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Roman Musical Notation
#1
Up until this evening I had thought that all Roman musical notation was lost and unknown. Apparently, William Johnson of the Univ of Cincinnati has interpreted papyrus and has demonstrations of the music, which is in a diatonic scale arranged in tetrachords. He has a forthcoming book on this, hopefully with a CD in it! Unfortunately he does not give the date for the papyrus, but he does write out the notation with the sample music.<br>
<br>
www.lib.umich.edu/pap/ <p>Richard<br>
http://www.geocities.com/richsc53/studies/ </p><i></i>
Richard Campbell
Legio XX - Alexandria, Virginia
RAT member #6?
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#2
Speaking of Roman music and dancing, you might contact this lady I met while at the Xanten Roman festival in June. I meant to mention this earlier, but your message just reminded me.<br>
<br>
Her name is Suzanne Rühling, she's from Cologne, and studies ancient dancing and music. Seemed quite knowledgeable and has some interesting ideas about military marching cadences, which she believes were based on the Greek three-beat march rather than the left-right-left of modern marching. Email is [email protected] <br>
<br>
Also speaking of music... there's an ancient and medieval music festival to be held 11-16 AUG 2001 in Ste. Chartier, France. This is the largest pre-modern musical festival in Europe.<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
Jenny <p></p><i></i>
Cheers,
Jenny
Founder, Roman Army Talk and RomanArmy.com

We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend.
-- Robert Louis Stevenson
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#3
Salve,<br>
<br>
The marching cadence is described by Ammianus Mrecllinus as an anapest (short-short-long) in this passage.<br>
<br>
24.6.10: <i> Ergo ubi vicissim contiguae se cernerent partes, cristatis galeis corusci Romani vibrantesque clipeos velut pedis anapaesti praecinentibus modulis lenius procedebant,...</i><br>
'Therefore, where the nearing sides could both discern each other, the Romans gleaming with their crested helmets and knocking their shields as playing a tune to the anapest foot advanced slowly,...'<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
<br>
Sander van Dorst <p></p><i></i>
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#4
I did get a reply from Dr. Johnson:<br>
<br>
"So glad you enjoyed the site. The Yale piece (the vocal musical notation) is early 2nd century AD; the Michigan piece (the instrumental notation) is harder to date, but<br>
roughly of that same era.<br>
<br>
"The details of ancient musical notation are by now well documented: see esp. Martin West's book published by Oxford University Press, and entitled, Ancient Greek Music. I've also included on the web site a list of recordings that are at least based on the ancient melodies (see my annotations there for my judgement on the reliability).<br>
<br>
"Many thanks for writing, -waj" <p>Richard<br>
http://www.geocities.com/richsc53/studies/ </p><i></i>
Richard Campbell
Legio XX - Alexandria, Virginia
RAT member #6?
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