Music was almost universally present in ancient Greek society, from marriages, funerals, and religious ceremonies to theatre, folk music, and the ballad-like reciting of epic poetry. This played an integral role in the lives of ancient Greeks. There are some fragments of actual Greek musical notation, many literary references, depictions on ceramics and relevant archaeological remains, such that some things can be known—or reasonably surmised—about what the music sounded like, the general role of music in society, the economics of music, the importance of a professional caste of musicians, etc.
Ancient Greek warrior playing the salpinx, late 6th–early 5th century BC, Attic black-figure (lekythos)
Musical scene with three women painted by the Niobid painter. Side A of a red-figure amphora, Walters Art Museum
A 17th-century representation of the Greek muses Clio, Thalia, and Euterpe playing a transverse flute, presumably the Greek photinx.
The Cylix of Apollo with the tortoise-shell (chelys) lyre, on a 5th century BC drinking cup (kylix)
Musical notation is any system used to visually represent auditorily perceived music, played with instruments or sung by the human voice through the use of symbols, including notation for durations of absence of sound such as rests. For this reason, the act of deciphering or reading a piece using musical notation, is known as "reading music".
A photograph of the original stone at Delphi containing the second of the two Delphic Hymns to Apollo. The music notation is the line of occasional symbols above the main, uninterrupted line of Greek lettering.
Music notation from an early 14th-century English Missal
Early music notation
Jeongganbo musical notation system
