Like the strains of a piper approaching a town, music archaeology is perceptibly growing. But the number of researchers who devote the majority of their time to it certainly remains modest.
Many scholars contribute one or two papers on short forays from the many fields of study that overlap with music archaeology, but relatively few remain in the fold for long because their parent disciplines call them home.
Given that situation, and the relative youth of the interdisciplinary field—its modern form dates from only the late 1970s—it has a long way to go, institutionally. Courses are few, and intermittently offered, and it is not yet possible to obtain a degree in music archaeology. Small but growing numbers of graduate students do take on the speciality, usually from within other disciplines.
No institutions sponsor chairs of music archaeology, and there are no dedicated journals. Publication takes place in the periodicals of archaeology and other disciplines—or, occasionally, in prominent journals like Nature. The most secure venue for publishing appears to be the volumes of conference papers from the generally biennial meetings of the International Study Group on Music Archeology.
“Music archaeology is in its fairly young days,” says John Curtis Franklin, a University of Vermont classicist and expert on ancient Greek music. “I predict many, many decades more work.”
Still, he says, “the range of good studies now is very high. Some of the studies that are coming out are incredibly sophisticated in their use of statistical methods and archaeological techniques.”
That makes Arnd Adje Both, of the Reiss-Engelhorn Museums in Mannheim, Germany, more optimistic: “We’re at the stage now where a real discipline could be established soon,” he says.
Anne Kilmer’s discovery of ancient music texts in Mesopotamia led to the formation in 1981 of the Study Group on Music Archaeology, which was affiliated with the International Council for Traditional Music.
In 1996 the group became the International Study Group on Music Archaeology based at the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin.
The International Study Group maintains conference proceedings of the earlier group as well as those from its own meetings.
The group’s Web site also lists many articles and monographs issued by other groups and publishers.
The International Council for Traditional Music, which meets in September this year at the University of Valladolid, Spain, again has a music-archaeology study group of its own, and the work of many of its other study groups bears on music archaeology, too.
Also active is MOISA: The International Society for the Study of Greek and Roman Music and its Cultural Heritage, founded in Italy in 2007.
Like many interdisciplinary fields, music archaeology can suffer from miscommunication between and among the specializations that contribute to it. Of huge benefit in reducing such confusion, say music archaeologists, will be the imminent online publication of “A Concise Manual of ISGMA Practice in Music Archeology,” which is now being circulated in draft form. The contributors’ goal is to help improve understanding, and cooperation, among the many kinds of scholars involved in studies in this area, such as archaeologists, musicologists, anthropologists, historians, acousticians, ethnomusicologists, and psychologists.
Publications
Ellen Hickmann, Ricardo Eichmann, and others have edited collections of essays drawn from the symposiums of the International Study Group on Music Archaeology, 1998-2010, published in Germany by Verlag Marie Leidorf.
For details, see the extensive bibliography on the ISGMA Web site under “sources.”
The same site also has details of Verlag Marie Leidorf’s conference volumes from biennial meetings, 1982-1996, of the Study Group on Music Archaeology of the International Council for Traditional Music. Hickmann, Eichmann, and others edited those, too. Each volume has a theme, such as music archaeology of early metal ages, stringed instruments in archaeological context, the archaeology of sound, or challenges and objectives in music archaeology.
Recordings
Commercial recordings of ancient music are few, and are produced largely from an interest in careful research and expert musicianship rather than expectation of financial reward.
Still, recordings range widely in their value to the field of music archaeology, observes Andy Lowings, who built a faithful replica of an ancient Mesopotamanian lyre in his Gold Lyre of Ur Project (www.lyre-of-ur.com): “They vary, like in everything, from the rigorously authentic to the outrageously balony.”
“Many CDs pretend to illustrate ancient music, but most just demonstrate the sound of reconstructed instruments copied from some ancient illustration,” says Bo Lawergren, a Hunter College physicist and music archaeologist who is one of the four founding members of the International Study Group on Music Archaeology. Finding melodies is not an easy task—in most ancient traditions, few if any were written down. So, says Lawergren, modern-day musicians have “usually adopted folk tunes, or something that sounded old, or something catchy.”
Following are some recordings that Lawergren and two other experts in music archaeology recommend. (Other respected recordings are listed in the discography section of the ISGMA Web site, under “sources.”)
John C. Franklin, University of Vermont classicist
Music of the Ancient Greeks, Ensemble De Organographia (Pandourion, 1995). Most of the ancient fragments, with well-researched interpretations and reconstructed instruments.
Musique de la Grèce antique, Atrium Musicae de Madrid, directed by Gregorio Paniagua (Harmonia Mundi, 1979). A classic; highly “imaginative” but musically effective rendition of all known ancient Greek music fragments to that date.
Musiques de l’Antiquité Grecque, Ensemble Kérylos/Annie Bélis (K617 Records, 1996). Well researched but perhaps too cautious.
Sounds From Silence, Anne Kilmer, Richard Crocker, and Robert Brown (Bella Roma Music, 1976). Landmark recording in which the newly deciphered Babylonian tuning cycle was demonstrated on a reconstructed lyre, as well as Kilmer’s interpretation of the one full Hurrian hymn from ancient Ugarit (c. 1400 B.C.). Available at http://www.bellaromamusic.com/store.html
Franklin’s own renditions appear on the album The Cyprosyrian Girl: Hits of the Ancient Hellenes, with two ancient musical fragments and a variety of other reconstructive approaches, including Greek microtones. For samples, visit http://www.kingmixers.com/AncGreekMusicFragments.html
Gjermund Kolltveit, University of Oslo ethnomusicologist
Drømte mig en drøm, produced by Erik Axel Wessberg (Skalk, 1996). Performances on medieval musical instruments reconstructed from archaeological finds.
The Kilmartin Sessions: The Sounds of Ancient Scotland, directed by John Purser (Kilmartin House, 1997). Features several Scottish sound tools from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages. Substantial information, superbly presented.
Sounds from the Stone Age (Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2005). Features the “palaeolithic ensemble” Knockenklang. Music performed on original and reconstructed flutes, some among the oldest found in Europe. Available at http://epub.oeaw.ac.at/3595-1
The Sounds of Prehistoric Scandinavia, produced by Cajsa S. Lund (Musica Sveciae, 1991). The standard recording documenting prehistoric sound tools from Scandinavia. An important and influential work in the history of music archaeology.
Bo Lawergren, Hunter College physicist and music archaeologist
Along the Silk Road: Ancient and Modern Music for the Kugo, by Tomoko Sugawara (Motéma, 2010). Features an early type of harp (2900 B.C.-1700 A.D.) recovered by music-archaeological methods. Music from the time the instrument flourished, including during the Chinese Tang dynasty (7th-9th century), the Iranian Ilkhanate dynasty (ca. 1300), and Spain under Alfonso X (ca. 1250), as well as music written specially for this instrument by modern composers.