Music's Beginning

Music is found in every known culture, past and present, varying widely between times and places. Since all people of the world, including the most isolated tribal groups, have a form of music, it may be concluded that music is likely to have been present in the ancestral population before the dispersal of humans around the world. Consequently, the first music may have been invented in Africa and then evolved to become a fundamental constituent of human life. Listed below are some of the examples of where different types of music were produced.

Ancient music

Ancient music is the name given to the music that followed. The oldest known song was written in cuneiform, dating to 3400 years ago from Ugarit in Syria. It was a part of the Hurrian songs, more specifically Hurrian hymn no. 6. It was deciphered by Anne Draffkorn Kilmer, and was demonstrated to be composed in harmonies of thirds, like the ancient game, and also was written using a Pythagorean tuning of the diatonic scale.

The oldest surviving example of a complete musical composition, including musical notation, from anywhere in the world, is the Seikilos epitaph. Double pipes, such as those used by the ancient Greeks, and ancient bagpipes, as well as a review of ancient drawings on vases and walls, etc., and ancient writings which described musical techniques of the time, indicate polyphony. One pipe in the aulos pairs likely served as a drone or “keynote,” while the other played melodic passages. Instruments, such as the seven holes flute and various types of stringed instruments have been recovered from the Indus valley civilization archaeological sites.

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Indian classical music can be found in the scriptures of the Hindu tradition, the Vedas. Samaveda, one of the four Vedas, describes music at length. Ravanahatha is a bowed fiddle popular in western India. It is believed to have originated in the Hela civilization of Sri Lanka in the time of King Ravana. This string instrument has been recognized as one of the oldest string instruments in world history. The history of musical development in Iran dates back to the prehistoric era. The great legendary king, Jamshid, is credited with the invention of music. Music in Iran can be traced back to the days of the Elamite Empire. Fragmentary documents from various periods of the country’s history establish that the ancient Persians possessed an elaborate musical culture. The Sassanid period, in particular, has left us ample evidence pointing to the existence of lively musical life in Persia. The names of some important musicians such as Barbod, Nakissa, and Ramtin, and the titles of some of their works have survived. The early music era may also include contemporary but traditional or folk music, including Asian music, Persian music, music of Indian, Jewish music, Greek music, Roman music, the music of Mesopotamia, the music of Egypt, and Muslim music.

Greece

Greek written history extends far back into Ancient Greece and was a major part of ancient Greek theatre. In ancient Greece, mixed-gender choruses were performed for entertainment, celebration, and spiritual reasons. Instruments including the double-reed aulos and the plucked string instrument, the lyre, especially the special kind called a kithara. Music was an important part of education in ancient Greece, and boys were taught music starting at age six.

Biblical period

According to Easton’s Bible Dictionary, Jubal was named by the Bible as the inventor of musical instruments. The Hebrews were much given to the cultivation of music. Their whole history and literature afford abundant evidence of this. After the Deluge, the first mention of music is in the account of Laban’s interview with Jacob. After their triumphal passage of the Red Sea, Moses, and the children of Israel sang their song of deliverance. But the period of Samuel, David, and Solomon was the golden age of Hebrew music, as it was of Hebrew poetry. Music was now for the first time systematically cultivated. It was an essential part of training in the schools of the prophets. There now arose also a class of professional singers.

Solomon’s Temple, however, was a great school of music. In the conducting of its services large bands of trained singers and players on instruments were constantly employed. In private life also music seems to have held an important place among the Hebrews. Music and theatre scholars studying the history and anthropology of Semitic and early Judea-Christian culture, have also discovered common links between theatrical and musical activity in the classical cultures of Hebrews with those of the later cultures of the Greeks and Romans. The common area of performance is found in a “social phenomenon called litany,” a form of prayer consisting of a series of invocations supplications. The Journal of Religion and Theatre notes that among the earliest forms of litany, “Hebrew litany was accompanied by a rich musical tradition.”

Classical music era

The music of the Classical period is characterized by homophonic texture or an obvious melody with accompaniment. These new melodies tended to be almost voice-like and singable, allowing composers to replace singers as the focus of the music. Instrumental music therefore quickly replaced opera and t=other sung forms as the favorite of the musical audience and the epitome of great composition. However, opera did not disappear: during the classical period, serval composers began producing operas for the general public in their native languages. Along with the gradual displacement of the voice in favor of stronger, clearer melodies, counterpoint also typically became a decorative flourish, often used near the end of a work or for a single movement. In its stead, simple patterns, such as arpeggios and, in piano music, Alberti bass, were used to liven the movement of the piece without creating a confusing additional voice. The now-popular instrumental music was dominated by several well-defined forms: the sonata, the symphony, and the concerto, though none of these were specifically defined or taught at the time as they are now in music theory. All three derive from sonata the form, which is both the overlying form of an entire work and the structure of a single movement. Sonata form matured during the Classical era to become the primary form of instrumental compositions throughout the 19th century. The early Classical period was ushered in by the Mannheim School, which included such composers as Johann Stamitz, Franz Xaver Richter, Carl Stamitz, and Christian Cannabich. It exerted a profound influence on Joseph Haydn and through him, on all subsequent European music. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was the central figure of the Classical period, and his phenomenal and varied output in all genres defines our perception of the period. Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert were transitional composers, leading into the Romantic period, with their expansion of existing genres, forms, and even functions of music.

Romantic music

In the Romantic period, music became more expressive and emotional, expanding to encompass literature, art, and philosophy. Famous early Romantic composers included Schumann, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Bellini, Donizetti, and Berlioz. The late 19th century saw a dramatic expansion in the size of the orchestra, and the role of concerts as part of urban society. Famous composers from the second half of the century include Johann Strauss II, Brahms, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, and Wagner. Between 1890 and 1910, the 19th-centurythe19th-century third wave of composers including Grieg, Dvořák, Mahler, Richard Strauss, Puccini, and Sibelius built on the work of the sonata of the middle Romantic composers to create even more complex – and often much longer – musical works. A prominent mark of late 19th-century music is its nationalistic fervor, as exemplified by such figures as Dvořák, Sibelius, and Grieg. Other prominent late-century figures include Saint-Saëns, Fauré, Rachmaninoff, and ancient ad Franck.