7 Highlights in the History of Music
Objective. Simply to create a very broad, musical timeline of events of our Western Civilization, one that begins to illuminate origins of our music and the system of music theory we enjoy today. To generate curiosity within the learner to explore the history of the music, the music they love best today as well as it's historical origins.
50,000 years ago or so. A recent archeological discovery, 1995, in central Europe is today known as the Neanderthal flute. Although there is some serious controversy among scholars about this fragment of a hollowed out cave bear leg bone, many believe it to be the earliest non percussion instrument found by us to date. Our modern scientific computer modeling helps us recreate a complete version of this early flute, revealing that the fingering holes on the flute are spaced to create the pitches of the natural minor scale. Today, these would say be the white keys from A to A on our piano. Controversial archaeological ruminations plus modern computer wizardry for sure, but still a way cool thought to consider no? That the pitches with us today have created melodies for perhaps as many as 2000 generations of our ancestors. Author's note, the natural minor color is a favorite among the Rockers today. Mmmm ... rockers ... Neanderthal ... ? Just kidding! All the American styles use the natural minor color. Gershwin's "Summertime" is in A minor. It's Carlos Santana's go to color nearly every time and he's one emotional powerhouse of an artist and player, whose melodies often reach deeply and lovingly into our souls.
2500 years ago or so, the ancient Greek Pythagorus, created the "cycle of 5th's" we still in use today. Said to have been discovered while hearing a blacksmith's hammer strike the anvil, Pythagorus heard the "tones within a tone", our fundamental pitch and it's overtones, and set out to understand this natural phenomena of sound. He did this by building a one stringed instrument called a monochord, and coaxed forth the natural overtones from the string, just like we do today. Pythagorus found that the intervals of the octave, the perfect 5th and it's inverse the perfect 4th, were the "purest" tones of our local universe. These softer sounds jump right out when properly coaxed from their location on a length of taut string and correspond to the pitches heard within the "clang" of the blacksmith's hammer. Moving from his fundamental starting pitch up a 5th, then from that pitch up another 5th, i.e., C to G to D to A etc., Pythagorus envisioned a cycle of pure 5th's that would include the 12 different pitches of our present day, equal tempered chromatic scale. Unfortunately for Pythagorus' cycle of pure 5th's, and anyone else's for that matter, his ending pitch was a wee bit sharp of his starting pitch. We call this out of tuneness the "Pythagorean comma", which baffled musicians, astronomers and mathematicians alike, taking nearly 2000 years to figure out and utilize it's acceptable solution. (2)
1200 years ago the standardization of our music notation began to take shape. Thus, musical ideas of pitches and rhythm could be written down with pen and paper, accurately preserved and recreateable from manuscript. Evolving from what is known as mensural notation, our present day symbols became the standard system of preserving our music in written form at least 700 years prior to the emergence and acceptance of equal temper tuning and it's vast harmonic capabilities. Interesting to note is that while the system of notation we use today was originally used to record music with a single melodic line, it has shown itself completely adaptable to every aspect of the gradually increasing complexity of western music over the last 1000 years. So very cool if you ask me. Notation history.
1000 years ago, using Pythagorus' pitches and cycles, for Medieval musicians and composers monophonic music was the rage. Mono meaning one and phonic meaning sound, this ancient style of composition / performance consists of one main melody, probably with drums. It is among the oldest forms of music we have record of and thus has been used in so many different styles of different cultures of our world. Listening to the musical sounds of our own American Native music is a type of monophonic music. This music includes the solid, hypnotic and inspiring drum rhythms to ground the music to our Mother Earth, simply think of it as having one melody line and thus monophonic in composition. The Gregorian chants of Medieval Europe, sans drums (?), are said to be monophonic.
We hear a mostly monophonic approach today when listening to "Irish fiddle musicians", among others, where each of the instruments involved play the same melody line together, musically termed in "unison." The monophonic sound also helped to shape our early American blues. At the religious revival meetings were the early Gospel sounds emerged, everyone sang the melody. And while not everyone was a trained singer and on pitch with the actual melody, the combined sound of variably pitches voices sounding together created an "out of tune quality" that the blues artist eventually captured to get their "blue" notes. Often accompanied by the six string guitar, the blues artist often sings their melody pitches a wee bit out of tune with their strings, or use a "slide" on the strings to find their blues notes and work the magic. These blue notes oftentimes live "between the frets", kinda like a blue "sweet and sour" of pitches but mixed all together over a quarter note, 4 / 4 thump. (3)
Once heard, the sounds and potential power of this monophonic style and variations are never really forgotten. And from the earthy simplicity of one melodic line it was inevitable that sooner or later ...
