Th e player plucked the strings with a large plectrum made of
wood, bone, or horn.
Roman musicians oft en played the kithara, a stringed
instrument that produced a more piercing sound than the
lyre. (Th e word kithara evolved into the English word guitar.)
Kithara could be much larger than lyres, though there were
also small ones that were oft en played by women. Th e kithara
could be tuned more precisely than the lyre. Some Roman
sculptures depict kithara with triangular tuning pegs that
look as though they were turned with a key to adjust the ten-
sion of the strings.
Lutes, which had round sound boxes, long necks, and
three strings, were also popular. Ancient lutes were very simi-
lar to lutes played in Europe in the medieval period. People
also played several diff erent kinds of harp. Both harps and
lutes were plucked with the fi ngers, usually of the right hand;
the player used the other hand to damp strings that he did not
want to sound.
Romans played several types of wind instruments. One of
the most common was a pipe called a tibia, played throughout
the Mediterranean region. Th e tibia took several forms. One
was a fl ute made of a single pipe held sideways to the player’s
head and played by blowing across the mouthpiece and cov-
ering combinations of holes with fi ngers. Another version
had two reeds and two pipes fastened side by side. Players fi n-
gered one pipe with each hand. A player might wrap a cloth
band around his head to support his cheeks while playing.
Th e panpipe consisted of several tubes attached to one
another side by side. Th e player blew across the ends of the
tubes to create diff erent notes. Th e Roman version of the pan-
pipe had tubes of diff erent lengths, unlike the Greek version,
which used tubes of the same length plugged with wax to
achieve diff erent pitches. Panpipes were considered a rustic
instrument most appropriate for rural settings.
Both Greeks and Romans played bagpipes. Romans
loved a type of pipe organ called a hydraulis. Th e earliest form
used a hydraulic mechanism to blow air across the pipes. Op-
erators used levers to pump air into a vessel of water; this
compressed the air and forced it over the ends of the pipes,
making noise. By the second century of the Common Era the
hydraulic mechanism had been replaced by a bag infl ated by
bellows. Th e hydraulis was large and loud. It was commonly
used at the Colosseum to enliven gladiatorial events. Romans
also used several types of trumpet, both straight ones called
tuba and curved types called cornu. Th e army used trumpets
to deliver military orders and in parades. Civilians used them
whenever they needed to signal the start of some event, such
as a theatrical performance or the beginning of a festival.
Musicians used several kinds of percussion instruments
to keep the beat of musical performance. Th e simplest form
of percussion was snapping, clapping, or stomping in time
to the music. Musicians also used drums, castanets, wooden
clappers, and cymbals. Tambourines called tympani were
a very common instrument used in parades and at parties;
dancing girls oft en played them as they danced.
THE AMERICAS
BY LAWRENCE WALDRON
It is diffi cult to imagine the sound of ancient American music
from the scant evidence available today. Early musical instru-
ments were oft en made of biodegradable materials, such as
wood, hides, and horn, and few of them have survived to in-
form the theories of anthropologists and ethnomusicologists,
those who study music in its sociocultural context.
Ceramic instruments outlast those made of organic
matter, and various ceramic drums, wind instruments, and
noisemakers have been found in Central and South Amer-
ica. Anthropologists working in those regions have also un-
covered ceramic eating and drinking vessels on which are
painted scenes of musical rituals and celebrations. Scholars
also can compare the remains of ancient instruments with
later, similar versions to extrapolate the sounds and uses of
ancient music. Still, most of what is known about ancient
American music is inferred from a very imperfect archaeo-
logical record, many artifacts being made of materials that
may not have been the most typical in their time.
Music in ancient America was produced using three ma-
jor classes of instrumentation. Wind and percussion instru-
ments seem to have played the most important role in rituals
and festivals. A variety of idiophones—devices that make
specifi c, unusual, and oft en atonal noises—constituted the
third class of musical instruments. Wind instruments were
made of wood, reeds, ceramic clay, or bone; as the name sug-
gests, they were blown like fl utes or trumpets. A vast range
of percussion instruments were beaten for rhythm, most of
them resembling drums from other parts of the world. Idio-
phones were the most widely varied instruments. Some were
struck like percussion instruments, but many were shaken,
turned, twirled, spun, or even worn in dance to produce a
plethora of sounds. Stringed instruments rarely played a part
in ancient American music.
If later Native American music can give any clue to earlier
forms, ancient musical instruments may have been used to
accompany singing, chanting, and speech during rituals and
sacred spectacles. Here the voice would have been the chief
source of tone and melody, while rhythms and sounds from
musical instrumentation may have functioned theatrically: to
draw or fi x the audience’s attention, to mark important pas-
sages in sung or spoken performance, or perhaps to aid in
memorization of myths and legends. Fully instrumental mu-
sic was seldom part of ancient American performances.
It is easy to assume that drums were universal, but some
groups in South America evidently had no use of them even
at the time of European contact. Nevertheless, percussion
instruments were very widespread in the ancient Americas,
and their design ranged widely as well. Th e most rudimen-
tary may simply have been wooden planks beaten with sticks,
sometimes over a chamber dug out of the ground, a method
customary among some Pacifi c Northwest Coast Indians.
Cultures in both North and South America, however, devel-772 music and musical instruments: The Americas