# How Early do you listen?



## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Not one for the night owls, but rather do have a starting point for listening to music e.g. 1700 or do you listen to music of any period?

So, how early do you listen?


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Oh, by the by, I've started a new group - Early Birds for the discussion of music pre 1600.

We'd be so pleased if you joined.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Realistically, I don't go back much before the 13th century. I love medieval dance music, but the best seems to fall in the period between 1400-1600. 

The really early stuff is hard to listen to, I find; it often seems a bit trailing and formless, and when it doesn't, I start suspecting that they've jazzed it up a bit. Recently we were listening to a cd in our boxed set, and some of the medieval songs began to sound like the sort of French-café-musing-about-life song that we heard a lot of in the 1970s. I even thought I glimpsed the shadow of Sacha Distel for an instant...


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

The oldest stuff I have includes composers like Monteverdi and Gervaise, but even I don't have much by them. Most of what I listen to is from 1650 onward and I have very little music from before that. My main period of interest is 1830-1920 and I have the most music from that time.


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## rrudolph (Sep 15, 2011)

I will listen to anything composed at any time by anybody. The question is whether I will listen to a given composition a second time...


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

1300 _________________


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I enjoy the music of the minnesänger and troubadours. I'm not quite sure how early that is? 1400s, perhaps? I also listen to a bit of Gregorian Chant and similar, but not a whole lot. Still, I suppose I don't exclude any period, but the majority of my listening is in the past 150 years or so, with frequent excursions into the Baroque, Classical and early Romantic periods.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

PetrB said:


> 1300 _________________


That's old enough! In the past you've been a great source of collected links for me, PetrB. :tiphat:
I suppose there isn't a chance - she said wistfully - that you might put up some notable and worthwhile Early Music links? :angel:


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

The oldest composer I listen to frequently is Monteverdi, but I do occasionally hear some Dufay, Josquin, Machaut, Hildegard or Perotin. I find them interesting and would like to listen more to them (and many others), even though right now my main interest is to explore the 20th century.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

I rarely get up before 6 in the morning if I can avoid it, musically I think the earliest I have is stone age, ie 7-8000 BC... Stone Age Music Rocks! 

/ptr


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

My collection really begins with the late baroque period and, Bach, Handel and Vivaldi aside, I don't even have too much of that. The earliest music I have which I can enjoy is Corelli's Concerti Grossi op. 6 from the 1690s - to me they wouldn't sound out of place if they were from 20-30 years later. I listened to a few middle-to late 17th. century composers such as Marc-Antoine Charpentier but I didn't find the soundworld particularly interesting, so I'm not inclined to go back that early.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I think I have listened to music composed/written/noted down well before Monteverdi by a few centuries but not usually. By Early I prefer to restrict mostly to the great High Baroque, the foundations of all classical music.


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## Lord Lance (Nov 4, 2013)

Baroque so far.

Going into Renaissance soon!


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Perotin, so ~ 1200.


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## Guest (Jan 12, 2015)

ArtMusic said:


> I think I have listened to music composed/written/noted down well before Monteverdi by a few centuries but not usually. By Early I prefer to restrict mostly to the great High Baroque, the *foundations* of all classical music.


Remind me never to hire you as an architect.


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## scratchgolf (Nov 15, 2013)

some guy said:


> Remind me never to hire you as an architect.


:lol: That was my first thought as well. A basement on the 4th floor. On the plus side, it would be a great foundation in regards to not leaking or smelling musty.


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## musicrom (Dec 29, 2013)

The earliest composer whose music I often enjoy is Arcangelo Corelli. I'm not a huge fan of baroque, so the majority of music I listen comes post-1750, but I'll occasionally venture into pre-1700 music.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

At least this far:


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

The earliest I've been listening to is Corelli, so I'd assume Baroque music around 1670 or so.


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## Guest (Jan 12, 2015)

To me, the mark of good early music is that it should sound like normal people might enjoy listening to it and playing it. Early music should not sound like wearing a hairshirt must feel.

