HISTORY OF

MUSIC

Prof. Simone Cucumazzo

 ORIGIN OF MUSIC

 Six periods of music

Each period has a particulary style of music

that greatly contributed to what is today

 THE TOOLS OD PRIMITIVE PEOPLES:
- idiophones: percussion instruments without membrane, rattles, xylophones and gongs
- membranophones: drums
- Aerophones: Sibilant sticks, flutes of wood, of clay or of several reeds (syringes)
- choruses: bow, reed psalter. They are the ancestors of the harp
Often the instruments were associated with a resonator that, put in contact with the vibrating body, increased
the sonority.
 THE EGYPTIANS
• Since ancient times they linked music and religion. The sacred chant was the exclusive property of the
priests, while

• secular music was entrusted to male musicians, who played harps and flutes. After the conquests

• Military of the XVIII-XIV centuries B.C. contacts with other peoples changed the musical tradition: the
executions

• were entrusted to professional women, in particular of Syrian origin.

• There are some musical instruments found in the tombs, such as single or double reed wooden flute,

• trumpet, castagnette, sistrum and rattlesnake, harp, harp and pandora (of oriental origin). Sachs states that
the Egyptians

• employing descending pentaphonic scales, others claim that they also knew, like the Greeks, the scale

• heptafonica.

• In the III sec. a.c. Ctesibio of Alexandria invented the hydraulic organ.
 THE MESOPOTAMIAN PEOPLES

• The music had religious functions, later it was also

used in mathematical studies. The most used
instruments were
• the harp (in particular near the sumerians), the cetra,
straight flutes in wood or metal, castagnette, sistri and
plates. The
• music was also used by the Assyrians to stimulate
 ISRAEL
•Jewish music had a period of splendor in the period of kings (XI-X sec. BC). David was a master
•harpist and psalm composer (he was thought to have composed all 150 psalms himself, but this is not the
case).
•Solomon professionally organized the singers of the temple in Jerusalem. The most used instruments
were the
•kinnor (plucked 10-string instrument), sciofar (goat horn), ugab (bagpipe or straight flute).
•A study carried out at the beginning of the '900 by Idelsohn on certain Jewish populations living in
Yemen and in
•Palestine, shows obvious affinities with Gregorian melodies. Later studies show that executive modes
and
•forms of early Christian chant were typical of Jewish music and foreign to Greco-Roman music. The
•common features are: - chanting: recitation on a few contiguous notes regulated by the rhythm of the
sacred verses - jubilus: vocalizing, sometimes extended, performed on the syllables of a single word
(often "alleluja")
 THE CHINESE

• The sounds were related to the order of the universe (cardinal points, seasons, planets, colors...)

• They attributed to the music the ability to influence the costumes. From the early dynasties the music was
based on a

• pentaphonic scale, but since the third sec. a.C a scale of 12 sounds (not chromatic!) formed by 6 lu

• male and 6 female lu. Many tools were used, often organized in organisms similar to ours

• orchestras. The most common instruments were:

• - King, a lithophone made of L-shaped limestone slabs, hanging from a frame and beaten with a mallet

• - Chin, Psalter with half-tube case with 7 strings

• - cheng, a mouth organ

• - pipar, short-handled lute

 THE INDIANS
• The non-European people with the most varied and extensive musical history. The musical system, dating
back to the II sec. a.c. yes
• based on a large number of scales. Common to all scales is the eighth, divided, as in the western system,
in tones
• and semitones. But the organization of such a scale is very complex as each interval is divided into 2, 3 or
4
• srutis or elements (all in all 22). This system allows a large number of modal scales. The way is called
ragas
• (color, mood) and there are several thousand. The most used instruments: cymbals and drums (including
the tabla,
• double drum in brass and wood), flutes and vina, stringed instrument plucked with a pick. The instrument

• Most important arch is the 4-string sarangi, squat and square.