The Extensive History of Music

TechnicLePanther · 08-01-2015, 09:38 AM

Introduction

Music. Probably what you're reading this about. Wikipedia defines it as "an art form whose medium is sound and silence". I believe this is the most accurate description of music. After all, music is extremely diverse, and at its extremes, music is pretty much just sound and silence. However, music also incorporates simple concepts such as harmony, melody, and rhythm. Usually, music is broken up into segments. Songs, compositions, albums, and the like are all ways of separating one piece of music from another.

Music goes back and forth a lot. A song from 2012 may end up sound like one from 1942. A song from 1167 may sound peculiarly like a song from 2015. The composer may not intend to be "remaking" someone else's work, but instead it is a strange coincidence. However, there are also some times when one person actually remakes another's work. This is usually called a "cover". The goal of this handy-dandy guide to the history of music is to stay away from jumping around as much as possible. As I move through this guide, I will also attempt to move through time, starting with the earliest music, and ending today.

I will also be operating under the assumption that anything that anyone calls music, is music, because I have no time to deliberate what is and isn't. Of course, some things will certainly be covered more thoroughly than others, but I will attempt to match the significance of a particular person, genre, or era to the amount of time spent covering it.

Now that the ground rules have been laid, I believe it's safe for me to begin my tale.

Table of Contents

Getting Started - Finding Point A and Zoomusicology
Prehistory - Instruments and the Paleolithic Flutes
Tribal Music - But Really Just Africa
Music of Ancient Greece - Pythagoras and Instruments

Trollheart · 08-01-2015, 03:24 PM

You really do love these massive, overarching projects don't you? You're worse than me! Best of luck with it; hope it works out for you but you do know you've taken on an almost impossible task to finish here, don't you? Perhaps your grandchildren can complete your life's work when you're long gone.

Kudos though and you certainly have balls to attempt something like this. I'll be reading...

TechnicLePanther · 08-02-2015, 04:10 PM

Getting Started

Before we begin our journey, we have to establish our starting point, and our destination. Our destination seems pretty simple. Today, right? Actually, there is no twist here. We end at the modern world. However, the starting point is much harder to take care of. Where did music begin? Let's see if we can figure it out.

Finding Point A

This may just be the hardest part of our journey. The origin of music has been debated over, researched, and then debated over again. Given our current definition of music, it began when the universe began. After all, that's when noise began. But we're not going to talk about atomic bombs or potato farmers when we talk about music (I think). My point is that our current definition seems a bit broad. So how about this. Music is noise intentionally made for outward expression. If music is intended to be music, then it is music. Using that definition, we could go back to the first piece of music ever written.

Likely, the actual first piece of music ever written is completely unavailable to the modern world. However, we can't talk about that if we wanted to. The oldest complete piece of written music that we know of today is the Seikilos epitaph. It was written in ancient Greek musical notation, and was discovered on a tombstone in Turkey. You can listen to a performance of it on Youtube. Its age very obviously shows.

However, there is another partially incomplete fragment of older music. Known collectively as the "Hurrian songs", they are a collection of hymns and melodies. Most of them are almost completely faded away, but one almost complete writing is known. The Hurrian hymn no. 6 could certainly be considered the oldest substantial piece of recorded music. So, that's where we should begin right?

Maybe. Think about this. Just because music wasn't recorded doesn't mean it wasn't made. How long ago could music have been intentionally made for the purpose of expression. There have been some studies of zoomusicology. Perhaps animals around before humans were really the first musicians. After all, they have voices, and can intentionally make noises. So does that make it music? I believe so. So let's start there.

Zoomusicology

Animals making music. Seems very plausible. Everybody knows the term "birdsong". So what would animal music have sounded like? I believe most early music would have been mating calls. Deliberate calls made to express the animal's prowess as a mate. Perhaps early communication would have been music as well. Lots of grunting and tweeting and banging and shouting. Sounds like fun. I could say a ton about zoomusicology, and based on the amount of time it was probably around, it could take up almost all of this story. However, as most people aren't extremely interested in hearing me jabber on about a bunch of animals, I'll try and make this quick.