I personally think human nature has changed very little over the last thousand years. Accordingly, when early music seems to be very difficult to listen to, that suggests to me that the sample which has been passed down to us is not entirely representative.

Accordingly, I don't mind efforts by modern performers to breathe life and pleasure into earlier works. And I suppose I prefer early folk (popular?) music more than early church music. Jordi Savall and his ilk have done a good job elaborating connections between early music and various folk music traditions. We may never really know what early music sounded like, but I'm quite sure that rich traditions of folk music didn't spring out of nowhere.

I don't have any really good examples in mind, except for this (which is probably later):









Les Travailleurs de la mer - Ancient Songs from a Small Island

As for the OP, I don't have a cutoff date - though for obvious reasons the selection of earlier music is limited.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

^^^^^^^ :tiphat: I so agree!

May I ask any posters or readers who do listen to music composed before 1600, or who are interested in it - please do join our group Early Birds and share your discoveries and observations!

That would be fabbest of the fab! 

Jordi Savall seems to be half the early music world walking on two legs. I'm so pleased we were able to go to one of his concerts in York last year.


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## D Smith (Sep 13, 2014)

The earliest composers I listen to with any regularity are Josquin and Palestrina, both of whom I enjoy very much. But I also enjoy Anonymous 4, medieval dances and so on.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

I listen to the earliest possible music if I can. Palestrina was as far as I got.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

The earliest I listen to with any frequency is Dufay. I dip back into the Gothics and chants occasionally - I'm mostly interested in Christian music - and even have one CD with Greek music. I can't stand viol consorts and don't connect much with the virelais and other secular music of that time.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

I may one of the only members of TC that only listen to music from the early 20th century to present.

While I have an intellectual appreciation for it on some levels, I just don't find anything that really grabs me. 

I will continue to try, since I know I am missing a huge part of classical music, and I hope that it will click for me some day.


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

The oldest works I listen to with any regularity are the hymn _Sub Tuum Praesidium_ (c.250) and the round _Sumer is icumen in_ (c.1260).
I am also fond of the early English composers like Dowland, Tallis, and Byrd.


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

So far Gesualdo, so c.1594 would be the composition date of the earliest work I've listened to since childhood.

I'm certainly open to going further back in time.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Earliest CD I have is Ockeghem (1400s). I don't see it as a stretch to go back that far, but maybe there's a point before then where listening would be for historical interest only.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I like works by de Machaut (motets, Messe de Notre-Dame), but I don't hear too much music before 1400. Even the 1400s contain much less familiar music than after 1500 where things really pick up for me.

I've spent so much of the last few years listening to modern/contemporary music. I will continue that, but I just recently decided to focus more on Baroque and earlier.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

SimonNZ said:


> Nobody in all those above besides StLukes listens to Hildegard of Bingen? That really does surprise me.


Does it count if we've heard her works a few times and that's it? If so, I can go back to 1100


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

^sorry , I actually deleted that post of mine because I thought it might sound unnecessarily bitchy and judgemental - which is not what I was intending or wanting


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

I love Hildegard of Bingen. It was really her music that turned me onto older music as a whole:






I'm also quite fond of Byzantine chant and Islamic/Andalusian music... dating from Moorish rule of Spain:


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

The oldest music I own and listen to is William Lawes from the 1640s (I think). Then there is a gap of 50 years in my music which is Corelli. I also listen to some Bach, Vivaldi, and Handel then there is another gap when most of my music is from - Mozart and after.


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## spradlig (Jul 25, 2012)

I'm bad with dates. The earliest composer I've heard that I liked is Monteverdi (thanks to Wendy Carlos). I don't even care for Baroque that much, except for Bach.


