We may regard the Olympus scale, however, as consisting of two
tetrachords, eliding one interval in each, for the tetrachord, or series
of four notes, was very early adopted as the fundamental principle
of Greek music, and its origin in the lyre itself appears sure. The
basis of the tetrachord is the employment of the thumb and first
three fingers of the left hand to twang as many strings, the little
finger not being used on account of natural weakness. As a succession
of three whole tones would form the disagreeable and untunable
interval of a tritonus, two whole tones and a half-tone were tuned,
fixing the tetrachord in the consonant interval of the perfect fourth.
This succession of four notes being in the grasp of the hand was
called συλλαβή, just as in language a group of letters incapable of
further reduction is called syllable. In the combination of two
syllables or tetrachords the modern diatonic scales resemble the
Greek so-called disjunct scale, but the Greeks knew nothing of our
categorical distinctions of major and minor. We might call the
octave Greek scale minor, according to our descending minor form,
were not the keynote in the middle the thumb note of the deeper
tetrachord. The upper tetrachord, whether starting from the keynote
(conjunct) or from the note above (disjunct), was of exactly the
same form as the lower, the position of the semitones being identical.
The semitone was a limma (λεῖμμα), rather less than the semitone of
our modern equal temperament, the Greeks tuning both the whole
tones in the tetrachord by the same ratio of 8:9, which made the
major third a dissonance, or rather would have done so had they
combined them in what we call harmony. In melodious sequence the
Greek tetrachord is decidedly more agreeable to the ear than the
corresponding series of our equal temperament. And although our
scales are derived from combined tetrachords, in any system of
tuning that we employ, be it just, mean-tone, or equal, they are less
logical than the conjunct or disjunct systems accepted by the Greeks.
But modern harmony is not compatible with them, and could not
have arisen on the Greek melodic lines.
The conjunct scale of seven notes
attributed to Terpander, was long the norm for stringing and tuning the lyre. When the disjunct scale
the octave scale attributed to Pythagoras, was admitted, to preserve the time-honoured seven strings one note had to be omitted; it was therefore customary to omit the C, which in Greek practice was a dissonance. The Greek names for the strings of seven and eight stringed lyres, the first note being highest in pitch and nearest the player, were as follows: Nete, Paranete, Paramese; Mese, Lichanos, Parhypate, Hypate; or Nete, Paranete, Trite, Paramese; Mese, Lichanos, Parhypate, Hypate—the last four from Mese to Hypate being the finger tetrachord, the others touched with the plectrum. The highest string in pitch was called the last, νεάτη; the lowest in pitch was called the highest, ὑπάτη, because it was, in theory at least, the longest string. The keynote and thumb string was μέση, middle; the next lower was λίχανος, the first finger or lick-finger string; τρίτη, the third, being in the plectrum division, was also known as ὀξεῖα, sharp, perhaps from the dissonant quality to which we have referred as the cause of its omission. The plectrum and finger tetrachords together were διαπασῶν, through all; in the disjunct scale, an octave.
In transcribing the Greek notes into our notation, the absolute pitch cannot be represented; the relative positions of the semitones are alone determined. We have already quoted the scale of Pythagoras, the Dorian or true Greek succession:—
Shifting the semitone one degree upwards in each tetrachord, we have the Phrygian
Another degree gives the Lydian
which would be our major scale of E were not the keynote A. The names imply an Asiatic origin. We need not here pursue further the much-debated question of Greek scales and their derivation; it will suffice to remark that the outside notes of the tetrachords were fixed in their tuning as perfect fourths—the inner strings being, as stated, in diatonic sequence, or when chromatic two half-tones were tuned, when enharmonic two quarter-tones, leaving respectively the wide intervals of a minor and major third, and both impure, to complete the tetrachord. (A. J. H.)