Nearly 1000 years ago, polyphonic music solidly emerged in written records and is still today a main course for composers, players, listeners and everyone in between. As the name implies, the "poly" means many, so polyphony is "many sounds." In our case as musicians, polyphony generally means two or more melody lines played simultaneously, oftentimes with independent rhythms in each line or voice. Quite a dramatic increase in complexity over the monophonic style. Polyphony is an important part of the pre-Baroque period style of European music and perhaps reached it's apex many centuries later with the fugues of German master J.S. Bach. With the creation of the piano in 1700's in Italy, the next advancement in music complexity is in some ways a step backwards towards the monophonic style. Although this time the single melody line is lusciously supported by chords. Rhythms realign themselves more vertically as stacked pitches sound out chord progressions. With the "equal tempering" of the piano, all of the 12 pitches now become equal partners in a vast and smoothly tuned tonal universe.
Nearly 500 years ago, homophonic music began emerging at the early dawn of what was later to become the Baroque era. This style is characterized by the distinct "stacking" of pitches to create chords while the individual parts or instruments used all move together rhythmically. Of course today we may take these wonderfully powerful musical components for granted, but at their emergence, chords and the lovely harmony effect they create was a rather huge leap forward for the composers.
Nearly 400 years ago, a "New World" was developing on the American continents. Peoples from across the globe were coming to the Americas for the many freedoms embraced In the New World. North American music today is really a mix of all of the cultures of the world. For even as new cultural discoveries were made, North American players and composers found a way to incorporate the new flavors into the mix of their sound. The two primary early cultural influences that gradually merged and created the American sound were African and European, which often combined the monophonic African melodies with European equal temper harmony, often motored by exotic and complex rhythms. (3) The American fabric of sounds of course includes all of the folk music of the many other immigrant groups that came and are still coming to America, often retaining their original ethnic flavor. For example, we still can clearly hear this today in the music from the British Isles, or Klezmer music, the traditional sounds of the Eastern European Jewish folks. More recently is the addition of the Latin percussion sounds into the jazz of the 1940's or the Jamaican reggae beats in the 70's. And while American musicians are often the leaders in setting global trends, as say in pop music and culture, without the continued importing of new ideas from around the world, I sometimes wonder if our musical leadership would be sustained. For at the core of the American genius lies the concept of diversity, that healthy, natural and invigorating principle that keeps our music fresh, evolving and alive.
Review. The history of music is a fascinating story that chronicles the evolution of the societies in which we have lived. Our story in this chapter starts with the Neanderthal flute, a cave bear bone fashioned into a flute some 50,000 years ago. We then moved up about 47,000 years to the ancient Greeks and Pythagorus in particular. He is credited with creating the cycle of 5th's, giving us our present day 12 pitch system of music. Early Western music was monophonic and created from one main, unaccompanied melody line. This evolved by adding additional, independent melody lines into polyphony. The next major phase came about with the invention of the piano and it's eventual need for equal temper tuning. This new system made possible the full palette of chords or harmony for composers. Music written thus is said to be homophonic and uses stacks of pitches or chords struck simultaneously to support a single melody line. German composer and player J.S. Bach, while a prolific composer of the polyphonic style, was also said to be a champion of this new way of tuning called equal temper and the wonderful chords it produces. Our American sounds come from a varied mix of music from cultures from all over the world. Knowledge of music history is cool in that it provides perspective of our present by looking at the past while we can combine these two tenses and speculate about the future. So cool. "I think, therefore I am." Rene Descartes.
Vocabulary terms for this chapter.
| archeology | the study of human cultures from artifacts (4) |
| computer modeling | using our modern technology of computers to recreate, speculate, invision and expand the "what if" possibilities of information and material fragments we do have |
| cycle of fifths | a "pitch clock" that includes our 12 pitches, arranged clockwise by the interval of a perfect fifth, that pictorially resembles our 12 hour "face" clock |
| fundamental pitch | the pitch created by the entire length of a taut string, column of air etc., also the root pitch of a key center within the 12 tone system |
| overtones | tones that naturally exist over the fundamental pitch |
| music notation | symbols used to preserve in writing our musical sounds |
| monophonic | music with one melodic line |
| polyphonic | music with two or more melodic lines |
| homophonic | music with one melody line supported by chords |
| New World | a phrase used by folks the world over, say starting 500 years ago, to describe the existence of a continental land mass that would be called the "Americas", north and south, that became the vision of a new home for people from every part of our world where they could live in freedom |
Go on and ace the quiz before moving on to the last chapter in this mini text.
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Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work. Booker T. Washington
(1) Grout, Donald Jay. A History of Western Music, p. 10. W.W.Norton and Company Inc. New York, 1960.(2) Isacoff, Stuart. "Temperament ... The Idea That Solved Music's Greatest Riddle." U.S.A. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. 2001.
(3) Schuller, Gunther. Early Jazz. New York: Oxford Press, 1968.