Pythagorean tuning

There is pretty convincing evidence that "Pythagorean" tuning was known
to the Sumerians and Akkadians from the 3rd Millenium BCE. The Greeks
themselves said that it was the oldest tuning and it is very plausible
that Pythagoras learned of it from Babylonian or Egyptian sources. What
may be original with him or his school is the expression of the
intervals by numbers.

Indigenous Greek music seems to have been based on the semitonal-major
third pentatonic, which later evolved into the microtonal enharmonic
genus. This pentatonic is still widely distributed in Japan, South
India, Ethiopia, etc.

The Chinese claim to have discovered the same tuning system in, IIRC,
the 27th century BCE, but this early date is thought by most scholars,
Chinese and western, to be very exaggerated. It may be that they got the
tuning via the Tochars from the Babylonians or Persians after
Alexander's conquests, though they could have easily discovered it
themselves, of course.

--John