Alyssa McKay

Greek Tragedy

CLAS 95

J. Bailly

Maestro, a Tragic Tune…

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.

~Plato

Define “Music”

o [Middle English, from Old French musique, from Latin msica, from Greek mousik (tekhn), (art) of the Muses, feminine of mousikos, of the Muses, from Mousa, Muse. See men-¹ in Indo-European Roots.]

o An art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color. [Dictionary.com]

o Art of arranging sounds: the art of arranging or making sounds, usually those of musical instruments or voices, so as to create an effect [Encarta]

Music is defined broadly as organized sound “pleasant” to the ear. Greek philosophers defined music as tones ordered horizontally as melodies, and vertically as harmonies.

“Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.”
~Plato

Modern Functions and Purpose of Music

Music has become fundamental in modern drama and entertainment as a whole. Everything, from commercials to children’s cartoons, includes music. Music helps children learn. Melodies are easily remembered because they are repetitive and can store much information.

Music helps describe the mood of a work. A room with dark shadows cast on the wall would probably have a dark theme to accompany it and set the scene.

Origins of Music

Humans have been organizing sound since the dawn of time. Primarily to communicate and then for aesthetic purposes as humans discovered new things. Music came from their voices, their bodies, and instruments they beat or blew on. New technologies developed and instruments evolved into things as complex as electric guitars and digital sound boards. It was only natural that when Greek Tragedians wrote their plays, they used music to help the story.

Music in Tragedy

Tragedy originates from the Greek “Goat Song”. Even tragedy’s name has music in it. At the well-planned and well-funded event, the dithyramb was performed. The dithyramb originated as the ancient Greek hymn sung to the god Dionysus. The name “dithyramb” comes from another title of Dionysus, “Dithyrambos”.

Music can do, and did, many things for tragedy. Tragedy writers used dramatic choruses to help tell the tale, myth, act as the characters judge, etc. For example, in Trojan Women, the chorus was the women pleading and trying to reason with the frantic, naïve, or arrogant characters.

o The Choreos was the leader.
(or the person who funded the chorus)
The rest of the chorus was all men.
Probably masked

o They performed in the orchestra,
which was in front of the stage.
They often sang AND danced.

The structure of most famous plays was complex and made good use of the chorus. The songs fit perfectly into the story and sometimes helped the audience understand a character’s internal conflicts.

• An ode is what they called the chorus songs. They usually have strophes, antistrophes, and an epode.
• The plays started with a parados. This was the entrance song.
• A stasimon is an ode in tragedy. It is divided into strophe and antistrophe.
  They alternate with the spoken episodes or parados or exodos.
• The strophe is sung as the chorus moves right to left.
• The antistophe is sung when the chorus moves from left to right.(“answering the strophe)
• The plays ended with an exodos. This was the departure song. This was somewhat the summation or conclusion of the events in the play.

Greek tragedies dealt with many themes and emotions through the myths and stories they told. The chorus and their singing and dancing helped that expression. It’s almost as if, it’s not a Greek tragedy without some kind of song. It helps the audience now, feel and try to understand the play as a whole. Music does that today. Music can sometimes along tell the story.

Shakespeare

The great Shakespeare had some wise words about music. Although he probably didn’t use music in his own work, he had a fondness for it.

"If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die."
~From Twelfth Night

Shakespeare writes about a young hopeless romantic who is in love with love. Orsino, his name, sits and thinks about love fondly as he listens to musicians.

Shakespeare’s view of the value of music from The Merchant of Venice:

"The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils."

Shakespeare, in this segment, writes about Jessica. Jessica, instead of being happy with the sweet sounds of magicians, is sad. Her new husband explains to her the Elizabethan assumption that music was the manifestation of the universal order which God created.

Music

Music helps describe an emotion or express ideas that we can not express any other way. It comes from basic functions to catchy commercial jingles to sell products. It helps remind people of the sitcom or movie, so they can remember the story. It comes from the imagination of young artists who want to live for nothing but music. There is music all around. It is on the streets. It is in our minds. It is in a guardians embrace. There are dormitories dedicated to music in universities…
As long as there’s someone around to hear it, music is life.

Wikipedia.org
Dictionary.com
Encarta.msn.com
The Merchant of Venice
The Twelfth Night