If you're into Darwinism, you may be asking yourself a question. Where is the line between human music and animal music? I believe it may lie in making music for the sake of making music. The first person to blow into a tube was most likely just screwing around. They didn't know a sound would come out of it. And when it did, they wanted to make the sound again. And then their friends wanted to make sounds come out of tubes. So everybody's blowing into wooden tubes, and then suddenly someone cuts a hole in their tube. When they cover the hole, everything is normal. When they don't cover the hole, a different sound is produced. Then suddenly, everyone has a hole in their wooden tube (excuse any innuendos to come out of this paragraph).

I think this was pretty much how the advent of music came about, except perhaps with vocal chords instead of piccolos. People started making noises for fun. It seems sometimes like people are born with music. Perhaps it was some giant evolutionary trick that beat and rhythm became parts of human nature. And when we discovered different tones, it opened up the doors for so many different melodies and harmonies. Or perhaps music was just random chance. Both of these theories are just that. Theories. They aren't history at all. So how do we go from point A, to history? The answer is prehistory.

Keep your ears open for the next part.

Trollheart · 08-02-2015, 05:49 PM

Excellent start. You've obviously given this a lot of thought. I particularly like when you talk about those Hurrian things and I think, yeah, so this is where it starts? Then you take a left turn and start talking about animals. Hell, if you really wanted to, you could talk about the music of the spheres, the sounds made in space. But what I would be interested in, before you move away from animals, is a short piece maybe on whalesong? That's always fascinated me, and I'd be interested in your take on it.

Great job so far.

YorkeDaddy · 08-02-2015, 07:15 PM

Awesome journal thus far. Like seriously amazing. If you ever managed to finish this while keeping each entry at the same level of quality it could be published as a truly incredible book.

So keep it up

TechnicLePanther · 08-02-2015, 07:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trollheart

But what I would be interested in, before you move away from animals, is a short piece maybe on whalesong?

I intend to return to animals in the future. Probably around the 20th century mark, the majority of linear movement will break down, as because of the explosion of genres, I'll be hopping around a lot.

TechnicLePanther · 08-11-2015, 11:30 AM

Prehistory

The prehistory of music is absolutely the longest period. The definition of prehistory is the time before written records. For music, this is simply the time before musical notation. The prehistory of music saw many facets of music root into the ground. These include genre, instruments, rhythm, melody, harmony, repetition, and pretty much any other part of music you can think of. All of these concepts were born without the scrutiny of the modern world.

So what was music like before historical records? The origin of music in human culture is kind of fuzzy. It could have began with motherese, or the strange communication between a mother and her infant. This seems the most likely theory, but there are certainly other valid ones. Music might have originally been made to attract a mate, or to communicate ideas to others, but this seems overly complicated in both cases. In any case, music would have to sound a certain way, so what did early music sound like?

Instruments

If you consider the human body an instrument, it's very likely that it was the first one. Clapping your hands, beating your chest, and vocalizing could all be considered examples of early music. If you don't consider the human body an instrument, then what is? I still haven't really put a definition on "instrument". Let's call it this: Any tools used for the purpose of making music.

So, pretty much anything could be an instrument, but only things used to make music actually are instruments. Using that definition, percussion most likely came first. Banging things together doesn't really require a whole lot of careful shaping. The first instruments constructed for the purpose of music making are hard to discern.
Many archaeological digs have uncovered objects that could possibly be instruments, but perhaps not. For instance, the bullroarer is an instrument that is certainly real. It used made by a attaching a cord to a shaped chunk of wood, and then swinging the wood around by holding the cord in your hand, usually above the head of the performer. The sound is modified by speeding up or slowing down the rotation speed, or lengthening and shortening the cord. Another example are the phalangeal whistles. These are made from human phalanges, or finger bones, which are cut so that when blown into, they produce a whistle-like sound. However, none of these enjoyed the popularity of one instrument pre-historically.

The Paleolithic Flutes

Most of these were found by digging around in Europe. They operate the same basic way a normal flute does, except today are probably more akin to recorders. Most of the ones we see today were made from bones, however it's likely that wooden ones were made as well. Pretty small category, but I wanted to make them their own section anyways. As the first instrument, they hold a particular importance in the history of music.

Oh boy, this post is already pretty long. Alright, how about this. I want to talk a bit about the genres of prehistory, and about particular cultures as well, so perhaps I'll save all of that for next time. Hope to see you there!

