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Symphony of Music: The History and Evolution of Music.

Music
February 19, 2022

We are sure, not a single day goes by without music. Music, to some, is expressing their feelings, to some, it is a way of opening up their creativity and to some, it is a way of healing.

What is funny if you think about it is that music is ultimately just different frequencies stitched together. Well, in the not technical term, it is just noise that is appealing.

Music has always been in the world and can set the mood for pretty much anything. To this date music for scary movies are made in the most obscene and funny manners. For instance, to create the sound of thunder, a hammer would be struck against a metal sheet or to mimic the rain, rice would be shook in a tube.

The history of music is ever so vast and in this week’s blog, we will go in-depth about the very source of happiness, we call Music.

Introduction

The history of music encompasses the development and evolution of music throughout history, from prehistoric times to the present. Though various civilizations have distinct meanings of music, it is practised in every known culture, making music a cultural universal. Because all people across the world, including the most remote tribes, have some kind of music, it is reasonable to assume that music was present in the ancestral population before humans spread around the globe. As a result, the earliest music may have been created in Africa and later evolved into a basic component of human life, utilising a variety of materials to create a variety of instruments.

Origins

Music’s precise beginning is unknown since it occurred far before written history. Scholars frequently take conflicting opinions on whether or not the origins of human intellect plays a role in understanding music. Hence, music will never be understood. The origins of music and language are frequently regarded as being inextricably intertwined, and the nature of their relationship has been a source of heated dispute, though the latter has garnered far more attention. Before the mid-late twentieth century,  researchers rarely paid attention to the issues. Since the topic’s recent rebirth, the main point of dispute has been whether music originated as a form of proto-language and evolved into language, or if music is a spandrel (a phenotypic consequence of evolution) that evolved into language.

Prehistoric Music:

Prehistoric music is more generally referred to as music from the past, and it includes any music created in preliterate societies (prehistory), dating back at least 6 million years when humans and chimps last shared an ancestor.

In terms of musical instruments, researchers found a bone flute in the Hohle Fels cave in Ulm, Germany, in 2008. The five-holed flute, which has a V-shaped mouthpiece and is fashioned from vulture wing bone, is thought to be around 35,000 years old. In 2004, near Greystones, Ireland, the earliest known wooden pipes were unearthed. A collection of six flutes made of yew wood, about 30 and 50 cm long, tapered at one end but without finger holes, were found in a wood-lined trench.

Ancient Music

Following the advent of writing, literate civilization is termed part of the ancient world, a periodization that extends from the first Sumerian literature of Abu Salabikh (now Southern Iraq), until the Post-classical era of the 6th century. Despite the fact that Ancient cultures’ music was highly different, several essential principles, such as monophony, improvisation, and the primacy of text in musical contexts, can be found in almost all of them. The “oldest known song” was written in cuneiform 3400 years ago in the Syrian town of Ugarit.

Modern Music

modern music

The present generation of music continues to evolve. Various factors are taken into consideration while creating music, all the way from beats per second (BPM) to vocalization and genre selection. The majority of songs get developed based on popularization amongst the crowd, the relatability in words and the emotion that the song is set to build up.

With the onset of the 21st century, the music industry has given rise to a majority of genres. These genres include Rap, Hip-hop, Dubstep, EDM, House Music and much much more. This only shows how the music industry continues to develop and hence can not be defined 

So let us know this Music Day, what is your current favorite song down in the comment section below.

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