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## satoru (May 29, 2014)

The earliest composer I'm actively correcting CDs is Dufay (c1397-1474), followed by Ockeghem (1410-1497). Nice polyphony works. I listen to their music when I want to calm myself down.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I seldom go back farther than Monteverdi and John Dowland with any regularity. I have a little trouble with music that is modal, unless it's from Debussy or more recent. I don't know what it is about the modal work of medieval and renaissance I find lacking. The scales sound as if they are striving very hard (but never quite succeeding) in getting to the major and minor modes predominant in the baroque, classical and beyond that came later. Or more likely it is my mind that is doing the striving. 

I just have trouble understanding what I'm hearing with the Greek modes. I don't think the people of the time had any trouble at all with them, so I think it's probably not true that we are exactly the same as the folks of ancient times. They would have completely different expectations as far as voice leading and resolution. As I say, that sound universe doesn't bother me at all (any more) with more modern works. Perhaps if I thought of medieval music in the same way as modern works, I would warm to it -- it's just that melodically early music comes SO close to the major and minor scales, but still a near miss, I find it more disturbing than no tonality at all.

(I am having a very hard time organizing my thoughts on this, as you may notice. I shouldn't try to write and listen to great music at the same time.)


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

Although there are select pieces by Mozart (Symphonies #40 & 41, Concerto for Flute and Harp, K 299) that I like very much; and Beethoven's 9th; and a few pieces by Bach (Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, Sheep May Safely Graze, A Mighty Fortress), my main interest is in French music and starts around 1850, with Saint Saens moving forward into the 20th century with Debussy and Ravel. From then on I listen to American composers.


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## Bradius (Dec 11, 2012)

Hildegard v B. 1100ish.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

SimonNZ said:


> ^sorry , I actually deleted that post of mine because I thought it might sound unnecessarily bitchy and judgemental - which is not what I was intending or wanting


I didn't think it sounded bitchy or judgmental at all. It simply sounded surprised. I suspect that a modest number of members listen to Hildegard.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

The Paniagua album _Musique de la Grèce Antique_ claims to have some pretty ancient music, and I'm sure they did their best to be as authentic as possible. It is something to hear. I don't listen to it very often.

I love Ambrosian and Byzantine chant, and both of them claim to preserve music from the first millennium. The oldest Gregorian chants may be almost as old. I also have a Psallentes recording of chant that they attribute to Etiene de Liège, in the 9th century.

Sequentia's _Lost Songs of a Rhineland Harper_ dates its music to the 10th and 11th century. I don't remember the dates they gave for _Edda: Myths from Medieval Iceland_. Both are very interesting.

But of all those, the only one I listen to with any regularity are Ambrosian and Byzantine chant.

I listen to Hildegard (12th century) and the Notre Dame school (13th century) forward fairly often.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

One problem of having several windows open at once is that sometimes you don't realize that more than one of them are your favorite classical music discussion board and then you sometimes put things into the wrong thread.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

I have several chant discs in my collection, and that ancient Greece one from Paniagua, oh and the Edda one. But they rarely get an airing. So I'll say Hildegard, the Notre Dame school and the troubadours & trouveres: the 12th century.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Taggart said:


> Not one for the night owls, but rather do have a starting point for listening to music e.g. 1700 or do you listen to music of any period?
> 
> So, how early do you listen?


Gregorian chant is the earliest Western music I listen to.

By the way, I'm also a sort of night owl...


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## rrudolph (Sep 15, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> I didn't think it sounded bitchy or judgmental at all. It simply sounded surprised. I suspect that a modest number of members listen to Hildegard.


For the record, if we're now counting the number of members who listen to Hildegard, I listen to her quite frequently.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

By the way, the troubadour Guillaume de Poitiers beats Hildegard - he was 27 years older than her.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Perotin, so 1200ish.

I have plenty of records that include chants that are older than that, but I wouldn't listen to a bunch of chant on its own.

I also listen to a LOT of 16th century polyphony.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

I just checked my Itunes and the earliest pieces of music I have are a few reconstructed "Hurrian Hymns" written anonymously circa. 1225 BCE (or BC, if you prefer).

