Dance of the Spartans - Ancient Greek Music feat. Andreas Arvanitis

Based on melodic folk motifs from Greece, namely kondylies form Crete, played by Andreas Arvanitis. This is another speculative attempt at reconstructing Ancient Greek music, this time using slightly different methodology than my other reconstructions. Whilst my other reconstructions are solely rooted in Ancient Greek sources and Ancient Greek music theory, I wanted to try a methodology of reverse-engineering by looking at modern folk Greek music and using its elements that are also attested in Ancient Greek music. The instruments are all from the soundscape of Ancient Greece: the aulos, the lyre, and a mantoura—the latter is a simple reed instrument from Crete, and such instruments are attested in Ancient Greece. I based this on motifs found across Crete, the Cyclades and Thrace, since they are the modern day regions that still use such reed instruments like in Ancient Greece, and therefore their sound is our best bet, in my opinion, at reverse-engineering the most probable usage of these instruments throughout the Greek world, given that they were ubiquitous throughout Greece back then. The melody is possible given what we know of the historical practice, with the usage of the Phrygian mode (what we call today the Dorian mode), although it’s not certain how folk melodies for dances were built, and whether they were ornamented in such a way especially before the Roman era, were ornamentation becomes more increasingly used.

The more speculative aspect I used is that of Greek Isokratima, a drone that supports the monophonic structure of the melody by switching from tonic to subtonic, one that is widely present in traditional Greek and Balkanic music today and has been for a few centuries now. This form of drone support is entirely speculative on my part, and is mostly experimental; I do not push for the idea that i was necessarily used back then, as our safest bet is to go with the idea that it was entirely monophonic.