Episode 62 - Listening to the Oldies
This week, Anna and Amber sing you a little tune about musical instruments in the archaeological record, and the ways that we can access ancient music today. From the discoveries of the earliest known flutes, to jamming out with Homer, to some mind-blowing takes on sound and silence, consider it our first movement in this composition.
To learn more, check out:
Scales from Around the World (How Music Really Works)
A Biological Rationale for Musical Scales (PLOSOne)
A Voice from the Past (The New Yorker)
The European Music Archaeology Project Recreates Instruments of Old (New York Times)
Ice and Longboats: Ancient Music of Scandinavia (European Music Archaeology Project, Volume 2)
Ancient Greek music: now we finally know what it sounded like (The Conversation)
8 Oldest Musical Instruments in the World (Oldest.org)
Brookhaven Lab Expert Helps Date Flute Thought to be Oldest Playable Musical Instrument (Brookhaven National Laboratory)
Oldest Greek Fragment of Homer Discovered on Clay Tablet (Smithsonian)
Sing like you mean it! - the Linguistics of Tonal Languages
Listen to Sappho Read By Stephen G. Daitz (The New Yorker Podcast)
Hear What Homer’s Odyssey Sounded Like When Sung in the Original Ancient Greek (Open Culture)
We can tell where a whale has travelled from the themes in its song (New Scientist)
Photo credit: Sappho and Alcaeus (1881) by Lawrence Alma Tadema. Public domain.