I think I just won this thread.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

little that was before Perotin

One of the great pleasures is to listen to how rapidly music evolved from the 12th to the 18th century (albeit slower than in the last 200 years .... possibly)


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

satoru said:


> The earliest composer I'm actively correcting CDs is Dufay (c1397-1474), followed by Ockeghem (1410-1497). Nice polyphony works. I listen to their music when I want to calm myself down.


Yikes! I find Ockeghem's music exciting ... and Dufay's .... and most of the polyphony I've heard


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

Icarus said:


> To me, the mark of good early music is that it should sound like normal people might enjoy listening to it and playing it. Early music should not sound like wearing a hairshirt must feel.


Ok, come on .... own up if you're _'normal'_ - hahaha! :devil:


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Icarus said:


> To me, the mark of good early music is that it should sound like normal people might enjoy listening to it and playing it. Early music should not sound like wearing a hairshirt must feel.
> 
> I personally think human nature has changed very little over the last thousand years. Accordingly, when early music seems to be very difficult to listen to, that suggests to me that the sample which has been passed down to us is not entirely representative.


Actually, the 14th century, music-wise, was very much geared toward the intelligentsia rather than the "common folk". Not just with regards to "church music" (of which there was significantly less of by the major composers of that era than the previous era), but with secular music as well. There was even a movement of this time called the "Ars Subtilior", in which composers tried to stuff as many "for the in-crowd" musical tricks and complex devices as they could, going so far as to write the notation in a graphic and artistic manner that matched the subject of the piece.

As for pre-Baroque or early music being difficult for some, I would imagine that the difficulty is due to the bareness of early music compared to later music. There aren't any colorful orchestras or crazy harmonies to hide behind, just melodic lines, counterpoint and you.

Also, most of our perception of what makes a good melody come from the musical tradition of dances and are usually quite rhythmic. The early polyphonic composers inherited their ideas about what makes a good melody from chant, which by contrast is very unrhythmic. So a good melody by Renaissance polyphonic music standards can sound long and meandering compared to our normal perception of what a good melody should be and thus can sound difficult for some.


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## BillT (Nov 3, 2013)

Bach. Maybe Vivaldi, on a good day.

- Bill


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

For my CD collection:
Ambrosian and Gregorian chants
Hildegard von Bingen
Various renaissance composers

In practice, though I hardly ever listen to anything earlier than Vivaldi, and JS Bach is the first composer to get regular play on my CD schedule.


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## Autocrat (Nov 14, 2014)

I've listened to music from very early - 13th century perhaps. But not for a very long time. These days I rarely put on anything prior to the second half of the 19th century.


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## Guest (Jan 13, 2015)

violadude said:


> Actually, the 14th century, music-wise, was very much geared toward the intelligentsia rather than the "common folk". Not just with regards to "church music" (of which there was significantly less of by the major composers of that era than the previous era), but with secular music as well. There was even a movement of this time called the "Ars Subtilior", in which composers tried to stuff as many "for the in-crowd" musical tricks and complex devices as they could, going so far as to write the notation in a graphic and artistic manner that matched the subject of the piece.
> 
> As for pre-Baroque or early music being difficult for some, I would imagine that the difficulty is due to the bareness of early music compared to later music. There aren't any colorful orchestras or crazy harmonies to hide behind, just melodic lines, counterpoint and you.
> 
> Also, most of our perception of what makes a good melody come from the musical tradition of dances and are usually quite rhythmic. The early polyphonic composers inherited their ideas about what makes a good melody from chant, which by contrast is very unrhythmic. So a good melody by Renaissance polyphonic music standards can sound long and meandering compared to our normal perception of what a good melody should be and thus can sound difficult for some.


This sounds like a lot of theory to me. I wonder what the Gypsies were listening to and playing then? Or what kind of tunes a kid would play after he makes himself a simple recorder.

