Music History
Contents Music in Ancient Times 3
Ancient Chinese Music 3
The Hurrian Hymn to Nikal 4
Ancient Hebrew Music 4
Ancient Greek Music 5
Western Music 6
Literature 11
Music in Ancient Times
Our knowledge of musical practice before 200 A.D. is extremely limited because few attempts were made by ancient cultures to preserve music using notation systems. Iconography in music is the study of graphical representations of musical activities. Archaeologists have discovered artefacts and drawings dating to prehistoric times which depict musicians performing on various instruments. Early musical instruments have also been discovered. For example, a recent dig in the Ukraine uncovered musical instruments made from the bones of a woolly mammoth dating back to 18,000 B.C. It is likely that music evolved as a communications medium for early humans in hunter-gatherer groups. Drums and primitive horns made from shells and animal parts are used by primitive peoples even today to communicate over great distances. It is possible that early humans were impressed with the power of such communication and found the sounds to be pleasing as well. As hunter-gatherer groups evolved into agrarian cultures, music may have had a place in religious ceremonies and as a welcome rhythmic accompaniment to the tedious labour of farming. Music was almost certainly placed in a supportive role in human activities. Scholars consider it unlikely that music was ever an independent activity in prehistoric civilizations.
Ancient Chinese Music Historical records of Chinese music history date back to the Shang dynasty circa 1600–1000 B.C. Chinese philosophers like Confucius (551–479 B.C.) regarded music as essential in maintaining order in the universe and in human society. Emperor Han Wudi, who reigned from 140 to 87 B.C., went so far as to create an Imperial Office of Music. The ancient Chinese were the first to develop a science of acoustics and placed a high value on the accurate tuning of instruments. Ancient Chinese music was monophonic and based on a five-tone scale similar to the western Pentatonic scale (CDEGA is one example). Expression in Chinese music performance emphasizes subtle changes in timbre on individual tones. Inflection, in Chinese music and language, is extremely important in the interpretation of content. Ancient literature describes a variety of tuned chimes, drums, bells, wind instruments, and string instruments in use in ancient Chinese music. Chinese traditional music has remained unusually stable throughout the millennia and sheds light on the musical practices of other ancient civilizations.
The Hurrian Hymn to Nikal In the 1950's an archaeological dig in Syria uncovered a set of clay tablets with cuneiform characters in the ancient Hurrian language. Hurrian was a language used by the citizens of the ancient city of Ugarit which occupied the land now used by the village of Ras Shamra and the small harbour of Minet-el-Beida, about six miles north of Latakia, in north-western Syria. The tablets date back to approximately 1400 B.C. and contain a hymn to the moon god's wife, Nikal. Remarkably, the tablets also contain detailed performance instructions for a singer accompanied by a harpist as well as instructions on how to tune the harp. From this evidence, musicologists have produced a credible realization of the hymn performed in harmony with thirds, sixths, fourths, and fifths. This rare example of polyphony in ancient music appears to shatter the long held belief that harmony did not evolve in human musical expression until the middle ages. It is possible that further archaeological evidence of early polyphony will be unearthed in the future.
Ancient Hebrew Music The importance of music in the lives of the Hebrew peoples is well documented in the Old Testament. Psalms were sung during religious ceremonies in call-response (soloist followed by congregation) or antiphonally (one group followed by another). Wind, string, and percussion instruments are mentioned in the old Testament. The only traditional instrument still used in Jewish ceremonies today is the shofar, a primitive trumpet made from a ram’s horn. In some of the Old Testament scrolls, small markings appear above the text of the psalms. A Parisian scholar, Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura, has translated those markings into a system of music notation called «Tanami». This system of marking the text with symbols denoting melodic outlines is strikingly similar to the earliest neumatic systems of notation used in Christian plainchant. The connection is extremely plausible given that early Christians are often considered as a messianic sect of Judaism, retaining Jewish customs and practices while gradually creating a new Christian identity.
Ancient Greek Music The early Greeks considered music to be of mathematical and cosmic significance as well. Pythagoras of Samos (circa 500 B.C.) discovered the frequency proportions that define the intervals we hear today. For example, two notes whose frequencies are in a ratio of 2 to 1, sound one octave apart. A ratio of 3 to 2 produces a fifth, a ratio of 4 to 3 produces a fourth, and a ratio of 9 to 8 produces a major second. Greek musicians and philosophers used a single-string instrument, known as the monochord, to produce the various intervals. Pythagorean philosophers believed that these ratios also governed the movement of celestial bodies and other cosmic matters. Thus, music came to be revered as the highest of intellectual and artistic pursuits. ............
