Why Is the Study of Prehistoric and Ancient Music Important? What Can We Learn From It?

Music has been around since the offset of fourth dimension. It has been a form of advice and community since before at that place were even communities (haha). But because drawings, the written word, photographs, movies, the Internet, etc. haven't been around as long to document our cultural history, we only accept a small amount of knowledge about the early ancestry of music. However! We practice have some information about early music, and so that'south what nosotros're going to talk near today.

Prehistoric music is the earliest music. This musical grouping, also known equally "primitive music," categorizes all of the music created in preliterate cultures. And so this is before people could read and write. (Fun fact: literacy is believed to have emerged around eight,000 BCE with the development of basic, logical math.) This time period is likewise known every bit prehistory, which means – quite literally – "before history;" before any written record of history and culture ever existed. And so, historians don't actually know much about how music exactly got started. Some think that music grew out of naturally occurring sounds and rhythms, and human-fabricated music perchance echoed these patterns. Historians likewise retrieve the beginning musical instrument was quite perchance the human voice. That being said, other prehistoric musical instruments did be. In 2004, the oldest known wooden pipes were found in Ireland (wooden pipes! Read more hither), and in 2008, archaeologists discovered a flute fabricated out of bone in Germany (known every bit the Hohle Fels Flute, pictured below). The musical instrument is somewhere between 43,000-35,000 years old.

And then unfortunately we don't have whatsoever recordings of prehistoric music. Nosotros might be able to imagine what it sounded like, though. Film this: a prehistoric band made of bone flutes, wooden or shell-made percussion, and man voices working together to create sound.

Then comes the time period ofAncient Music. Aboriginal music categorizes all music created in literate cultures (they could read and write at this indicate). *Side annotation: we don't actually have a engagement as to when the Ancient music period began; all we know is that it started later on cultures began reading and writing.* What'southward cool most Ancient music is that because cultures became literate and started writing stuff down, we actually have a small record of what the music was like from this time. Cuneiform tablets (cuneiform is one of the earliest writing systems) from four,000 years ago have been found to accept some grade of musical notation. In fact, these tablets are believed by historians to indicate a two-stringed lyre (a stringed instrument similar to a harp; popular in Ancient Greece), describe notes like to a diatonic scale (a calibration such as C-D-E-F-G), and record the earliest known melodies. Other clues about Ancient music come from illustrations, such as this ane fromThe Odyssey, past Homer, showing a musical operation:

And this image hither shows a tablet of Ancient Greek musical annotation:

To learn more about how historians have figured out how to read ancient music, click here.

Music in ancient cultures, especially Sumer civilisation (southern Mesopotamia), was an of import office of religious and civic life. Many songs and musical instruments were written and played to honor their gods. Click hither to read about an awesome project headed by singer and composer Stef Connor on reconstructing aboriginal Sumerian music. (There's also a sample of her album,The Alluvion, which is her singing ancient Sumerian music. It's really absurd.) For more examples of what aboriginal Sumerian music might have sounded like, check out the video below:

This leads us to the Song ofSeikilos. The Song ofSeikilos is the oldest known complete written composition (written around 200 BCE), and information technology was engraved on an aboriginal tombstone in Turkey. The text is signed by Seikilos, an Ancient Grecian, to Euterpe (probably his wife), and the translation is as follows:

While you live, smoothen

accept no grief at all

life exists simply for a curt while

and time demands an finish.

Here is a modern recording of the piece (the music starts at 0:25). This recording is based on a historical understanding of Ancient Greek musical notation and linguistic communication:

Historians end the Ancient music era effectually 500 CE. As a transition to the next post in this detail series (which will be on Medieval music), I'd like to briefly hash out music during Biblical times. At that place are several references to music in the Old Attestation: Gen. 4:21, Gen. 31:27, i Sam. 10:five are a few. In many cases, music was used to praise and worship God. Hebrew churches sang antiphonal chants (sort of like a call-and-response chant between the church leader or choir and audience; often to words in the Book of Psalms) in their religious services too as hymn songs (some of these hymn songs were chant-similar with multiple voices while others were just i voice).

Cool fact: in some Erstwhile Attestation scrolls, minor markings were written in a higher place the text of various psalms. Modern scholars accept translated those markings into a system of music notation called ta'amim .

New Attestation and Christian era music (at the tail finish of the Ancient music era), sadly, was passed through aural tradition rather than written tradition, then nosotros don't accept much at that place by style of a historical tape. It is believed that Aboriginal Hebrew music, the antiphonal chants and hymn songs and other music discussed in the Old Attestation, directly influenced and was integrated into the music of the early Christian church building. In fact, the earliest music annotation organisation used by the early Christian church building is very similar to the ta'amim of the Hebrew church building.

*The featured image of this post is an Ancient Egyptian epitome depicting string instruments.

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Source: https://pianistmusings.com/2016/09/30/music-history-prehistoric-and-ancient-music/

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