Music Of Antiquity - The Origin Of Every Instrument

Hello everyone and welcome to Keep It Classical where today we talk about music of antiquity. The word antiquity refers to the time before the middle ages or before the fall of Rome. Now I'm sure that for some people the thought of talking about music of antiquity reminds them a bit of talking to someone like Howard Bannister from What's Up Doc. Oh no no you see I'm a musicologist I was just testing this specimen for inherent tonal quality. I have this theory about early man's musical relationship to igneous rock formations. Oh but I guess you're not really interested in igneous rock formations. I have to admit when I went to school this isn't a subject that I found very exciting but now that I'm older and wiser and more mature I have a new appreciation that I hope to share with you. I promise I will keep it from being boring and we'll learn about how music of antiquity affects how we think about music today. We don't have much evidence about what music was like from the ancient world so much of it remains a mystery. We do however have a few bits of evidence that have led us to some interesting conclusions. These include surviving instruments, visual images of musicians and instruments, writings about music and even some notated music itself the holy grail. This last bit is particularly significant because for the majority of human existence music has been taught and propagated by rote and not recorded in any written way as far as we can tell. Kind of like a game of musical telephone except the players are all dead now and nothing survived. Let's start with instruments according to hornbostel according to hornbostel sax how do you say that name hornbostel sax according to hornbostel sax all musical instruments can be put into four basic categories aerophones membranophones idiophones and chordophones. Why are we talking about these? Because this is the time that all of these were invented and all of our modern instruments come from these categories. Aerophones create their sound by exciting a body of air in a chamber. Examples of these include flutes, ocarinas, trumpets and other wind instruments. The oldest known surviving instrument we have found is a flute carved from animal bone found in Germany dating back to 36 000 BCE. Membranophones create their sound by exciting a membrane or skin often from animal hides that have been stretched and dried. Examples of these include drums and kazoos. We have a conographic evidence of what appear to be drums on prehistoric cave paintings but sadly no kazoos on prehistoric cave paintings. Idiophones create their sound by vibrating their own body when struck. Examples of these include cymbals rattles and xylophones. It's very likely that these were the first instruments ever constructed but we don't have any surviving examples until the creation of metal instruments during the bronze age. Chordophones create their sound by a string being plucked bowed or struck. Examples of these include lyres, guitars, violins and the product of thousands of years of instrumental evolutional perfection the banjo. Nothing against banjo players it's just your instrument is just... These began to appear around the same time as metal idiophones. We know that these ancient civilizations were creating and using these different categories of instruments not just because we found the instruments themselves but because we've also found contemporary art with these instruments being played in various settings from all sorts of civilizations including Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, China, Maya, Greece and of course Rome who just copied everything the Greeks did. Let's focus a little bit on Mesopotamia. The cradle of civilization between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers give us the first writings about music, its function and place in society. For the first time we start seeing written accounts about music used for religious or civic ceremonies and very importantly genres of music. This is the first time we see the idea that different music is being used for different purposes and with different intentions. Some music is appropriate for some circumstances and inappropriate for others. Something you definitely want to teach new hearse drivers who like to listen to music on the job. Perhaps most importantly we learn the name of what could be the earliest known composer in human history. Her name is Enhenduwana, high priestess of Ur and the earliest known poet who composed numerous songs and that's pretty much what we know about her life. Did she write music to those songs? Perhaps, we don't know as only the texts survive. Do we have any evidence that she was involved with music? Only that she composed hymns for religious ceremonies. While it's not certain that she was a musician, it's still important that we mention her name in this category as she may have been. What we learn about music in Mesopotamia is great but what we learn about music from the Greeks is astonishing by comparison. Here we learn not just about the evidence that music existed in ancient Greece but we learn about their musical ideas, thoughts and practices. We learn about its role not just in society but in the life of the individual. What the Greeks thought about music has had a lasting impact on our modern musical world. The word music itself is derived from a Greek word meaning