Major Personalities behind the Secularization of Music
Major Personalities behind the Secularization of MusicMusic has been with us for a very long while. In fact, part of being human is an appreciation of the finer arts. However, music's role has remained anything but constant throughout history. Music has gone from a mathematical science to a synthesis of melody and harmony. Many wonderful pieces have been written for religious purposes. Many more have been written for the secular world. The art of music has not always been that way. The Roman Catholic Church, for the longest time, was the only source of music that was approved by societies. Little by little, that changed. The secularization of music could not have occurred with out a secularization of the whole of western culture itself. While no one person can be single handedly responsible, there were many people who contributed to the gradual move of music away from the church.
To understand some of the later developments that were made in music, one has to look back on the beginning of western musical thought. Many people associate the beginning of the western world with the tribes that migrated and eventually conquered the Pelopeniasian lands, the area that was eventually called Greece. Greece was one of the first cultures to emerge in the west outside of the Fertile Crescent. It was certainly the first to leave clues as to how the culture thought. Greek scholars like Aristotle, believed that music should be grouped up as to its purpose. There was the solemn, disciplined and restrained music, Apollonian, and the wild, emotional, unrestrained music, the Dianysian. The Apollonian was usually reserved for the serious moments where wild displays of raw emotions were looked down upon. That included prayers, religious services and funerals. The Dianysian was the music used for dancing and celebrating. The whole of the Greek musical theory revolved on keeping those distinctions in mind. The Greeks viewed music as a science. That is an important point. The fact that the Greeks looked at it as a science rather than a religious experience let them have more freedom to study than the later cultures. It was a science, and the nature of science is experimenting. "What if you jiggle your left index finger on that high note?" If there is five hundred years of doctrine saying it is a sin to do that, a composer will feel less inclined to add it in. If you are in a culture that celebrates music as a science, a composer feels they have more freedom to add anything they want in. Rome was an extension of Greece. They were a conquering race of people who had a history of taking what they wanted from a conquered enemy and burning the rest. The Romans were very impressed with the theory of music that the Greeks had. They took it back to Rome and altered it slightly to please them. One of the ideas the Romans kept was separate types of music. There was "Music of...
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