The Ethnic Elements of Greek Music

Though ethnic language pervades Greek musical culture, little has been made of this information. This paper is an attempt to understand to what extent and why music was influenced by issues of ethnicity in ancient Greece. Analysis of musical historiography, musicians' poetry, and epigraphy suggests that Greek music was considered to be a heterogeneous agglomeration of different local traditions, and that these differences were expressed by ethnic language. Ethnic identity was critical to Greek concepts of music because local communities used and promoted their own musical cultures for interaction with other intra-Hellenic and foreign communities.