More specifically, the music which was "recorded" and passed on from the period to the present may been more geared toward the church/rulers/intelligentsia, but music is music and people are people. My guess is that in the taverns and in their homes people played much more lively music.

Having said all that, I'm arguing from zero knowledge, just intuition. I won't object if you choose to disagree.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

violadude said:


> I just checked my Itunes and the earliest pieces of music I have are a few reconstructed "Hurrian Hymns" written anonymously circa. 1225 BCE (or BC, if you prefer).
> 
> I think I just won this thread.


But do you listen to it regularly? (that's sort of the point in this thread)
I mean, everyone has listened to the Delphic Hymns once or twice.


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## Joris (Jan 13, 2013)

Icarus said:


> This sounds like a lot of theory to me. I wonder what the Gypsies were listening to and playing then? Or what kind of tunes a kid would play after he makes himself a simple recorder.
> 
> More specifically, the music which was "recorded" and passed on from the period to the present may been more geared toward the church/rulers/intelligentsia, but music is music and people are people. My guess is that in the taverns and in their homes people played much more lively music.
> 
> Having said all that, I'm arguing from zero knowledge, just intuition. I won't object again if you choose to disagree.


You're right, and lack of evidence - written music - doesn't mean it wasn't there or unimportant indeed. I believe that some music historian, Albert Seay, kinda actually did imply that in a book.

It's also funny to compare the 14th century with developments in the 20th century: isorhythm vs. serialism; graphical notation


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## Andolink (Oct 29, 2012)

The earliest music in my CD collection is circa 1160 (Leonin, Perotin and some of the troubadours).


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

violadude said:


> Actually, the 14th century, music-wise, was very much geared toward the intelligentsia rather than the "common folk". Not just with regards to "church music" (of which there was significantly less of by the major composers of that era than the previous era), but with secular music as well. There was even a movement of this time called the "Ars Subtilior", in which composers tried to stuff as many "for the in-crowd" musical tricks and complex devices as they could, going so far as to write the notation in a graphic and artistic manner that matched the subject of the piece.
> 
> Also, most of our perception of what makes a good melody come from the musical tradition of dances and are usually quite rhythmic. The early polyphonic composers inherited their ideas about what makes a good melody from chant, which by contrast is very unrhythmic. So a good melody by Renaissance polyphonic music standards can sound long and meandering compared to our normal perception of what a good melody should be and thus can sound difficult for some.





Icarus said:


> This sounds like a lot of theory to me. I wonder what the Gypsies were listening to and playing then? Or what kind of tunes a kid would play after he makes himself a simple recorder.
> 
> More specifically, the music which was "recorded" and passed on from the period to the present may been more geared toward the church/rulers/intelligentsia, but music is music and people are people. My guess is that in the taverns and in their homes people played much more lively music.
> 
> Having said all that, I'm arguing from zero knowledge, just intuition. I won't object if you choose to disagree.


Weird. I've just been looking at http://www.talkclassical.com/35909-gautier-de-coincy-1177-a.html who was writing sacred songs to secular tunes. There was a constant interplay between popular and sacred music that we know very little about.One of the suspicions about De Coincy is that he studied music at Paris but also, as a typical student, was exposed to a whole range of popular music. None of this is formally documented.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> I mean, everyone has listened to the Delphic Hymns once or twice.


Um - no! 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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## Giordano (Aug 10, 2014)

These days, I rarely listen to anything prior to Renaissance polyphony, Dufay, Josquin, & Palestrina being my favorites.

I think it is pretty safe to guess that popular music at any time was of mainly two types: songs with simple accompaniment and dance music.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Machaut is the earliest composer to whom I listen regularly.


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## GhenghisKhan (Dec 25, 2014)

1600s are the earliest for me.


