Music

Music and Education

Education in the Art and Science of Music

Topic Description and Links

Music...carefully selected and taught with due regard for the effect rhythms on the soul, is directed towards moral ends.

- page 170 of Greek Education

How was music and myth connected in the elementary curriculum of Ancient Greece?

HINT 1: Consider the myth about Hercules and his moral decision.

HINT 2: Consider the Hymn to Demeter.

HINT 3: In Greece, visit a local elementary school. Are there still elements of the Ancient Greek music curriculum in Greek schools today?

Why is music an integral factor of epic poetry?

HINT 1: Consider the musical elements in the Iliad.

The value of music and dancing is that they enable instinctive physical movements, which manifest themselves in young animals, to be transformed into rhythmical, distinctly honed movements.

How was music linked with education?

HINT 1: Consider how it was used in elementary education and the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.

HINT 2: Consider information on the temple of Zeus.

HINT 3: In Greece, visit Olympia. What musical artifacts can you discover there?

Pythagoras, and other early mathematicians, believed that the Music of the Spheres was an ethereal music supposed to be produced by the movement of the heavenly bodies.

Why was there such an emphasis in Greek Education on the explanations for natural phenomena?

HINT 1: Read about the natural phenomenon myth by searching for a source that explains this theory.

HINT 3: In Greece, visit the Kastalian Spring and the Volcano of Caldera to get a first hand look at the phenomenon of nature. Do you here any music there?

What songs can you remember from your own schooling that had moral implications?

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