Music And Prehistoric Music

For as long as mankind has walked on this earth, music has been an important part of our culture and lifestyles. Each walk of life beats to a different drum. Different cultures use music for many aspects of their lives; for religious purposes, for celebrations, for comfort, for sorrow, for relaxation, for sports, for dances, for energy, for learning, for sleeping, and for sexual experiences. Everyone uses music for something. Music connects with people and reaches them in ways that words simply cannot. Music is a representation of what feelings sound like. It expresses emotion and brings that characteristic out from within us; it tells us a story. Every generation has its’ own sound and different music styles have emerged and become

Music has evolved too many different forms that we recognize today. We trace this development throughout time. Beginning in the middle ages, we have seen advancement from the Gregorian chant all the way to the Jazz of the 20th century. The current events, politics, religion, technology and composers can shape musical eras during time. Here I will look at the middle ages, renaissance, baroque, classical, romantic and twentieth century periods. I hope that a better understanding can be reached to why, when, where and who are the reasons for musical evolution.

Regardless of where they are located, almost all ancient civilizations share basic features. For example, most civilizations develop things such as a class system, a common religion, or a system of writing. Another mark of a successful civilization is the evolution of music. Since music is not essential to survival, its development is usually within a large established society. The purpose of music varies from civilization to civilization, era to era. In some cultures, music accompanied religious rituals, as one sees in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. In others, such as Ancient Greece, music was a part of education and entertainment. Music also played a very important role in keeping legends and records of history alive through oral tradition. The way it was produced ranged from monophonic vocalizations in its earliest history to complex instruments and systems later in time. Any way it was produced, the role music played was one of the most important in ancient societies.

​ Life in the Middle Ages revolved around the Church, which was the Roman Catholic. So, we can imagine early music was pretty much from church. Every morning at 9 o’clock was Mass, a significant ceremony done to commemorate the Last Supper. At this church service, the music was the Gregorian Chant. The Gregorian chant is performed in the Latin language, unison voice and accompanied by no instruments which was believed that the text of the song which carried the divine message from God was more important. The music was just to help you get to a spiritual place (Wright, 4-1a).

Music has probably been around since the beginning of times. Before instruments, sounds were considered music. People started to make instruments, which mimic nature’s sounds.

Prelude: Music has been around since the beginning of civilization. Some of the earliest forms of instruments were a flute-type device formed from the wing of a vulture to a recorder-type device formed from the femur of a bear. Other ancient civilizations, such as Egypt and Sumeria, left behind pictures of people singing and playing instruments. Some of these were believed to be pictures of religious rituals.

Music is a significant element in most lives it takes a role in most cultures people believe in. Music contains a variety of elements within different genres such as the pitch, rhythm, dynamics, timbre and the texture. Different voices and different kinds of instruments produce a variety of frequent

Back in Medieval times, music was crude, extremely limited, costly, and exhausting to write. It was and used mainly for church services. The music used in the church were mainly choir chants; only men and young boys could sing in the choir due to the church rules. Next came the praise worthy baroque period. Figured bass, preludes, ornamentations, trills, mordants, and various new musical forms developed, such as the etude or sonata. In this part of musical history, the composers Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi were the cream of the crop. Baroque’s musical characteristic consisted usually of detached, staccato accents, light metered rhythms, and fast precise notes. Next came the classical period, where the staccato accents still stayed within the music, but the light pace and styles where dropped for freer rhythms and notes. Some of the composers who wrote music in this period are some of the most widely known composers ever. Composers such as Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Mozart were the top classical writers, but some such as Beethoven branched to both the classical and the romantic periods. The romantic period brought warmth, emotions and life into music. Pieces were no longer mechanical and orderly any more. Music was written with feeling and was written for enjoyment. Therefore, the modern period was quiet a huge jump for the general public, and most of the music after the romantic period is usually left unexplored. Though the daunting task of sorting through the various modern pieces is very tedious, it is worth it. From behind the ear-bleeding music of Rachmaninoff and the odd works of Ravel, comes many wonderful and different styles of music. Modern music's characteristics include atonally, minimalism, twelve-tone, and many other new musical devices and ornamentation. Not all modern music, however, is unusual or weird. Some composer wrote music in a revival of romantic. Gustav Mahler and Jean

To be able to understand the history of music you need to know that even the cavemen used music so to be able to learn music you have to be able to know where to start we are going to start around 1000 AD when Guido D'Arezzo made many improvements in music. He first improved and then reworked standard notation. Then he invented music. This vocal note scale: do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do it was in a musical and then used to teach musicians how to hit the right notes or for warming up. It might surprise you to hear that even strong vocal artist have to do this. Do you know the hardest song to sing in the history of singing? It was invented in 1997 only one person in the world can sing it. it was performed in a musical opera it hits so high notes

Music originates from all over the world since the beginning of time. Complex or simple, fast or slow, loud or soft. It’s what you feel. It could be your method of escape or keeping you living. Music is love. Music is passion. Music is unity. Music is emotion. Music is belief. Music is beauty. Music is life. Music is perfection. Music is imperfection. Music is peace. “Through music we can live forever.”

Music in Ancient Greece was well integrated in their society, it played a large role in various ceremonies from marriages to funerals, as well as entertainment like plays or epic poetry. Although it is believed that music was invented in Africa over 55,000 years ago, music really began and took shape in Ancient Greece. Even the word music came from the Greek word muses who were believed to be the daughters of Zeus and were the patron Goddesses of creativity. There are many references to music in ancient Greece, from drawings on pottery of people playing, as well as literary works that even describe how the instruments sounded. Speaking of instruments, in addition to the voice being used as one, there are several instruments that are known to have existed in Ancient Greece, a few different string instruments including a lyre, a kithara (which is believed to be the ancient equivalent of a guitar), and a barbitos, which is a taller version of a lyre. They also had several wind type instruments including and aulos, pan pipes, a hydraulis (which eventually led to the modern day organ), as well as a salpinx, which was an ancient type of trumpet with a bone mouthpiece that was the origin of the many brass instruments that we know of today. Finally, we also know of several percussion instruments that were used by the ancient Greeks, these include a tympanum, which was like a tambourine, a crotala, and a koudounia. Music was actually one of the main teachings, along with gymnastics

Music has played a vital role in human culture and evidence based on archaeological sites can date it back to prehistoric times. It can be traced through almost all civilizations in one form or another. As time has progressed so has the music and the influences it has on people. Music is an important part of popular culture throughout the world, but it is especially popular in the United States. The music industry here is, and has been, a multi-million dollar business that continues to play an important role in American popular culture. This is also a art form and business that is forever changing as the times and more importantly, technology changes. Technology has changed the way music is made as well as how it is produced,

Music dates right back to the prehistoric eras where primitive instruments were constructed using items like bone and wood. These primitive musicians would not have known many of the modern terms such as octaves

The popular culture of music has changed dramatically over the course of sixty five years. Since this time, new genres of music have been introduced, existing genres have changed, and fixed stereotypes have been associated with certain genres of music. Music has become a major part of popular culture, and is portrayed almost everywhere in first world societies, including on television, radio, at shopping centers, sporting events and in every area of popular culture. Music has become a major part of popular culture, and continues to strive and develop into more and diverse areas of culture.

While music has kept a steady definition through time, modern music has been re-invented and re-made to be distant from that of an older age. Music has always been around, just remixed as time goes on. We know that it has been around for a while because geologists have found cave paintings dating back to prehistoric ages where they are depicting people dancing, proving to a presence of some interpretation of music. Music was