Many people believe that is was the ancient Greeks who first invented music theory. This belief has developed because it was the Greeks who started entire schools that were dedicated to philosophy and science. It was at these schools that every known aspect of music was dissected and studied. Even Pythagorus, you remember the Pythagorean Theorem from high school right, got into the study of music and he was the man that invented the 12 pitch octave scale that we still use today. He created this scale using the original Circle of Fifths and this device is still used almost religiously by many modern musicians.
You may remember the name Aristotle. He is wrote several books on music theory and began a basic form of notation for music that continued in common use for almost 1000 years after his death. There was so much music theory created in ancient Greece that it does not appear that any major changes were made until the European Renaissance which was almost 2000 years later. The Greeks must have done something right in order to create a system that received little improvement for 2,000 years. When Greece was conquered the conquerors were only to happy to incorporate Greek ideas and knowledge into their culture, consequently their ideas on music theory passed from culture to culture. However, the Greeks were one of the only people groups to believe in the idea that citizens with a gift for knowledge should be allowed to sit around and think about life, philosophy, music, math, etc. all day. Thus the subsequent adopters other Greek wisdom were unlikely to add anything of significance to the Greek canon of knowledge. Not to mention that most other cultures were plagued with war which kept them too busy to dedicate time to music and other cultural developments.
By: John Severin
About the Author:
Written by John Severin
Promoter of:
Water Bladder
Water Tank Liners
Promoter of:
Water Bladder
Water Tank Liners

January 29th, 2011
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