| |
| | Music in Middle-Earth |
 | | The type of music developed to handle the poetry of the early Germanic peoples was Gregorian chant, one of five kinds of plainsong, a monophonic chant in free rhythm, as distinct from measured music. |
 | | Concerning musical instruments in Middle-earth, the Dwarves play "little fiddles," "flutes," "clarinets," "viols," "drums," and a "harp." In "Frodo's Song at Bree," a cat plays a "fiddle." "Durin's Song" mentions "harps" and "trumpets." In the Middle Ages, the harp was a basic instrument that was strummed between lines in Germanic lays. |
 | | It is not an ancestor of the Renaissance instrument and it is a contemporary, not an ancestor of the early violin. |
| www.phil.unt.edu /~hargrove/music.html (1739 words) |
|