The vocals definitely did not inspire me to want to find more. However, the guy playing the pipes toward the end was very impressive. The first person got short changed in showcasing his abilities. As someone that only played a woodwind instrument in middle school through high school, I never was able to do the circular breathing. This guy was impressive to me with his ability, and I did like the song as well. Then there was the conductor, but I always laugh at the mime-like performances they put on.
Beyond the bad acoustics, I think the real issue may have ultimately been the conductor. Those movements are more confusing than helpful, and seemed out of sync with the song.
But like everyone else, I don't want to be mean to researchers moonlighting as musicians. She did the job in terms of depicting what they think the music basically sounded like, and it's not reasonable to study conduction techniques for 4 years just so your team can make a better YouTube video.
That's not a fair or relevant comparison. The OP is about ancient Greek music: the choir is singing a song derived from very old sheet music. The link you have is contemporary music inspired by Greek tunings. It's not at all the same thing.
I think there are some intentional reasons it sounds that way, but I think there are also some incidental reasons: The reverb in that venue is crazy - it really jumps out at me how much it sort of resolves to a tone of its own, which has to sometimes be dissonant with what’s being by played / sung. So what you’re hearing isn’t always in tune. Additionally, this is an expressive performance, so between the echo and the interpretative approach to the meter, what you’re hearing isn’t always in time either.
While I enjoyed it, perhaps use this as a device... imagine you'd never heard Bach, or Led Zeppelin, or whatever the kids are listening to these days. Imagine days ruled by the weather and timed by the sun. Where you aren't quite sure how we all got here but you certainly aren't going to do anything to anger the gods. Now imagine that music in context.
I have a taste for folk music from just about every culture, and I wouldn't say much of it's an acquired taste. Most of it can sound alien, but still almost immediately pleasant. For instance the Chinese guqin [1] in China is basically nothing like anything else. The sound is quite unique but the style of play is just completely alien. Yet I think most would find it relaxing. Put yourself in the mindset of listening to that somewhere in nature, perhaps in front of a nice flowing stream.
The music from this topic sounded odd to me for a somewhat ironic reason - it felt far too contemporarily chorial, for me to imagine this is what Ancient Greek music would have sounded like. For contrast here [2] is Wardruna, a very popular Norwegian band that's driven by classical Norwegian traditions. So that would not only have been in an era like the one you're describing, but the song itself is also chorial in nature - yet the sound is extremely distinct.
These are not trained singers. They're off-rhythm, and off-key in ways that sheet music would not be able to convey.
"This is what ancient Greek music sounds like" is kind of like recording a restaurant version of happy birthday and saying that's what "modern Western music sounds like"
From this video it seems like there's no record of timing or emphasis, like you'd get with music transcribed today. So I wonder how close this was to how it sounded...if you take a familiar song, and just play the notes strung together with none of the right timing it might sound pretty unrecognizable.
That's how I feel, it felt jumbled. No structure, either in tempo or between the instruments. I'm not sure that that would be recorded, so I'm pretty sure this couldn't be how this was actually performed.
This really just seems that its just how it "sounded".
From what we know, greek music followed the rhythm of the language, which had specific accentuation and different lengths for each syllable. From this one can reconstruct the rhythm, especially from ancient poetry such as the Iliad for example. Now, the tempo is another story, it is difficult to know why they decided on this.
They don't sound like professionals, especially the singers. Fair enough, this is quite a niche research project, they are probably all academics that do this as a hobby.
It continues to fascinate me that music can sound/be perceived so differently. The flute was almost painful to listen to, with my ears. The chorus kinda rough as well, but I think that might just be the recording.
At least to my ears the actual recording of the flute sounded terrible as if the venue did not have a great mic set up. On my phone I had to blast the audio just to hear the flute but then the applause was super loud.
It certainly seems like the performance sounded much better live than it was recorded. The venue looks like it would have awesome acoustics for that type of performance. I don't know how much the (seemingly) poor recording quality affects your perception of the music.
