How much do we know about how ancient Greek and Roman music sounded?

Question

Specifically for music composed earlier than the third or fourth century A.D. I have heard several reports about deciphering examples of ancient greek musical notation. And you can find CDs of "reconstituted" ancient music although I never had an opportunity to hear one. Have we been able to reconstruct ancient instruments of these times? Do we know if some melody we still play come from ancient greek or roman folklore?

Answer 1

The Greek system of musical notation was not a complete system. We have records of the lyrics with the rhythm written under them and we know what their scales were. We also frequently know which scale or mode was used with each set of lyrics. A great deal of importance was attributed to the different modes. Certain modes were used at weddings and celebrations, others for funerals, or holy matters and so on. Woe betide the musicians who played music in a funeral mode for a wedding. The act could permanently jinx the marriage and the relatives were likely to react with extreme violence. If you were depressed and sad, you had likely been listening to the wrong music. What we don’t know is the patterns of notes, within the mode used, to match the rhythms of the lyrics. It simply never existed except in people’s heads.