TechnicLePanther · 08-22-2015, 08:42 AM

Tribal Music

At this point in the timeline, music still isn't really a big deal in most places, but we already have a lot to talk about. Once culture began to emerge, music emerged with it. So let's discuss some of this music. The tribal music that most of us think of today is african. The sub-saharan portion of Africa display the most of the traits of tribal music, so that's where I'll focus when talking about this.

Music of Sub-Saharan Africa

In sub-saharan Africa, life is music. Music is used as a way to communicate, or for ceremonies. It is a way to represent blessings, or criticisms of members of the community. And rhythm is a major part of that. Therefore, the drum is almost certainly the most important instrument is African music. The music of sub-saharan Africa is heavily focused on syncopation and polyrhythms, or putting one rhythm over top of another.

This rhythmic style inspired several Western composers in the late 19th century, but really took their place in history due to the use of the rhythms in Afro-American genres such as blues, jazz, R&B, and hip-hop. I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, but just consider this a little spoiler for things to come.

The other lesser known characteristic of African music is their harmony. The most popular method of harmonizing is called "homophonic parallelism". It's a bit of a mouthful, but what it means is not. The idea is to match the motion of one note except on a seperate note. So, say the melody moves up a third. Then, the harmony would also move up a third. If the melody goes down a whole note, then the harmony would go down a whole note as well. Harmony can also be created by simply have a secondary melody that fits with the primary melody well. This can sometimes come in the form of an ostinato, or a small melody that repeats throughout the song, like much of modern popular music (bass lines, guitar riffs, etc.).

The last major characteristic of African tribal music is improvisation. Variations on the original melody or harmony are just the tip of the iceberg, as rhythmic variations are also very common. Listen to any piece of traditional African music, and you can hear the embellishments and small changes to invigorate repitition of a melody.

It's hard to accurately define the history of tribal music, because the era in which it is practiced goes from ancient history to today, with very little change or innovation. This plays into the traditionalism of many African societies. And yeah, I'm hitting a dead end here.

Let's head up north for the next post.

TechnicLePanther · 10-03-2015, 09:38 AM

So, now it's basically impossible to move ahead completely chronologically. It would be like trying to go over all history chronologically. It would just be boring and sound stupid. So, to make sure that distress does not occur, I'll now be taking things in my own totally logical order. And as most of the people reading this will be Western, we're going to start by going through European music quite a ways. Sorry if you're interested in Asia, but you'll just have to wait for that. So, to start with European music, it would be most effecient to start with the most ancient. And where would you find the most ancient European music?

The Music of Ancient Greece

If I wasn't telling you right now, would you know that the Ancient Greeks were probably the first to use the word "music"? It turns out, the word is derived from the name of the Greek goddesses also known as the "Muses", or the daughters of Zeus and the patron goddess of creative endeavors (the arts). The Muses would directly inspire the word "muse", which ironically would go on to become the name of one of the most popular bands of the modern era. Hmm.

Anyways, music was tied into Greek culture. There are countless stories about the gods playing music for one purpose or another. However, actual tunes recovered from Ancient Greece are few and far between, mostly due to people coming and burning everything (multiple times). From several (and I mean like, literally three or so) writings of popular philosphers, most notably Plato, we can get a general idea of what Ancient Greek music was like.

First off, it was very simplistic. For as "advanced" a society as the Ancient Greeks were at the time, their music was likely very simple. They usually didn't play anything but one note at a time, and the rhythm of the music was mostly quarter note after quarter note after quarter note. Think Mary Had a Little Lamb. However, they were one of the first to relate music to math, most notably Pythagoras, and they used more than just whole and half steps, but even incorporated quarter (and may even smaller) steps into their music. However, it wouldn't have been very pleasing to the ear. This ties into the second point.

Second, the music wasn't made to "sound good". It was usually made to honor the gods, and therefore used different scales to represent different things. Their way of doing it was very complicated, but it can basically be related to the major key being for happy things, and the minor being for sad things. Same thing with Ancient Greece, except they had a zillion different slight variations.