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## JACE (Jul 18, 2014)

I'll occasionally dip my toes in early music. But I don't regularly listen to anyone who preceded Bach.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I like the period where harmony began to be developed, and music was in several voices, but tonality and harmony as we know it had not developed yet. There was a lot of dissonance and weird voice movement. I guess the was the 1500s? There's a series of harmoni mundi CDs which show this: Tartini, Marini, and others.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

I'd say the further back you go the weirder (to us) it gets. If you find stuff from the 1500s weird, wait til you hear Machaut....


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Weird is very fascinating, though...


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## OlivierM (Jul 31, 2014)

I think my earliest cd is about greek music from the 6th or 9th century (sorry, it's late). Then up to the renaissance included.
I absolutely exclude anything baroque (oh I hate that period with all my heart) *edit* except for Bach and sacred vocal music, to skip directly to classical, excluding Mozart of course, which I can't stand, and from then up to yesterday's compositions.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> I like the period where harmony began to be developed, and music was in several voices, but tonality and harmony as we know it had not developed yet. There was a lot of dissonance and weird voice movement. I guess the was the 1500s? There's a series of harmoni mundi CDs which show this: Tartini, Marini, and others.


Biagio Marini's really a virtuoso fiddler and composer of the early 17th century.

Giuseppe Tartini is a virtuoso fiddler and composer of the early 18th century, famous as the original owner of the Lipinski Stradivarius. Like many a fiddler, he heard the devil playing at the foot of his bed. It is not known if he ever went to a crossroads for lessons (a la Robert Johnson)

European polyphonic vocal material really gets going with Léonin and Pérotin in the 12th century. (The oldest surviving piece of six-part music is the English rota Sumer is icumen in (c. 1240).) This was further developed by Machaut in the 14th Century.

Things like the Eton Choirbook are a precursor of Tudor polyphony of the 16th century - Sheppard, Tallis, Tomkins, Taverner .


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## Joris (Jan 13, 2013)

^ This also got me interested!: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Choirs-Angels-Music-Eton-Choirbook/dp/B00BCU655G


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Giordano said:


> These days, I rarely listen to anything prior to Renaissance polyphony, Dufay, Josquin, & Palestrina being my favorites.
> 
> I think it is pretty safe to guess that popular music at any time was of mainly two types: songs with simple accompaniment and dance music.


I guess there would've been a lot of stuff like lullabies, songs for children, work songs, popular religious music (including the music of "witchcraft," various rituals such as healing magic or love magic performed without the church's guidance). Maybe that's all covered under "songs with simple accompaniment."

I have a theory that all ordinary human minds contain a certain amount of music. If that's even nearly right, every normal peasant in the Middle Ages had as much music in her head as you or I do, and it's nearly all lost!


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

OlivierM said:


> I think my earliest cd is about greek music from the 6th or 9th century (sorry, it's late). Then up to the renaissance included.
> I absolutely exclude anything baroque (oh I hate that period with all my heart) *edit* except for Bach and sacred vocal music, to skip directly to classical, excluding Mozart of course, which I can't stand, and from then up to yesterday's compositions.


'Hate' almost all Baroque, 'can't stand' Mozart - gosh! What a lot of excellent music is thrown away


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Headphone Hermit said:


> 'Hate' almost all Baroque, 'can't stand' Mozart - gosh! What a lot of excellent music is thrown away


These sort of wholesale dismissals usually indicate someone with narrow tastes and/or little listen experience. However, it seems, they are often provided to demonstrate a belief in a unique and specific sensibility - one that can only be satisfied by very particular things!

Me, my knowledge of early music is pretty limited. I've enjoyed Monteverdi and Gesualdo for a while, but have recently found Machaut and Perotin/Leonin fairly interesting - not hugely so, but enough to go back. The door is certainly open!


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## OlivierM (Jul 31, 2014)

dgee said:


> These sort of wholesale dismissals usually indicate someone with narrow tastes and/or little listen experience. However, it seems, they are often provided to demonstrate a belief in a unique and specific sensibility - one that can only be satisfied by very particular things!
> 
> <3 <3 <3 I love generalizations. <3 <3 <3
> Actually I've listened to tons of these "things", and ultimately decided I would easily live without them.
> ...


