One possible root of the Lydian Mode ... A journey into history & music from the old Mesopotamia'till nowadays

Hi steemians,

Today i've thought to write a lil'bit much deeper inside the music theory ... based on a mode in music that i will reveal it later on, which has his roots back in Time in the Old Mesopotamia.

Cuneiform sources from Mesopotamia reveal an orderly organized system of diatonic scales, depending on the tuning of the stringed instruments from that Time that were alternating in fifths and fourths.

Whether this rule used back in that old time in Mesopotamia reflects all types of music is not known and i'm not convinced about it.

Mesopotamian music has recognizable aspects to any musician arround this World ... expecially to the jazz-musicians which have a tendency to build bridges between traditional genres of music from arround the Earth and jazz. The scale used in Mesopotamian music is what modern musicians/jazz musicians would call the Lydian mode. Now i've revealed the secret name of it ... i don't how secret it is for most of us annymore ...

The instruments of Ancient Mesopotamia include: harps, lyres, lutes, reed pipes, and drums. Many of these were shared with neighbouring cultures.

Contemporary East African lyres and West African lutes preserve many features of the old Mesopotamian instruments.

The vocal timbre/tone was probably similar to the sound of the narrow-bore reed pipes, and most likely shared the contemporary asian/middle eastern vocal quality and techniques, including little dynamic changes and more graces, shakes, mordents, glides and microtonal inflections. Singers probably expressed intense emotions, as if listening to themselves, as shown by the practice of cupping a hand to the ear ... as is still current in modern Assyrian music and many Arab/Middle East folk music.

Regarding the horns from that period, mesopotamians had trumpets which were similar to the so known french horn or trumpet from nowadays. As an example ... a silver trumpet from that period was found even in Tutankhamen tomb.

Most of the horns in Mesopotamia were made from animal horns also.

These instruments would have worked like a bugle, using the harmonic series to get the notes needed for music. The harmonic series makes a lydian scale on which you can hear from the 8th pitch to the 16th pitch, that the 7th & 14th pitch is not a note on the lydian scale, representing the Bb note ... so having as a root of start the note of C this will mean that Bb will represent the 7th of C ... and will be somehow considered to be out from the lydian mode ... if we would fall in the trap to consider that our lydian mode should be build from F note.

Actually this is the magic thru this harmonic sounds that are building out from anny root note ( but in our case it will be from C note) that the lydian mode that the hiystorians/musicians consider to have it's creation in Mesopotamia ... that it is actually a so called "lydian dominant" mode and this is justified thru the formation of the harmonics behind the playing on the instruments build from animal horns.

Still ... getting back to our original lydian mode from where we've started, the Mesopotamians seem to have utilized a heptatonic lydian scale, heptatonic meaning a scale with seven pitches instead of the modern eight. The lydian scale is the regular major scale but with a raised fourth. For example, the F-lydian scale would contain the same key signature as a C-major scale. The F-Major scale has a B-flat in the key signature, however with the raised fourth in the lydian scale, the B-flat becomes a B-natural.

What i've tried to point out upon the formation of the harmonics thru the playing on the horn instruments is that the initial lydian mode, actually was breaking the boundaries since that period and they've had the knowledge of playing the lydian dominant mode in it's very natural form ... thru the harmonics which are naturally formatting thru it's cosmic rule.

Percussion instruments were played only in ritualistic ocassions and were not played with sticks but with the hands.

In my humble opinion our human society has lost most of the ancient secrets of knowledge thru Time ... expecially in sound resonation/frequency ... Nowadays we play with the pitch raised even at 443-444 Hz

When we think back in Time ... that in the period of instrument movement, a consensus has arisen around a modern baroque pitch of 415 Hz with 440 Hz corresponding to A♯, baroque for some special church music, named as Chorton pitch at 466 Hz with 440 Hz corresponding to A♭ and classical pitch at 430 Hz and nowadays we're playing at 444 Hz ... it's quite ... sounding "different" as frequency :-)

Have a Blessed Time here on Earth dear steemians