# How old is music?



## bassClef (Oct 29, 2006)

According to a new discovery the first musical instruments are at least 42,000 years old:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18196349

I wonder what kind of music was played then.


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## Iforgotmypassword (May 16, 2011)

I would really kill to know what music sounded like when it first began to culminate into an actual cohesive art form. I've spent a lot of time wondering about that.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I think it safe to assume that music came right along with the earliest 'speech' of the Neanderthals, and has been with us ever since. There is an afterward in Ursula Le Guin's 'Clan of the Cave Bear' trilogy citing citing finds of mastodon skulls with clearly defined carved partitions, very like the divisions on a steel drum -- about the logical conclusion is that the skull had been altered to be a similarly functioning pitched percussion instrument.

Then there is that 40,000 year old flute found several years ago. That is in bone. Certainly, 'pan pipes' -- i.e. simple reeds, none of which have yet been found, and would be petrified if they were found -- were also some of the earliest of 'flutes.' The existence of finger holes to get different pitches is now concretely at least 40,000 years old.

If the Lascaux cave paintings (32,000 years ago) are anything to go by, I would think whatever the musical scale, whether unison music, or in parts and harmony, the rhythm, etc. that in one way or another, there was music as 'sophisticated' and nuanced as those cave paintings.
http://www.google.com/search?q=lasc...ct=mode&cd=2&ved=0CGUQ_AUoAQ&biw=1024&bih=509

That recently found bone flute is incomplete. It is probably so fragile it would instantly turn to dust if blown and played.

We'll have to 'imagine' for a long time, perhaps forever, the scales used and all the rest.

Yes, another time-travel with great field recording equipment in hand, and a grand and tantalizing fantasy it is.


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## Norse (May 10, 2010)

Has anyone seen Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams? It's a 3d documentary about the Chauvet Cave in France. One of the enthusiasts interviewed plays a tune on a copy/reconstruction of one of those extremely old flutes. The tune is probably just something he made up, but I believe was the flute was capable of making what was more or less a 'modern' pentatonic scale. At least that's the way I remember it.

Edit:
After searching a little, I see the guy was also actually able to play The Star Sprangled Banner on that flute. I guess my memory is a little faulty. One site explained it as the flute being basically pentatonic, but that with some overblowing you can fill in the missing notes and make our modern major scale. (!) Most of the results on google say this flute was either 30,000 or 35,000 years old.


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## hawk (Oct 1, 2007)

Some stories of traditional instruments from the Northern Territories of Australia say that they have been around for approx 60,000 years. I'm speaking of what we call didgeridoo....
My guess is that as long as there have been people there has been a collection of noises/sounds (music) made by a variety of things~rythyms tapped out on our bodies, two sticks or rocks clicked together, hollow bones or tree trunks...


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

Ochien interesna

Nikolai


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