“It’s still Greek,” he insisted, fingers tapping nervously on his desk. “Alexander the Great conquered Persia. He taught them music. So when we borrowed it back from the Ottomans centuries later, we were just… reclaiming our heritage.”
This was the defense. A 2,300-year detour through Persian empires, Islamic conquests, Mongol invasions, and Ottoman courts, all to explain why modern Byzantine chant suddenly sounds suspiciously Turkish.
1. What’s in a Name? Everything.
In Byzantine music theory there exists a modulator called enharmonic. By default, it sets B♭ and produces a major tetrachord: bright, cheerful, and about as “grave” as a major-key birthday song. Yet it’s the hallmark of Grave Tone (F major and B♭ major). Its official name? Atzem (Ατζέμ).
To the untrained ear it sounds Greek. It’s written in Greek letters. It appears in Greek music books. Surely it must be ancient Byzantine tradition. Except it isn’t.
Atzem comes straight from Ottoman Turkish Acem, which comes from Arabic Ajam, a word that literally means “Persian,” “foreign,” or “non-Arab.” And in modern Greek, it came to mean “clumsy” (ατζαμής). The Persians themselves called this scale “the foreign one.” So when traditionalists defend Atzem as sacred, pure Byzantine heritage, they are passionately defending a mode that the Ottomans openly called “Persian” and the Persians openly called “foreign.”
2. B♭ Major: A Byzantine Tradition Since 1814
What does this pseudo-enharmonic scale actually sound like in practice?
B♭ – C – D – E♭ – F – G – A – B♭.
The Western major scale. Happy Birthday. Twinkle Twinkle. The happy scale. This is now the “enharmonic genus” of Byzantine chant. The Western Diatonic.
In actual ancient Greek music theory, the enharmonic genus meant microtonal quarter-tones. Tiny intervals that sound exotic and nothing like a major scale. Early Byzantines modulated to this difficult genus using “fthora Nana“. By the time Chrysanthos of Madytos formalized the New Method in 1814–1815, that original microtonal enharmonic had long been abandoned as too difficult to sing. The only remaining relic nowadays is the Tilt, a shade affecting a tetrachord (which theorists can’t seem to get right either). Chrysanthos kept the ancient name and the Nana sign, but quietly repurposed them for the practical, singable B♭ scale that had already entered chant through Ottoman makam Acem. He even kept the Ottoman name.
B♭ is the standard pitch for makam Ajam in Arabic tradition. And Chrysanthos? He formalized the Byzantine version… on B♭. Not C major, not G major, but the exact same B♭ that the Persians and Ottomans used. If this were ancient Byzantine tradition, passed down through centuries of sacred practice, why does it default to the precise pitch of an Ottoman import? The B♭ is Persian by way of Turkish. The placement itself is the receipt.
Chrysanthos, attempting to blend this new import in his system, made several mistakes:
- Here’s the tell: unlike other modulators, Atzem doesn’t create a complete scale; it only affects four notes at a time. Chrysanthos had to patch it together because he was trying to force an Ottoman practice into a Byzantine theoretical framework. It shows.
- He used two placements initially: B♭ for the major scale (the default placement) and also another placement, on F, with completely different function as an attempt to also import the D Harmonic Minor Western scale with a leading tone. Two Western scales, one clumsy symbol. He was being ατζαμής.
- Modern composers use this convoluted system to write what Western theory calls D Phrygian: A standard mode taught in freshman music theory. But to maintain the illusion of Byzantine purity, they dress it up as “Plagal 1st Tone pentaphonic enharmonic“. It’s not Plagal 1st Tone, it’s not pentaphonic and it’s definitely not enharmonic. It’s Phrygian.
Traditionalists defend the Atzem drama as untouchable ancient tradition, while simultaneously attacking anyone who suggests using Western notation or developing polyphonic harmony, which Byzantine AND Ancient Greek music actually had before the Ottoman period.
3. A Brief Timeline of “Ancient Tradition”
- 330 BC: Alexander the Great conquers Persia. (We’ll come back to this.)
- 1453: Ottomans conquer Constantinople. Greek musicians now live inside an empire whose court music includes Acem.
- 1500s–1700s: Ottoman makam steadily seeps into post-Byzantine chant through cultural osmosis. Nobody calls it “innovation” at the time, it just happens.
- 1814–1815: Chrysanthos publishes the New Method. He standardizes the system, gives the Ottoman modulations Greek names, and explicitly labels the B♭ scale “enharmonic/atzem.”
- 2026: Traditionalists defend this as pure, ancient Byzantine tradition and label any alternative “Western corruption.”
Notice what’s missing from this timeline? Any evidence of B♭ major through Atzem BEFORE Ottoman contact.
4. The Alexander Defense: The Most Spectacular Cope in Music History
Traditionalists, when pressed, do admit the Ottoman connection. Then comes the twist:
“Yes, Atzem comes from Ottoman Acem, which comes from Persian Ajam. But Alexander the Great conquered Persia and taught them Greek music. So when the Persians used it, they were using Greek knowledge. Which means when the Ottomans borrowed it, they were borrowing Greek music. Which means when we borrowed it from the Ottomans… we were just taking back what was ours.”
By this reasoning, Turkish coffee is Greek, Persian carpets are Greek, and the Taj Mahal is Greek (Alexander reached India, after all).
The Persians themselves called the scale Ajam, “foreign.” They were more honest about its origins than the modern defenders are.
5. The Hypocrisy
The same voices who defend Atzem as sacred and untouchable are the ones who attack modern Byzantine polyphony as “Western corruption.”
What they are defending:
- Ottoman modulation system
- Turkish terminology
- Persian-derived scale
- Western major scale (via Ottoman route)
What they are attacking:
- Polyphonic harmony (which existed long before Ottoman influence)
- Western notation (which would make the repertoire accessible to actual musicians)
- Scholarly restoration of pre-Ottoman practices
They are defending the historical corruption while attacking the restoration.
6. Let’s Call It What It Is: Western
The major and minor scales with leading tones are neither Byzantine nor Ottoman. They are Western. Functional tonal system with leading tone resolutions developed in Europe between the Renaissance and Baroque periods. These are the scales that built everything from Bach to the Beatles.
I don’t care whether the Persians borrowed them, how they named them, or how many centuries they spent traveling through Ottoman courts wearing a fez. The scales are still Western in function.
Here is the exquisite irony: the same traditionalists who defend Atzem (a Western major scale wearing Ottoman robes) viciously attack modern Byzantine polyphony as “Western corruption.” Yet in polyphony we openly use major and minor scales when appropriate. We don’t dress them up as “enharmonic genus” or “ancient Byzantine tradition.” We call them what they are: major and minor scales.
We cannot keep pretending that Western and Ottoman borrowings are “sacred ancient tradition” while branding any real innovation “corruption” simply because it doesn’t fit our school of thought. Or, more accurately, our indoctrination.
The traditionalists will invoke Alexander the Great, cite “unbroken tradition,” and call this blasphemy. Let them. History already knows who is being honest about the scales we actually use.