Greek Modes and Emotions

The Ancient Greeks were very interested in music and music theory. A significant part of a treatise by Aristoxenus called On Harmonics that explains many major parts of Greek music has survived, so a lot is known about the Greek musical tradition. Unfortunately, there are less actual examples of Greek music that are preserved, with only about 45 hymns and compositions, and the earliest dating from probably the 1st century AD, surviving today.

One interesting thing about Greek music theory that I read about was their view on modes. For those without much music theory background, modes refer to different scales formed by starting on a different note from the typical major scale. So, for example, to play C Dorian mode, you play the notes of C Major scale but start and end on the D note. The two most frequently used keys in modern Western music are major and minor, both of which are modes (the Ionian and a sometimes modified Aeolian modes respectively). There are 7 modes starting on the 7 notes in a major key: Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Locrian. The names are all Greek sounding because the Greeks came up with this modal system. Music based on just the major and minor keys became dominant after the Middle Ages, but modal music has remained very influential to all music, especially with more modern music such as jazz or even genres like heavy metal using modes to make music. Modes besides the typical Ionian and Aeolian sound somewhat different or foreign to someone raised on Western music, so modes are often used because of this effect.

The Greeks had some interesting ideas about the modes; most notably, Plato discusses them in The Republic. Plato saw music as an important part of education, but Plato, and presumably many Greeks, assigned different feelings and emotions to different modes. In particular, he said that music composed in the Dorian and Phrygian modes should be the only kind listened to by philosophers in their education. In The Republic, Plato claims Dorian would "fittingly imitate the utterances and accents of a brave man who is engaged in warfare," and Phrygian is good "for a man engaged in works of peace." These conclusions about the characteristics of different modes were probably mostly based on cultural context as it's kind of unconvincing to say Dorian is inherently warlike, but these ideas about musical modes are pretty interesting. To the modern ear, modes to have distinct sounds as we react to how they differ from typical Major and Minor scales (For example as shown in the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hyOlYfIxIM, Locrian can sound particularly ugly/jarring since it's centered on the Major scales leading tone). So according to Plato, if you want to get pumped up, listen to some nice Dorian music.