Aristoxenus
Aristoxenus was a Greek philosopher of the fourth century BCE, a student of Aristotle who wrote extensively on music and rhythm.
His *Elements of Harmony* is the earliest surviving work on music theory, treating melody and scale as subjects for systematic analysis rather than mystical speculation.
He argued that the ear, not mathematical ratios, should judge musical intervals—a position that put him at odds with Pythagorean tradition.
Frequencies above the fundamental
- rhythmPatterned stress and silence
- intervalsGaps between events
- scalesPlates or weighing devices
- melodyPleasing sequence of notes
pitch · modes · tetrachord · consonance · dissonance · musical · notation · tuning
Aristotle's Athenian teaching grounds
- empiricismKnowledge through observation
- perceptionMental interpretation of stimuli
- hearingPerceiving sound waves
- judgmentReasoned decision-making capacity
ethics · Pythagoreans · soul · treatises · lectures · dialectic · observation · experience
Of Athenian origin
- fourth-centuryYears 301-400
- BCESecular historical era notation
- biographyWritten life account
- AlexandriaEgyptian Mediterranean port
manuscripts · fragments · treatises · Hellenistic · classical · ancient · pupil · scholar
harmonics
Frequencies above the fundamental
melody · pitch · modes · tetrachord · consonance · dissonance · musical · notation · tuning · octave
Lyceum
Aristotle's Athenian teaching grounds
- empiricismKnowledge through observation
- perceptionMental interpretation of stimuli
- hearingPerceiving sound waves
judgment · ethics · Pythagoreans · soul · treatises · lectures · dialectic · observation · experience · sensation
Greek
Of Athenian origin
- fourth-centuryYears 301-400
- BCESecular historical era notation
- biographyWritten life account
Alexandria · manuscripts · fragments · treatises · Hellenistic · classical · ancient · pupil · scholar · polymath
- Ancient Music WritersPtolemy
- ancient musiclyre, pan pipes, panpipes, tibia, shofar
- PythagoreansPythagoras
- Ancient Greek PoetsSappho, Simonides, Bacchylides, Corinna
- Greek SicilyArchimedes, Theron, Dion, Damocles
AristoxenusPythagoras
Ancient Greek mathematician
Pythagoreans · Plato · Ptolemy