Once Athens fell after the Peloponnesian War, the music actually started to be less based on the gods. If you ask me, they were a bit too obsessed with them anyways. Plato lamented the loss of religious values, but Socrates did a little jig in his grave.

The Instruments of Ancient Greece

Probably the most significant development of the Ancient Greek musical period were the instruments. For the first time, they were divided into percussion, strings, and winds, which was a bit of a development. They also probably had the first trumpets, although none have been recovered. Here are a few notable examples:

Lyre

Yeah, the lyre was a big deal. It was a stringed instrument that worked by pulling each string to a specific tightness, probably never adjustable. It would be strummed or plucked to produce a note.

Kithara

Also a strummed, stringed instrument, though it was much more complicated with a lyre. It was meant to be played with a plectrum, otherwise known as a pick for guitarists. The strings were stretched from a bar at the top to a box at the bottom. Wooden wedges were aligned along the bar, to allow this instrument to be tuned.

Aulos

This instrument was like an oboe, but with two pipes. There is some confusion over whether it used a single or double reed, however, it would work either way.

Pan Pipes

One of the first flutes, images of these can be found in most people's heads. They're essentially those small instruments with a series of pipes tied together, each pipe longer than the last to produce a different note. The note was produced by blowing across the top of the pipe.

Hydraulis

A forerunner to the organ, it created pressure in the pipes by compressing water towards them. And like the organ, it would be played with a keyboard, each key releasing air into a corresponding pipe.

And there really isn't much to say about the Music of Ancient Greece beyond that. Next time, we'll take a couple small detours before we get back on track with Europe. See you then!

Unknown Soldier · 10-03-2015, 10:27 AM

This is a great journal and the sort of thing that Trollheart would do, but you have done it in a less long-winded way.

08-01-2015, 09:38 AM	#1 (permalink)
TechnicLePanther and the livin' is easy... Join Date: Jun 2015 Location: New York Posts: 1,997	The Extensive History of Music Introduction Music. Probably what you're reading this about. Wikipedia defines it as "an art form whose medium is sound and silence". I believe this is the most accurate description of music. After all, music is extremely diverse, and at its extremes, music is pretty much just sound and silence. However, music also incorporates simple concepts such as harmony, melody, and rhythm. Usually, music is broken up into segments. Songs, compositions, albums, and the like are all ways of separating one piece of music from another. Music goes back and forth a lot. A song from 2012 may end up sound like one from 1942. A song from 1167 may sound peculiarly like a song from 2015. The composer may not intend to be "remaking" someone else's work, but instead it is a strange coincidence. However, there are also some times when one person actually remakes another's work. This is usually called a "cover". The goal of this handy-dandy guide to the history of music is to stay away from jumping around as much as possible. As I move through this guide, I will also attempt to move through time, starting with the earliest music, and ending today. I will also be operating under the assumption that anything that anyone calls music, is music, because I have no time to deliberate what is and isn't. Of course, some things will certainly be covered more thoroughly than others, but I will attempt to match the significance of a particular person, genre, or era to the amount of time spent covering it. Now that the ground rules have been laid, I believe it's safe for me to begin my tale. Table of Contents Getting Started - Finding Point A and Zoomusicology Prehistory - Instruments and the Paleolithic Flutes Tribal Music - But Really Just Africa Music of Ancient Greece - Pythagoras and Instruments __________________ Many have tried to destroy it... but... true evil never dies. It is only... REBORN *SUGGEST ME AN ALBUM* - I'm probably not going to listen to it but I will if you bother me enough. Last edited by TechnicLePanther; 10-03-2015 at 07:45 PM.

08-01-2015, 03:24 PM	#2 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,992	You really do love these massive, overarching projects don't you? You're worse than me! Best of luck with it; hope it works out for you but you do know you've taken on an almost impossible task to finish here, don't you? Perhaps your grandchildren can complete your life's work when you're long gone. Kudos though and you certainly have balls to attempt something like this. I'll be reading... __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

