The Sound of Music

Abstract

This paper examines the vocabulary of sound in theTheogony,theHomeric Hymn to Apollo,and theHomeric Hymn to Hermesand focuses in particular on the words employed therein to describe superlative forms of music, terms that in different contexts denote clamorous or unpleasant sounds. By drawing attention to the sonic texture of musical performance in this way, each portrayal suggests that music is not ontologically distinct from noise, but emerges from the coalescence of discrete sounds that are not musical in and of themselves. Music and noise thus exist not in a hierarchical relation, but on the same spectrum. And this dynamic is reflected in the very language used to depict these performances, which combines re-workings of Homeric formulae with new or unusual acoustic terminology. Thus music, including lyrical language itself, may become perceptible as such from the skillful organization of sounds into intelligible and distinctive patterns.