title: Documents of Ancient Greek Music: The Extant Melodies and Fragments
author: Egert Pohlmann
description: <br /><strong>M. L. West</strong> is the author of Ancient Greek Music (1992; pb 1994) and The East Face of Helicon (1997; pb 1999) and the editor of several editions of Greek poetry (Hesiod: Theogony and Works and Days; Iambi et Elegi Graeci; Greek Lyric Poetry).<br />
zlib_text: Musical system of ancient Greece
  This article concerns itself with the music theory and
  musical intervals used since Ancient Greece (see also
  musical tuning). For a discussion of the cultural aspects
  and history of ancient Greek music, see Music of ancient
  Greece.
  The musical system of ancient Greece evolved over
  a period of more than 500 years from simple scales of
  tetrachords, or divisions of the perfect fourth, to The Per-
  fect Immutable System, encompassing a span of ﬁfteen
  pitch keys (see tonoi below) (Chalmers 1993, chapt. 6,
  p. 99)
  Any discussion of ancient Greek music, theoretical,
  philosophical or aesthetic, is fraught with two problems:
  there are few examples of written music, and there are
  many, sometimes fragmentary theoretical and philosoph-
  ical accounts. This article provides an overview that in-
  cludes examples of diﬀerent kinds of classiﬁcation while
  also trying to show the broader form evolving from the
  simple tetrachord to system as a whole.
  1
  Systêma ametabolon, an 