the art of the muses. We also see music as a profession and musical competitions held to praise excellence in practice. Music was incorporated into Greek theater to heighten the drama. But that's a subject for another video in the future. We know these things because we have multiple first-hand sources written about how the Greeks thought about music. These included writings by Plato, Aristotle and Pythagoras. Let's start with Pythagoras. Pythagoras was a mathematician and astronomer who discovered that musical intervals were based on ratios. He found that a string divided in half would sound an octave higher than that open string. That string divided into thirds would sound a fifth above that and divided into fourths would sound a fourth above that and two octaves above that open string. This system for determining intervals by means of mathematical ratios is known as Pythagorean tuning. This opened up Pythagoras to a new world of intervals, scale and harmony and in many ways became the birth of music theory or the study of musical practices that we use today. Pythagoras said, number is the ruler of This is important because it teaches us that music can be ordered by scientific theory and observation. As far as how music functioned in society and its role in the life of the individual, we can learn more from the writings of Plato and Aristotle. Plato wrote that music was an essential part of human education and development. In fact, in his book Laws, Plato stated that music should be balanced with gymnastics in training the mind and the body. He said, the lessons may, for practical convenience, be divided under two heads, the gymnastical, which concern the body, and the musical, which aim at goodness of soul. That sounds weird to us because very often today sports and music don't mix. At least to me, they always felt at odds growing up and sadly in schools we're often fighting for the same funding. But according to Plato this shouldn't be the case. We should be raising our children to do and appreciate both and this is where I get on a bit of a soapbox. Consider the approach of one sport and one instrument. If the child doesn't like one, switch it out till they find something that they do like. If they don't like baseball, try swimming. If they don't like the violin, try the saxophone. Just a thought. Moving on, Aristotle wrote that music could affect human behavior simply by its quality. He wrote that music could either inspire action from or pacify the listeners. We accept the division of melodies proposed by certain philosophers into ethical melodies, melodies of action, and passionate or inspiring melodies, each having, as they say, a mode corresponding to it. Just like music was found to have numerical relationships, humans were also thought to have numerical relationships that music could somehow resonate with. The Greeks felt that astronomy and music were two sides of the same coin. One was the study of the visible and the other the study of the invisible. This gave way to the idea of the music of the spheres or that celestial bodies had resonating frequencies that we just can't hear. And this idea that there are musical relationships between the heavenly and the human is something that we still talk about today. The single most important piece of evidence we have about music in ancient Greece is the first complete song we have ever found notated. We've seen fragments of songs earlier than this, however, this is the earliest song we have completely intact. This song is known as the Epitaph of Sekilos. This song was found on a tombstone in Turkey during excavation for a new railroad and today can be found at the National Museum of Copenhagen in Denmark. The epitaph itself contains a poem with notes and rhythms notated above the words. The pitches were notated by a letter and the rhythms were notated by lines and dots above that letter. The words translate to, as long as you live, be light-hearted, let nothing trouble you, life is only too short, and time takes its toll. It kind of sounds like an ancient Greek version of YOLO, but remember the context. This is on a tombstone. This was either written by the person who died as a way of telling everyone who paid homage to them to live their lives fully in the present, or was written by a loved one of deceased to remind themselves of the same sentiment. And of course, we have to listen to it now. Scholars believe that it sounded something like this. It's important to keep in mind that while we have a pretty good idea about the pitches and rhythm, the tempo, style, and instrumentation are all educated guesses. It could have been faster or slower, a cappella or accompanied, we just don't know for certain. The most important aspect, though, is that it's written down. We don't have to play that game of musical telephone anymore. We can just write it down and keep things more accurate. And having heard that, we'll wrap it up there. Yes, we could talk about music in ancient Rome, but as we discussed previously, they copied a lot from the Greeks. That's all for now. Next time, we'll talk about the music of the early Roman church. If you heard something you enjoyed, or learned something interesting, share it with friends and family. In the meantime, if you liked this video, give it a thumbs up, hit the subscribe button for more videos, follow me on Instagram at Matthew D. Nielsen, and remember, keep it classical.