The Instrument

These instruments, one of the first ensembles of instruments yet discovered, include nine lyres the Lyres of Ur , two harps , a silver double flute , sistra and cymbals. A set of reed-sounded silver pipes discovered in Ur was the likely predecessor of modern bagpipes. Archaeologists in the Jiahu site of central Henan province of China have found flutes made of bones that date back 7, to 9, years, [11] representing some of the "earliest complete, playable, tightly-dated, multinote musical instruments" ever found.

Musical instrument

Scholars agree that there are no completely reliable methods of determining the exact chronology of musical instruments across cultures. Comparing and organizing instruments based on their complexity is misleading, since advancements in musical instruments have sometimes reduced complexity. For example, construction of early slit drums involved felling and hollowing out large trees; later slit drums were made by opening bamboo stalks, a much simpler task. German musicologist Curt Sachs , one of the most prominent musicologists [14] and musical ethnologists [15] in modern times, argues that it is misleading to arrange the development of musical instruments by workmanship, since cultures advance at different rates and have access to different raw materials.

He maintains, for example, that contemporary anthropologists comparing musical instruments from two cultures that existed at the same time but differed in organization, culture, and handicraft cannot determine which instruments are more "primitive". Sachs proposed that a geographical chronology until approximately is preferable, however, due to its limited subjectivity. The science of marking the order of musical instrument development relies on archaeological artifacts, artistic depictions, and literary references.

Since data in one research path can be inconclusive, all three paths provide a better historical picture. Until the 19th century AD, European-written music histories began with mythological accounts of how musical instruments were invented.

Such accounts included Jubal , descendant of Cain and "father of all such as handle the harp and the organ", Pan , inventor of the pan pipes , and Mercury , who is said to have made a dried tortoise shell into the first lyre. Modern histories have replaced such mythology with anthropological speculation, occasionally informed by archeological evidence. Scholars agree that there was no definitive "invention" of the musical instrument since the definition of the term "musical instrument" is completely subjective to both the scholar and the would-be inventor.

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For example, a Homo habilis slapping his body could be the makings of a musical instrument regardless of the being's intent. Among the first devices external to the human body that are considered instruments are rattles , stampers, and various drums. Some of these labels carry far different connotations from those used in modern day; early flutes and trumpets are so-labeled for their basic operation and function rather than any resemblance to modern instruments.

In fact, drums were pervasive throughout every African culture.

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Humans eventually developed the concept of using musical instruments for producing a melody. Until this time in the evolutions of musical instruments, melody was common only in singing. Similar to the process of reduplication in language, instrument players first developed repetition and then arrangement. An early form of melody was produced by pounding two stamping tubes of slightly different sizes—one tube would produce a "clear" sound and the other would answer with a "darker" sound.

Such instrument pairs also included bullroarers , slit drums, shell trumpets, and skin drums. Cultures who used these instrument pairs associated genders with them; the "father" was the bigger or more energetic instrument, while the "mother" was the smaller or duller instrument.

Musical instruments existed in this form for thousands of years before patterns of three or more tones would evolve in the form of the earliest xylophone. Images of musical instruments begin to appear in Mesopotamian artifacts in BC or earlier. Beginning around BC, Sumerian and Babylonian cultures began delineating two distinct classes of musical instruments due to division of labor and the evolving class system. Popular instruments, simple and playable by anyone, evolved differently from professional instruments whose development focused on effectiveness and skill.

Scholars must rely on artifacts and cuneiform texts written in Sumerian or Akkadian to reconstruct the early history of musical instruments in Mesopotamia. Even the process of assigning names to these instruments is challenging since there is no clear distinction among various instruments and the words used to describe them. Although Sumerian and Babylonian artists mainly depicted ceremonial instruments, historians have been able to distinguish six idiophones used in early Mesopotamia: Innumerable varieties of harps are depicted, as well as lyres and lutes, the forerunner of modern stringed instruments such as the violin.

Musical instruments used by the Egyptian culture before BC bore striking similarity to those of Mesopotamia, leading historians to conclude that the civilizations must have been in contact with one another. Sachs notes that Egypt did not possess any instruments that the Sumerian culture did not also possess. The civilization also made use of sistra, vertical flutes, double clarinets, arched and angular harps, and various drums. Little history is available in the period between BC and BC, as Egypt and indeed, Babylon entered a long violent period of war and destruction.

When the Pharaohs of Egypt conquered Southwest Asia in around BC, the cultural ties to Mesopotamia were renewed and Egypt's musical instruments also reflected heavy influence from Asiatic cultures. In contrast with Mesopotamia and Egypt, professional musicians did not exist in Israel between and BC.

While the history of musical instruments in Mesopotamia and Egypt relies on artistic representations, the culture in Israel produced few such representations. Scholars must therefore rely on information gleaned from the Bible and the Talmud. For example, stringed instruments of uncertain design called nevals and asors existed, but neither archaeology nor etymology can clearly define them.

In Greece , Rome , and Etruria , the use and development of musical instruments stood in stark contrast to those cultures' achievements in architecture and sculpture. The instruments of the time were simple and virtually all of them were imported from other cultures. Evidence of musical instruments in use by early civilizations of India is almost completely lacking, making it impossible to reliably attribute instruments to the Munda and Dravidian language-speaking cultures that first settled the area.

Rather, the history of musical instruments in the area begins with the Indus Valley Civilization that emerged around BC. Various rattles and whistles found among excavated artifacts are the only physical evidence of musical instruments. This discovery is among many indications that the Indus Valley and Sumerian cultures maintained cultural contact.

