# Primitive Origins of Acoustic Instruments



## 20centrfuge (Apr 13, 2007)

I've been thinking about the primitive origins of the different acoustic instrument groups. Wondering about those early humans and their experiences and wondering if perhaps there is anything that links those experiences to Western music, as we know it.

All STRING instruments, from my understanding, owe their first origins to the bow and arrow. Early on, I can imagine a primitive human plucking the "string" of the bow and hearing _that_ sound. Probably there were other bows around of slightly different dimensions that would, of course, produce different pitches. Also, by rubbing the arrow (probably a sharpened stick) across the string, the sustained sound could be produced.

Probably primitive harps came first: a bow and arrow with several strings. Then you can easily imagine how the idea of a violin would evolve from that.

From what I understand, it wasn't until the 1300's, that society was advanced enough to then fathom that, if you layed the harp horizontally, and could use levers etc, you could fashion a HARPsichord. Which was really the predecessor to the piano.

WOODWINDS: originally, probably more like whistles fashioned from old bones or plants (bamboo?). It is also not difficult to imagine a primitive double reed, fashioned by placing two thin, flat plant elements together, and blowing.

BRASS: old bones with an end cut off and blown - with a buzz. Also sea shells - conch.

PERCUSSION: anything hit. Undoubtedly the first real instruments after the human voice.


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## Guest (May 23, 2015)

I think you are seriously underestimating the ingenuity of people in the 1300s.

Though not a musical instrument, here is a description of Ghenghis (or Kubla) Khan's fountain at Khara Khorum:

Of all the wonders in The Palace of the Great Khan, the silver fountain most captivated the visiting monk. It took the shape of “a great silver tree, and at its roots are four lions of silver, each with a conduit through it, and all belching forth white milk of mares,” wrote William of Rubruck, a Franciscan friar who toured the Mongol capital, Khara Khorum, in 1254. When a silver angel at the top of the tree trumpeted, still more beverages spouted out of the pipes: wine, clarified mare’s milk, a honey drink, rice mead – take your pic.

More from wikipedia:

The sculptor was the Parisian Guillaume Bouchier. A large tree sculpted of silver and other precious metals rose up from the middle of the courtyard and loomed over the palace, with the branches of the tree extended into the building. Silver fruit hung from the limbs and it had four golden serpents braided around the trunk. At the top of the tree rose a trumpet angel. When the khan wanted to summon the drinks for his guests, the mechanical angel raised the trumpet to his lips and sounded the horn, whereupon the mouths of the serpents began to gush out a fountain of alcoholic beverages into the large silver basin arranged at the base of the tree.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

What about finger plucked instruments? Roman times, the miniature harp.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Clearly the origin of the percussion instrument coincided with the first hitting of a spouse on the head with a frying pan.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I think first percussion instruments could be the use of animal skins on hollowed out trucks, so the first drums. It's a fascinating topic.


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## Guest (May 24, 2015)

ArtMusic said:


> hollowed out trucks


The higher-pitched ones would be those with the engine taken out.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Every child (and some of us adults) can't resist finding out what sound an object makes. How many of us made the "robot voice" speaking into an electric fan? That kind of curiosity is so innate in us, I'd be willing to bet musical instruments go back much farther than we think if our species had the curiosity to invent and survive. 

Oh, another one -- gourds and other husks with dried seeds make good rattles, precursor to the -- um, rattle. Or the maraca.


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