The time I spent on the journey with the Magi was amazing. I learned many things as I visited the East and sat at the feet of the Astronomers. During our third day of Advent Journeys this week the caravan of Wise Men is traveling up the Euphrates River. Along this part of the trip they are enjoying the rich agricultural portion of this river, and have some time to enjoy. They pull out their musical instruments. As I wrote this portion of the devotion, I learned the Middle Eastern Astronomers made a huge impact on music.
Take for instance the musical scale. It is made up of seven notes (A, B, C, D, E, F and G - plus sharps and flats … but there are seven actual notes). This equates to one note for each day of the week. (with sharps and flats, if the scale was arranged differently it could have been more notes). The seven notes are named Xosrovani.
The seven notes can be played thirty ways, called modes. These include: Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian. They can be augmented or diminished. A musician can explain this better, but the thirty modes represent thirty days of the month. These are further organized into 360 melodies (one for each day of the year) named dastan.
Music was important to all ages of Mesopotamian history. In the book of Daniel we find persians used the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, and pipes. They probably also used percussion instruments. Some of the instruments were brought in from India, other instruments from the west, from Greece. Many instruments still exist, or have been re-created, and can be heard on YouTube.
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