Evolution of Music
Music has
been around for a lot longer than most of us may know, it has come an extremely
long way from where it started. If we really think about it, music has been
around since pre-historic times. It has been said that they used rocks and
sticks to act as what we know now as drums, they were said to represent animal
sounds in religious ceremonies. Unfortunately there was no notation or writings
of this form of music, but it’s been said that the sounds can be heard in the
music of South American Indians and African Natives that still believe in and
participate in those ancient religious practices.
As for other
instruments, it took some time for those to evolve. It’s been known that by 4000
BCE harps and flutes were created by the Egyptians, and by 3500 BCE clarinets
with double reeds had been developed. Around 2500 BCE in Denmark an early form
of a trumpet or now known as a “natural trumpet” was developed. It’s valve less
and depends completely on lip manipulation to change the pitch. In 1500 BCE one
of the most popular instruments was created by the Hittites. The guitar that
was complete with frets that change the sound of the vibrating strings, same
concept as today.
https://shoutgeelong.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/guitartimeline1.jpg
The evolution of guitars, same concept of design but still advancing more.
In 800 BCE
the first piece of recorded music was recovered. It was a religious hymn and
was written in cuneiform. Cuneiform are
wedge-shaped characters used in an ancient writing system developed by the
Sumerians in Mesopotamia, also in Persia, Ugarit. Mostly found impressed on
clay tablets. It’s been said that cuneiform is not a form of musical notation.
By 700 BCE there were records of songs that included vocal with instruments. In
ancient Rome and Greece around 600 BCE a mathematician Pythagorus looked at and
dissected music as a science developing a huge importance still used in modern
music: the octave scale. In 1000 CE
Guido D’Arezzo made some very important improvements in music theory. He
reworked standard notation by adding time signatures. He then invented solfege
best known as: “do, re, mi, fa, so, la
ti, do.” In 1100 CE a new movement began, the separation of church aspect
from music. This was not an easy battle and the new “folk style” music was definitely
looked down on and considered almost blasphemous by the church.
If you wish
to learn more details about any of the information above, you can visit: http://method-behind-the-music.com/history/history/
It has been believed that Thomas Edison was the first person to record sound or music but it has been found that the first “song” ever was recorded by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville nearly 20 years before Thomas Edison. He was a French printer, bookseller and also inventor of the phonautograph, which recorded sound waves of a voice and displayed them on a phonautogram which is a sheet of lines that recreated the pattern of the sounds. This piece was recorded on April 9th 1860 but the phonautograph could only record sounds not play them so it wasn’t heard until its rediscovery in 2008.
Here's a video of the first ever song that was found.
