of in layers. It was built on tetrachordal systems, which were not anything like our “magic triad” that we have today. Instruments really would have just played the same thing together.

The Brittania piece was written in like, the height of the popularity of the tonal center, a sense of Major/minor, polyphonic music, voice leading, tonal harmonic theory… basically everything that we’ve built our understanding of modern music on. We didn’t really get homophonic music until a thousand years ago when monks, singing off key, consistently sang like a fourth or fifth above the melody line, and suddenly this new world was opened up. But that’s so recent. The classical era (about the death of JS Bach to the middle of Beethoven’s life) is like everything the opposite of Ancient Greek music, except in that both have a tonal center (a feeling of a key or mode, or a sense of home).

…I hope that’s not horribly confusing. D:

I think I get the general gist. The video links helped.

Alas the lack of knowledge about the ancient world. However, what knowledge there is, the Romans grabbed from everybody and added it to their Etruscan style. I imagine it would have had influences from the Persians, Egyptians and perhaps even the Germanic tribes. They liked to take what they saw as improvements and add them to their own. True, Greek culture was considered high class (though apparently not something to aspire to since they were considered not suitable to enlist in the military) but I think they would do as they did with everything in their culture and blend anything they happened to like into their own. Horns and particularly drums were instruments of war so I think those would be prominent in the sound of a victory march. I think you’re right about the type of sound though.

Ah well, just the musings of the historian. Thanks for your input, Whitney. :)

IN WHICH I WONDER IF YOU WERE ASKING ABOUT THE LITERAL SOUND O THE MUSIC OR THE FEEL OF THE MUSIC… D8 SORRY

Yeah, people say they’re not “original” but… idk, I think taking from lots of sources and blending them together into something you like can be plenty original and creative… since…. that’s what we do nowadays, haha. As far as the “feel” of the music, triumphant like this Britannia song is, why wouldn’t they have found a way to sound triumphant? And BETTER at sounding triumphant than other countries? It’s freakin’ Rome. It’s freakin’ Rome. If I could go back in time, I’d 1) Save stuff from Alexandria and 2) go to different eras and hear their music for real. The Roman Empire and Ancient Greece are my top priority. XD I hate that we have so little of their music.

“It’s freakin’ Rome. It’s freakin’ Rome.”

A-fricken-men. I suppose John Williams’ Star Wars music is also close in line to the kind of feel I imagine hearing. Especially the Imperial March. Cliche maybe but the sound of glory and strength, just appeals to my sense of the Roman state and their love of putting on a good performance. I pick Rule Britannia though for the sake of the choral aspects which is heavily prominent in ancient times and the “look-at-what-I-can-do” attitude.

…I would hope that person who accidentally set the fire upon the docks in Alexandria was either burned in the flames or destroyed in some cruel fashion afterwards. As a historian, it pains me when I see people swear up and down that we are so advanced in so many ways than any other time in history. No one pays attention to how LONG it took to get back to the level of advancement the Romans had and that they had many of the things we have now (electronic-derived technology would be an exception). The ancients were absolutely amazing. History should be a much more required discipline than it is currently. So many mistakes could be avoided instead of repeating old lessons.

vulcanoes:

acerstella:

I’m not always in an imperialistic mood, but when I am, this is what I listen to.

I often pretend that the Roman Empire had their triumphs with music that has this type of fanfare to it. I’m not a music major so I don’t know if their music was anything like this but I like the sound of it. :)

Oh boy, it wouldn’t sound anything like this. I wish! I mean, they had horns, but this music is polyphonic and homophonic, and Roman music would have been monophonic.

Sadly, we have no written examples of Roman music. We have very little music from the Greeks, who were more “artistic” I guess, anyway, and thought more about ethos and its relation to music anyway. Not to say Rome didn’t have music, it did, and they loved it. (Nero being a diva, etc) The mosaics in Pompeii don’t show written music, but they do show musicians, of course. They had panpipes and a kind of bagpipe, percussion, lyres and lutes, and horn instruments.

Definitely would have been monophonic, as Greek music was. I would imagine that, having had borrowed so much else from Greece, they’d have borrowed their notation, too, as well as their modes, or scales. These scales are definitely not the sounds that we recognize as “normal” tonal centers today (which were not really set in place until after JS Bach actually). There were probably a lot of semi-tones and other pitches that may sound flat or sharp to our ears.

We also don’t know how people vocalized, either, whether the use of vibrato was encouraged, nasalization, etc. I mean, Chinese opera sounds way different than our opera.

Here are some interpretations of what we think Ancient Greek music sounded like based upon what little sheet music we have, and instrument replicas. We studied these last fall in my music history class. :)

Euripides Orestes

Epitaph of Seiklos v2*

*This is definitely not monophonic, and the instrumentation wouldn’t have sounded like this. Music back then wasn’t thought of in layers. It was built on tetrachordal systems, which were not anything like our “magic triad” that we have today. Instruments really would have just played the same thing together.

The Brittania piece was written in like, the height of the popularity of the tonal center, a sense of Major/minor, polyphonic music, voice leading, tonal harmonic theory… basically everything that we’ve built our understanding of modern music on. We didn’t really get homophonic music until a thousand years ago when monks, singing off key, consistently sang like a fourth or fifth above the melody line, and suddenly this new world was opened up. But that’s so recent. The classical era (about the death of JS Bach to the middle of Beethoven’s life) is like everything the opposite of Ancient Greek music, except in that both have a tonal center (a feeling of a key or mode, or a sense of home).

…I hope that’s not horribly confusing. D:

I think I get the general gist. The video links helped.

Alas the lack of knowledge about the ancient world. However, what knowledge there is, the Romans grabbed from everybody and added it to their Etruscan style. I imagine it would have had influences from the Persians, Egyptians and perhaps even the Germanic tribes. They liked to take what they saw as improvements and add them to their own. True, Greek culture was considered high class (though apparently not something to aspire to since they were considered not suitable to enlist in the military) but I think they would do as they did with everything in their culture and blend anything they happened to like into their own. Horns and particularly drums were instruments of war so I think those would be prominent in the sound of a victory march. I think you’re right about the type of sound though.

Ah well, just the musings of the historian. Thanks for your input, Whitney. :)

I’m not always in an imperialistic mood, but when I am, this is what I listen to.

I often pretend that the Roman Empire had their triumphs with music that has this type of fanfare to it. I’m not a music major so I don’t know if their music was anything like this but I like the sound of it. :)

climbingtrees425:

Always my favorite Gundam. Trowa. Toonami man… I miss that shit. That was the best times.

I can’t believe how much of this is on Tumblr. Time for some good old anime nostalgia. Perhaps I’ll dig out my dvds and watch it again.