08-02-2015, 04:10 PM	#3 (permalink)
TechnicLePanther and the livin' is easy... Join Date: Jun 2015 Location: New York Posts: 1,997	Getting Started Before we begin our journey, we have to establish our starting point, and our destination. Our destination seems pretty simple. Today, right? Actually, there is no twist here. We end at the modern world. However, the starting point is much harder to take care of. Where did music begin? Let's see if we can figure it out. Finding Point A This may just be the hardest part of our journey. The origin of music has been debated over, researched, and then debated over again. Given our current definition of music, it began when the universe began. After all, that's when noise began. But we're not going to talk about atomic bombs or potato farmers when we talk about music (I think). My point is that our current definition seems a bit broad. So how about this. Music is noise intentionally made for outward expression. If music is intended to be music, then it is music. Using that definition, we could go back to the first piece of music ever written. Likely, the actual first piece of music ever written is completely unavailable to the modern world. However, we can't talk about that if we wanted to. The oldest complete piece of written music that we know of today is the Seikilos epitaph. It was written in ancient Greek musical notation, and was discovered on a tombstone in Turkey. You can listen to a performance of it on Youtube. Its age very obviously shows. However, there is another partially incomplete fragment of older music. Known collectively as the "Hurrian songs", they are a collection of hymns and melodies. Most of them are almost completely faded away, but one almost complete writing is known. The Hurrian hymn no. 6 could certainly be considered the oldest substantial piece of recorded music. So, that's where we should begin right? Maybe. Think about this. Just because music wasn't recorded doesn't mean it wasn't made. How long ago could music have been intentionally made for the purpose of expression. There have been some studies of zoomusicology. Perhaps animals around before humans were really the first musicians. After all, they have voices, and can intentionally make noises. So does that make it music? I believe so. So let's start there. Zoomusicology Animals making music. Seems very plausible. Everybody knows the term "birdsong". So what would animal music have sounded like? I believe most early music would have been mating calls. Deliberate calls made to express the animal's prowess as a mate. Perhaps early communication would have been music as well. Lots of grunting and tweeting and banging and shouting. Sounds like fun. I could say a ton about zoomusicology, and based on the amount of time it was probably around, it could take up almost all of this story. However, as most people aren't extremely interested in hearing me jabber on about a bunch of animals, I'll try and make this quick. If you're into Darwinism, you may be asking yourself a question. Where is the line between human music and animal music? I believe it may lie in making music for the sake of making music. The first person to blow into a tube was most likely just screwing around. They didn't know a sound would come out of it. And when it did, they wanted to make the sound again. And then their friends wanted to make sounds come out of tubes. So everybody's blowing into wooden tubes, and then suddenly someone cuts a hole in their tube. When they cover the hole, everything is normal. When they don't cover the hole, a different sound is produced. Then suddenly, everyone has a hole in their wooden tube (excuse any innuendos to come out of this paragraph). I think this was pretty much how the advent of music came about, except perhaps with vocal chords instead of piccolos. People started making noises for fun. It seems sometimes like people are born with music. Perhaps it was some giant evolutionary trick that beat and rhythm became parts of human nature. And when we discovered different tones, it opened up the doors for so many different melodies and harmonies. Or perhaps music was just random chance. Both of these theories are just that. Theories. They aren't history at all. So how do we go from point A, to history? The answer is prehistory. Keep your ears open for the next part. __________________ Many have tried to destroy it... but... true evil never dies. It is only... REBORN *SUGGEST ME AN ALBUM* - I'm probably not going to listen to it but I will if you bother me enough.

08-02-2015, 05:49 PM	#4 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,992	Excellent start. You've obviously given this a lot of thought. I particularly like when you talk about those Hurrian things and I think, yeah, so this is where it starts? Then you take a left turn and start talking about animals. Hell, if you really wanted to, you could talk about the music of the spheres, the sounds made in space. But what I would be interested in, before you move away from animals, is a short piece maybe on whalesong? That's always fascinated me, and I'd be interested in your take on it. Great job so far. __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