Subsequent developments in musical instruments in India occurred with the Rigveda , or hymns. These songs used various drums, shell trumpets, harps, and flutes. In all, India had no unique musical instruments until the Middle Ages. Musical instruments such as zithers appeared in Chinese writings around 12th century BC and earlier. The Chinese believed that music was an essential part of character and community, and developed a unique system of classifying their musical instruments according to their material makeup.

Idiophones were extremely important in Chinese music, hence the majority of early instruments were idiophones. Poetry of the Shang dynasty mentions bells, chimes, drums, and globular flutes carved from bone, the latter of which has been excavated and preserved by archaeologists. Wind instruments such as flute, pan-pipes , pitch-pipes , and mouth organs also appeared in this time period. Although civilizations in Central America attained a relatively high level of sophistication by the eleventh century AD, they lagged behind other civilizations in the development of musical instruments.

For example, they had no stringed instruments; all of their instruments were idiophones, drums, and wind instruments such as flutes and trumpets. Of these, only the flute was capable of producing a melody. South American cultures of the time used pan-pipes as well as varieties of flutes, idiophones, drums, and shell or wood trumpets.

During the period of time loosely referred to as the Middle Ages , China developed a tradition of integrating musical influence from other regions. The first record of this type of influence is in AD, when China established an orchestra in its imperial court after a conquest in Turkestan. In fact, Chinese tradition attributes many musical instruments from this period to those regions and countries.

India experienced similar development to China in the Middle Ages; however, stringed instruments developed differently as they accommodated different styles of music. While stringed instruments of China were designed to produce precise tones capable of matching the tones of chimes, stringed instruments of India were considerably more flexible. This flexibility suited the slides and tremolos of Hindu music.

Rhythm was of paramount importance in Indian music of the time, as evidenced by the frequent depiction of drums in reliefs dating to the Middle Ages. The emphasis on rhythm is an aspect native to Indian music. In pre-Islamic times, idiophones such as hand bells , cymbals, and peculiar instruments resembling gongs came into wide use in Hindu music.

The gong-like instrument was a bronze disk that was struck with a hammer instead of a mallet. Tubular drums, stick zithers veena , short fiddles, double and triple flutes, coiled trumpets, and curved India horns emerged in this time period. It must be played using the technique of the circular breathing. Southeast Asian musical innovations include those during a period of Indian influence that ended around AD.

While the gong likely originated in the geographical area between Tibet and Burma , it was part of every category of human activity in maritime Southeast Asia including Java. The areas of Mesopotamia and the Arabian Peninsula experiences rapid growth and sharing of musical instruments once they were united by Islamic culture in the seventh century. Persian miniatures provide information on the development of kettle drums in Mesopotamia that spread as far as Java. The lyre is the only musical instrument that may have been invented in Europe until this period.

The central and northern regions used mainly lutes, stringed instruments with necks , while the southern region used lyres, which featured a two-armed body and a crossbar. European music between and became more sophisticated, more frequently requiring instruments capable of polyphony. The 9th-century Persian geographer Ibn Khordadbeh mentioned in his lexicographical discussion of music instruments that, in the Byzantine Empire , typical instruments included the urghun organ , shilyani probably a type of harp or lyre , salandj probably a bagpipe and the lyra.

The monochord served as a precise measure of the notes of a musical scale, allowing more accurate musical arrangements. The ninth century revealed the first bagpipes , which spread throughout Europe and had many uses from folk instruments to military instruments. Musical instrument development was dominated by the Occident from on, indeed, the most profound changes occurred during the Renaissance period.

Keyboards and lutes developed as polyphonic instruments, and composers arranged increasingly complex pieces using more advanced tablature. Composers also began designing pieces of music for specific instruments. Composers now specified orchestration where individual performers once applied their own discretion. Beginning in about , the rate of development of musical instruments increased in earnest as compositions demanded more dynamic sounds. People also began writing books about creating, playing, and cataloging musical instruments; the first such book was Sebastian Virdung's treatise Musica getuscht und ausgezogen 'Music Germanized and Abstracted'.

Other books followed, including Arnolt Schlick's Spiegel der Orgelmacher und Organisten 'Mirror of Organ Makers and Organ Players' the following year, a treatise on organ building and organ playing. This book, the Syntagma musicum by Michael Praetorius , is now considered an authoritative reference of sixteenth-century musical instruments. In the sixteenth century, musical instrument builders gave most instruments — such as the violin — the "classical shapes" they retain today.

An emphasis on aesthetic beauty also developed; listeners were as pleased with the physical appearance of an instrument as they were with its sound. Therefore, builders paid special attention to materials and workmanship, and instruments became collectibles in homes and museums.

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Instrument builders developed other features that endure today. For example, while organs with multiple keyboards and pedals already existed, the first organs with solo stops emerged in the early fifteenth century. These stops were meant to produce a mixture of timbres, a development needed for the complexity of music of the time. Beginning in the seventeenth century, composers began creating works of a more emotional style. They felt that a monophonic style better suited the emotional music and wrote musical parts for instruments that would complement the singing human voice.

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One such instrument was the shawm. In the mid-seventeenth century, what was known as a hunter's horn underwent transformation into an "art instrument" consisting of a lengthened tube, a narrower bore, a wider bell, and much wider range. The details of this transformation are unclear, but the modern horn or, more colloquially, French horn, had emerged by This variation on the trumpet was unpopular due to the difficulty involved in playing it. Sachs viewed this trend as a "degeneration" of the general organ sound.

During the Classical and Romantic periods of music, lasting from roughly to , a great deal of musical instruments capable of producing new timbres and higher volume were developed and introduced into popular music.

THE INSTRUMENT VILLAGE

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