See the article by Théodore Reinach in Daremberg and Saglio, Antiquités grecques et romaines; Wilhelm Johnsen, Die Lyra, ein Beitrag zur griechischen Kunstgeschichte (Berlin, 1876); Hortense Panum, “Harfe und Lyra in Nord Europa,” Intern. Mus. Ges., Sbd. vii. 1, pp. 1-40 (Leipzig, 1905); A. J. Hipkins, “Dorian and Phrygian, reconsidered from a non-harmonic point of view,” in Intern. Mus. Ges. (Leipzig, 1903), iv. 3.
LYRE-BIRD, the name by which one of the most remarkable birds of Australia is commonly known, the Menura superba or M. novae-hollandiae of ornithologists. It was first observed in 1798 in New South Wales, and though called by its finders a “pheasant”—from its long tail—the more learned of the colony seem to have regarded it as a bird-of-Paradise.[1] A specimen having reached England in 1799, it was described by General Davies as forming a new genus of birds, in the Linnean Society’s Transactions (vi. p. 207, pl. xxii.), no attempt, however, being made to fix its systematic place. In 1802 L. P. Vieillot figured and described it in a supplement to his Oiseaux Dorés as a bird-of-Paradise (ii. pp. 30 seq., pls. 14-16), from drawings by Sydenham Edwards, sent him by Parkinson, the manager of the Leverian Museum. The first to describe any portion of its anatomy was T. C. Eyton, who in 1841 (Ann. Nat. History, vii. pp. 49-53) perceived that it was a Passerine bird and that it presented some points of affinity to the South American genus Pteroptochus. In 1867 Huxley stated that he was disposed to divide his very natural assemblage the Coracomorphae (essentially identical with Eyton’s Insessores) into two groups, “one containing Menura, and the other all the other genera which have yet been examined” (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1867, p. 472)—a still further step in advance.[2] In 1875 A. Newton put forth the opinion in his article on birds, in the 9th edition of this Encyclopaedia, that Menura had an ally in another Australian form, Atrichia (see Scrub-Bird), which he had found to present peculiarities hitherto unsuspected, and he regarded them as standing by themselves, though each constituting a distinct family. This opinion was partially adopted in the following year by A. H. Garrod, who (Proc. Zool. Society, 1876, p. 518) formally placed these two genera together in his group of Abnormal Acromyodian Oscines under the name of Menurinae; ornithologists now generally recognize at once the alliance and distinctness of the families Menuridae and Atrichiidae, and place them together to form the group Suboscines of the Diacromyodian Passeres.
Since the appearance in 1865 of J. Gould’s Handbook to the Birds of Australia, little important information has been published concerning the habits of this form, and the account therein given must be drawn upon for what here follows. Of all birds, says that author, the Menura is the most shy and hard to procure. He has been among the rocky and thick “brushes”—its usual haunts—hearing its loud and liquid call-notes for days together without getting sight of one. Those who wish to see it must advance only while it is singing or scratching up the earth and leaves; and to watch its actions they must keep perfectly still. The best way of procuring an example seems to be by hunting it with dogs, when it will spring upon a branch to the height of 10 ft. and afford an easy shot ere it has time to ascend farther or escape as it does by leaps. Natives are said to hunt it by fixing on their heads the erected tail of a cock-bird, which alone is allowed to be seen above the brushwood. The greater part of its time is said to be passed upon the ground, and seldom are more than a pair to be found in company. One of the habits of the cock is to form small round hillocks, which he constantly visits during the day, mounting upon them and displaying his tail by erecting it over his head, drooping his wings, scratching and pecking at the soil, and uttering various cries—some his own natural notes, others an imitation of those of other animals. The tail, his most characteristic feature, only attains perfection in the bird’s third or fourth year, and then not until the month of June, remaining until October, when the feathers are shed to be renewed the following season. The food consists of insects, especially beetles and myriapods, as well as snails. The nest is
- ↑ Collins, Account of New South Wales, ii. 87-92 (London, 1802).
- ↑ Owing to the imperfection of the specimen at his disposal, Huxley’s brief description of the bones of the head in Menura is not absolutely correct. A full description of them, with elaborate figures, is given by Parker in the same Society’s Transactions (ix. 306-309, pl. lvi. figs. 1-5).
