Love Music Like A Greek

As music students and teachers, we love music. We really love music. We’ll sing in the shower and randomly tap our feet to the latest song we’re trying to master. Can there be anyone more musical than us?

Well, yes.

A TED-Ed video taught us a lot about music in Ancient Greece. According to educator Tim Hansen, the love of music may have been stronger thousands of years ago in a place known as the cradle of Western Civilization.

The Ancient Greeks strongly valued creative expression and believed the source of creative inspiration derived from goddesses known as Muses.

According to the video: “An educated, civilized person was expected to be proficient in all aspects of creative thought inspired by the Muses, and the common medium through which these disciplines were taught, studied and disseminated was music.”

As a result, music was an important component in the study of history, astronomy and poetry, even sports. Although it’s common today to hear music at a baseball game and music at spoken word events, more often that not, music is compartmentalized. We listen to music for the love of music, but don’t consider it essential to other fields of study. The video is a good reminder to break out of our silos and model our behavior like the Ancient Greeks.

What type of music did Ancient Greek listen to as they were reciting poetry and studying history? Well, they played lyres, reed-pipes and percussion instruments and researchers believed their music sounded something like this.

So, the next time you want to showcase your love of music, think Greek!

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