08-11-2015, 11:30 AM	#7 (permalink)
TechnicLePanther and the livin' is easy... Join Date: Jun 2015 Location: New York Posts: 1,997	Prehistory The prehistory of music is absolutely the longest period. The definition of prehistory is the time before written records. For music, this is simply the time before musical notation. The prehistory of music saw many facets of music root into the ground. These include genre, instruments, rhythm, melody, harmony, repetition, and pretty much any other part of music you can think of. All of these concepts were born without the scrutiny of the modern world. So what was music like before historical records? The origin of music in human culture is kind of fuzzy. It could have began with motherese, or the strange communication between a mother and her infant. This seems the most likely theory, but there are certainly other valid ones. Music might have originally been made to attract a mate, or to communicate ideas to others, but this seems overly complicated in both cases. In any case, music would have to sound a certain way, so what did early music sound like? Instruments If you consider the human body an instrument, it's very likely that it was the first one. Clapping your hands, beating your chest, and vocalizing could all be considered examples of early music. If you don't consider the human body an instrument, then what is? I still haven't really put a definition on "instrument". Let's call it this: Any tools used for the purpose of making music. So, pretty much anything could be an instrument, but only things used to make music actually are instruments. Using that definition, percussion most likely came first. Banging things together doesn't really require a whole lot of careful shaping. The first instruments constructed for the purpose of music making are hard to discern. Many archaeological digs have uncovered objects that could possibly be instruments, but perhaps not. For instance, the bullroarer is an instrument that is certainly real. It used made by a attaching a cord to a shaped chunk of wood, and then swinging the wood around by holding the cord in your hand, usually above the head of the performer. The sound is modified by speeding up or slowing down the rotation speed, or lengthening and shortening the cord. Another example are the phalangeal whistles. These are made from human phalanges, or finger bones, which are cut so that when blown into, they produce a whistle-like sound. However, none of these enjoyed the popularity of one instrument pre-historically. The Paleolithic Flutes Most of these were found by digging around in Europe. They operate the same basic way a normal flute does, except today are probably more akin to recorders. Most of the ones we see today were made from bones, however it's likely that wooden ones were made as well. Pretty small category, but I wanted to make them their own section anyways. As the first instrument, they hold a particular importance in the history of music. Oh boy, this post is already pretty long. Alright, how about this. I want to talk a bit about the genres of prehistory, and about particular cultures as well, so perhaps I'll save all of that for next time. Hope to see you there! __________________ Many have tried to destroy it... but... true evil never dies. It is only... REBORN *SUGGEST ME AN ALBUM* - I'm probably not going to listen to it but I will if you bother me enough. Last edited by TechnicLePanther; 08-15-2015 at 07:24 AM.

08-22-2015, 08:42 AM	#8 (permalink)
TechnicLePanther and the livin' is easy... Join Date: Jun 2015 Location: New York Posts: 1,997	Tribal Music At this point in the timeline, music still isn't really a big deal in most places, but we already have a lot to talk about. Once culture began to emerge, music emerged with it. So let's discuss some of this music. The tribal music that most of us think of today is african. The sub-saharan portion of Africa display the most of the traits of tribal music, so that's where I'll focus when talking about this. Music of Sub-Saharan Africa In sub-saharan Africa, life is music. Music is used as a way to communicate, or for ceremonies. It is a way to represent blessings, or criticisms of members of the community. And rhythm is a major part of that. Therefore, the drum is almost certainly the most important instrument is African music. The music of sub-saharan Africa is heavily focused on syncopation and polyrhythms, or putting one rhythm over top of another. This rhythmic style inspired several Western composers in the late 19th century, but really took their place in history due to the use of the rhythms in Afro-American genres such as blues, jazz, R&B, and hip-hop. I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, but just consider this a little spoiler for things to come. The other lesser known characteristic of African music is their harmony. The most popular method of harmonizing is called "homophonic parallelism". It's a bit of a mouthful, but what it means is not. The idea is to match the motion of one note except on a seperate note. So, say the melody moves up a third. Then, the harmony would also move up a third. If the melody goes down a whole note, then the harmony would go down a whole note as well. Harmony can also be created by simply have a secondary melody that fits with the primary melody well. This can sometimes come in the form of an ostinato, or a small melody that repeats throughout the song, like much of modern popular music (bass lines, guitar riffs, etc.). The last major characteristic of African tribal music is improvisation. Variations on the original melody or harmony are just the tip of the iceberg, as rhythmic variations are also very common. Listen to any piece of traditional African music, and you can hear the embellishments and small changes to invigorate repitition of a melody. It's hard to accurately define the history of tribal music, because the era in which it is practiced goes from ancient history to today, with very little change or innovation. This plays into the traditionalism of many African societies. And yeah, I'm hitting a dead end here. Let's head up north for the next post. __________________ Many have tried to destroy it... but... true evil never dies. It is only... REBORN *SUGGEST ME AN ALBUM* - I'm probably not going to listen to it but I will if you bother me enough. Last edited by TechnicLePanther; 10-03-2015 at 09:41 AM.