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

OlivierM said:


> <3 <3 <3 I love generalizations. <3 <3 <3


Don't we all! 

Seriously, we are all trying to make sense of the universe by finding general principles that explain experience, and sometimes these principles have more than a few exceptions.
(Oops - another generalisation! )

It's true that early music sounds very unlike music from the high baroque, classical or romantic periods - but then so do the musics from those eras, each from each other. What unites them is that they are 'art' music now, even if they weren't originally, and so are treated seriously as beyond the whims of fashion.
(Done it again... )


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

The very earliest music was a guy beating a stick on the ground, going "Arrrrrrrrr...", but it was not recorded. So the next best thing is to listen to some John Cage.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> The very earliest music was a guy beating a stick on the ground, going "Arrrrrrrrr...", but it was not recorded. So the next best thing is to listen to some John Cage.


Nope. It was a woman beating on the guys head with a stick and saying "who's been out with the guys leaving me at home with the baby?"

After that, the guy went out and took it out on the ground.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

First Sound Waves Left Imprint on the Universe.



> The early universe rang with the sound of countless cosmic bells, which filled the primordial darkness with ripples like the surface of a pond pounded by stones. The wave fronts later served as spawning grounds for galaxies, astronomers announced Tuesday.


That is Tuesday, approximately ten years ago (negligible on the cosmic timescale), before science journalists discovered where to put things like "astronomers announced Tuesday" in humanoid sentences.


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## OlivierM (Jul 31, 2014)

Ingélou said:


> Don't we all!
> 
> Seriously, we are all trying to make sense of the universe by finding general principles that explain experience, and sometimes these principles have more than a few exceptions.
> (Oops - another generalisation! )
> ...


Haha yes indeed. But I dislike the baroque era beyond music, mostly for what it represents. In a way, it was quite a similar time to the one we live in: the cult of lies and dissimulation, extravagance and seeming instead of being, world is a theatre concept and so on. So no, I really don't like this era, and this profound dislike extends to the art that represents it.

But that leads us to the usual "what is art" question. And there, I'll just say "to each their own", as I wouldn't want to appear more conservative than I am, because I just spent hours over the last days listening to 8 and 16 bits computer music from the .mod era (from 20-30 years ago)


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> The very earliest music was a guy beating a stick on the ground, going "Arrrrrrrrr...", but it was not recorded. So the next best thing is to listen to some John Cage.


It was probably hunters imitating birdsong so they could shoot an arrow at their lunch; they practised in their caves and it gained them popularity with the women and children, so specialists arose - and then critics...


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## Giordano (Aug 10, 2014)

The sounds can be very different in different eras and genres. The music can be strikingly similar.


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## Fagotterdammerung (Jan 15, 2015)

Machaut is my earliest _regular_ listening experience... but I more or less start where polyphony does. :angel:


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## Manok (Aug 29, 2011)

I'll listen to any time period but my favorites seem to be between the 17-1890s. Long time period I know. I may break out the early Italian composers before I jaunt off to Italy soon.


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## BillT (Nov 3, 2013)

I've just gone back in my listening to a MUCH earlier era:


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I start with J.S. Bach.


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## Jos (Oct 14, 2013)

Sometimes I listen to Monteverdi, and enjoy it ! That is in fact the earliest I actually listen to

I have some albums with Gregorian chants and some very obscure renaissance vocal music that was published by TurnaboutVox, the recordcompany, not our resident stringquartetexpert 

http://www.talkclassical.com/29720-turnaboutvox-fair-play-6.html, #86

Can't realy listen to it, my ears need to be recalibrated.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Can anyone recommend any good recording of Ancient Greek or Roman music? Reconstructions I would suspect.


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## mushrider (Jan 14, 2015)

Baroque rarely.


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