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my brain at 2am:

WAIT.

don't sleep yet. don't you ever think about how we don't actually know how medieval music sounds like? and how the publics idea of it has been ultimately skewed by hollywood and fantasy genre? 

granted, we do have some idea about tunes from the time based on surviving manuscripts and remains of the instruments. however, the actual melodies and the length of each carried tone is left really only to our imagination. no sensible notation system existed back then (we do know merely about the number of notes and halftones between them. some notations make notes bigger or smaller, however we don't really know what it may mean.) almost all knowledge about music was passed on by spoken word.

isn't it fucked up that because of literacy of the church, most that we know about is acapella choir and monophonic chants? only around the XIII century we find records of polyphony, on notre dame's organ no less. do you ever wonder how many folk melodies we've lost because of how the church wanted the peasantry uneducated and illiterate.

yeah, listen to this tavern bardcore medievalcore music and cry yourself to sleep, knowing that not you, nor anybody else in this world will know the true sound of medieval music.


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Hazel

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Truly sad. It's similar to how we can never hear how dinosaurs sound like. We only get the Hollywood versions and those that scientists are trying to conjure out of the remains, but we'll never know. Hell, we'll never know what dinosaurs really LOOKED like. That's the sad part about the past, especially ancient history... unless we invent time traveling.


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i would give anything to time travel JUST toknow for SURE and document everything perfectly. all these civilisations, species, traditions, all long forgotten. i don't pretend to be noble, all that drives me is passion and curiosity and hunger for more, but they all deserve to be remembered.

by sol; ; Report