10-03-2015, 09:38 AM	#9 (permalink)
TechnicLePanther and the livin' is easy... Join Date: Jun 2015 Location: New York Posts: 1,997	So, now it's basically impossible to move ahead completely chronologically. It would be like trying to go over all history chronologically. It would just be boring and sound stupid. So, to make sure that distress does not occur, I'll now be taking things in my own totally logical order. And as most of the people reading this will be Western, we're going to start by going through European music quite a ways. Sorry if you're interested in Asia, but you'll just have to wait for that. So, to start with European music, it would be most effecient to start with the most ancient. And where would you find the most ancient European music? The Music of Ancient Greece If I wasn't telling you right now, would you know that the Ancient Greeks were probably the first to use the word "music"? It turns out, the word is derived from the name of the Greek goddesses also known as the "Muses", or the daughters of Zeus and the patron goddess of creative endeavors (the arts). The Muses would directly inspire the word "muse", which ironically would go on to become the name of one of the most popular bands of the modern era. Hmm. Anyways, music was tied into Greek culture. There are countless stories about the gods playing music for one purpose or another. However, actual tunes recovered from Ancient Greece are few and far between, mostly due to people coming and burning everything (multiple times). From several (and I mean like, literally three or so) writings of popular philosphers, most notably Plato, we can get a general idea of what Ancient Greek music was like. First off, it was very simplistic. For as "advanced" a society as the Ancient Greeks were at the time, their music was likely very simple. They usually didn't play anything but one note at a time, and the rhythm of the music was mostly quarter note after quarter note after quarter note. Think Mary Had a Little Lamb. However, they were one of the first to relate music to math, most notably Pythagoras, and they used more than just whole and half steps, but even incorporated quarter (and may even smaller) steps into their music. However, it wouldn't have been very pleasing to the ear. This ties into the second point. Second, the music wasn't made to "sound good". It was usually made to honor the gods, and therefore used different scales to represent different things. Their way of doing it was very complicated, but it can basically be related to the major key being for happy things, and the minor being for sad things. Same thing with Ancient Greece, except they had a zillion different slight variations. Once Athens fell after the Peloponnesian War, the music actually started to be less based on the gods. If you ask me, they were a bit too obsessed with them anyways. Plato lamented the loss of religious values, but Socrates did a little jig in his grave. The Instruments of Ancient Greece Probably the most significant development of the Ancient Greek musical period were the instruments. For the first time, they were divided into percussion, strings, and winds, which was a bit of a development. They also probably had the first trumpets, although none have been recovered. Here are a few notable examples: Lyre Yeah, the lyre was a big deal. It was a stringed instrument that worked by pulling each string to a specific tightness, probably never adjustable. It would be strummed or plucked to produce a note. Kithara Also a strummed, stringed instrument, though it was much more complicated with a lyre. It was meant to be played with a plectrum, otherwise known as a pick for guitarists. The strings were stretched from a bar at the top to a box at the bottom. Wooden wedges were aligned along the bar, to allow this instrument to be tuned. Aulos This instrument was like an oboe, but with two pipes. There is some confusion over whether it used a single or double reed, however, it would work either way. Pan Pipes One of the first flutes, images of these can be found in most people's heads. They're essentially those small instruments with a series of pipes tied together, each pipe longer than the last to produce a different note. The note was produced by blowing across the top of the pipe. Hydraulis A forerunner to the organ, it created pressure in the pipes by compressing water towards them. And like the organ, it would be played with a keyboard, each key releasing air into a corresponding pipe. And there really isn't much to say about the Music of Ancient Greece beyond that. Next time, we'll take a couple small detours before we get back on track with Europe. See you then! __________________ Many have tried to destroy it... but... true evil never dies. It is only... REBORN *SUGGEST ME AN ALBUM* - I'm probably not going to listen to it but I will if you bother me enough.