Ancient music

Since we have an overview for Medieval music, it is natural to ask about even earlier music. In fact, this question has drawn quite a bit of interest here. To remain analogous to the rest of the FAQ, this section will only treat Western cultures. Whereas there is some argument that certain repertories in other cultures date back to ancient times, the topic has also been less studied under the standards of Western academia. We will not debate the merits of such distinctions here, only acknowledge them.
Of course, it must also be noted that performances of this music are even more provisionary than they are for medieval music. Everything is more distant from us, in terms of notation and its interpretation, but perhaps more significantly the volume of material is so small that it is more difficult to be buoyed by internal consistencies. The volume of textual and iconographic evidence is also vastly smaller, but fortunately not nonexistent.
The ancient repertory which has drawn the most attention is that from Ancient Greece. A rather broad range of fragmentary sources do survive, including both vocal & instrumental music, although not enough to fill more than a single volume. Of course, the effect of musical ideas on such ancient philosophers as Pythagoras is well known, and so stimulates interest. A recent interpretation of scholarly merit: