# Who invented music?



## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Nope, not a stupid thread title. An interesting article someone posted on another forum:

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20140907-does-music-pre-date-modern-man


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I knew it was the Monkees!


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

starthrower said:


> I knew it was the Monkees!


Some researchers still think it was the Beatles.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

I think it was Stravinsky who said that God created the first music, and it must have been the sound of a colossal pair of cymbals. 


Regarding the link I can imagine early proto-human singing sounding a little like Ligeti's Aventures, lol.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

View attachment 52124

I thought it was these guys


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

The Rolling Stones are more 40,000 years old so I guess they invented music


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

He did,


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Without a look at the article, I could venture a very safe bet and say it was the first female with any speech ability at all cooing soothing sounds to her offspring. that probably millenia before earliest man really learned to hunt, where signalling each other or replicating animal calls would then come in to play.

And there is also that old very reliable standby in such instances as these: we all know it was the work of "ANONYMOUS."


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## Ian Moore (Jun 28, 2014)

> Who invented music?


If you have an ego like mine, you would say that I have something to do with it!!!(Only joking).


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Haydn man said:


> The Rolling Stones are more 40,000 years old so I guess they invented music


It makes sense that rock music would have been invented in the stone age. 

My problem with most proposed hypotheses is that they seem to me difficult to test.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

When the cave men realized they had rhythm, they also discovered music, soon after.
Their first song commemorated this fact, discovered in the Howe Caverns and is dated around 47,000 BC.
The title was translated painstakingly by archeologists to be "I've Got Rhythm".


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## Guest (Sep 28, 2014)

Appropriately shot through with the language of 'doubt' ('may', 'suggests', 'on the other hand'), the article offers some interesting insights. I like the idea that monogamy may be promoted by singing - or is it the other way around? I love my wife's singing, but she's never going to warble in public...too much like a corncrake.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> Appropriately shot through with the language of 'doubt' ('may', 'suggests', 'on the other hand'), the article offers some interesting insights. I like the idea that monogamy may be promoted by singing - or is it the other way around? I love my wife's singing, but she's never going to warble in public...too much like a corncrake.


Unless there comes a sudden vogue for corncrakes...?


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## Guest (Sep 28, 2014)

Ingélou said:


> Unless there comes a sudden vogue for corncrakes...?


In which case, I'll push on to X Factor before you can say "Simon Cowell"!!


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Not a 'who'. If not a bird it was a precursor.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Probably Alban Berg in his Piano Sonata, Opus One.
Everything else coming before was simply pretension.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

If you mean music in the context of human fabrication only, then I suppose we can't go far enough in our textbooks to figure that out.

If you mean music simply as a cohesion of different sounds. Well... planets, stars, galaxies - the entire universe is making music all of the time. And that's long before any life on Earth hit the front pages of consciousness.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I have a friend, Mike Musiker on Long Island. He claims he invented it, though I doubt it.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

I think that the reason early man lived in caves was because they discovered the resonance value of such spaces which made their singing sound stellar. We no longer have caves, but we do have bathrooms with shower stalls. Believe me, even Pavarotti would have been envious of the sound I can get from the _Vesti La Giubba _ aria in my shower. (He certainly would be envious, in that same venue, of the physique I display, as well!)


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## kikko (Jun 19, 2014)

A guy...I don't know if he's still alive...


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

With a lot of research starting to indicate that Neanderthals were brighter and more advanced than Cro-Magnons, I wouldn't be surprised if they had had unaccompanied song at least. This would mean music could have developed hundreds of thousands of years ago.


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

Vesuvius said:


> If you mean music simply as a cohesion of different sounds. Well... planets, stars, galaxies - the entire universe is making music all of the time. And that's long before any life on Earth hit the front pages of consciousness.


They make sounds in isolation, but I thought since sound couldn't travel through a vacuum none of those sounds can really come together...unless we could listen to them before the big bang when everything in the universe was crushed together into an infinitesimally small space.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

trazom said:


> They make sounds in isolation, but I thought since sound couldn't travel through a vacuum none of those sounds can really come together...unless we could listen to them before the big bang when everything in the universe was crushed together into an infinitesimally small space.


If my memory serves me right, NASA (or some other organization) has recordings of the different sounds certain planets create. And even the background of ~fuzz~ we hear in certain radio frequencies is said to be the sound from the Big Bang. Pretty amazing.






Many o' wise men say the cosmic sound that created the universe was AUM or OM. Our Universe has been singing since its inception.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

SONNET CLV said:


> I think that the reason early man lived in caves was because they discovered the resonance value of such spaces which made their singing sound stellar. We no longer have caves, but we do have bathrooms with shower stalls. Believe me, even Pavarotti would have been envious of the sound I can get from the _Vesti La Giubba _ aria in my shower. (He certainly would be envious, in that same venue, of the physique I display, as well!)


And what about the poor neighbours? Apparently you are determined that, erm, none shall sleep...


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## Giordano (Aug 10, 2014)

Organized Chaos


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

OP: I don't get it. You want the actual dude's name?


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## Guest (Sep 29, 2014)

hpowders said:


> OP: I don't get it. You want the actual dude's name?


You did read the article posted in the OP, HP?


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Italian monks.................


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

Here you are a couple of ancient Britons busy inventing music


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

trazom said:


> They make sounds in isolation, but I thought since sound couldn't travel through a vacuum none of those sounds can really come together...unless we could listen to them before the big bang when everything in the universe was crushed together into an infinitesimally small space.


I don't think there is a vacuum. All is a part of the one Big Bang. It's just what we can and can't perceive as humans.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Haydn man said:


> View attachment 54182
> 
> Here you are a couple of ancient Britons busy inventing music


They look like a couple of ancient hookers, mouths agape, as is typical in the their profession.

Bada Bing!


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Whoever invented music, I sure hope he/she was smart enough to go straight to the patent office before revealing it to the rest of us!


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Who invented music?

Probably these guys...


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

aleazk said:


> Who invented music?
> 
> Probably these guys...


I think it was this guy... Bigus Bangthamus.


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## Giordano (Aug 10, 2014)

I think music was "already" there "before" God.
Or, music IS simultaneous with the universe.
Or, music IS.
Or, music BE.


Off topic, but I wonder who invented "OMG"... 
I wonder if God pays attention when humans speak or write "OMG"...


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Who's this 'God' people here talks so much about? And, most importantly, does he wear pants or not?

Thank you.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

A concept in the mind, god is. But if one wants to find the root of music... finding the root of the universe is a necessity if causality is a belief. So, music is ultimately created by no man. As man is a consequence of the evolving cosmos. And everything that comes out of man has its foundation in the beginning of such a cosmic dance. Our pride is unfounded.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Vesuvius said:


> A concept in the mind, god is. But if one wants to find the root of music... finding the root of the universe is a necessity if causality is a belief. So, music is ultimately created by no man. As man is a consequence of the evolving cosmos. And everything that comes out of man has its foundation in the beginning of such a cosmic dance. Our pride is unfounded.


Oh, yep! everytime I listen to Bach I remember Leonard Nimoy's wise words:


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

aleazk said:


> Oh, yep! everytime I listen to Bach I remember Leonard Nimoy's wise words:


I really don't know how one who claims to be logical can argue with such reason. :tiphat:


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

BAHAHAHA! Spock, what a ham.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Vesuvius said:


> I really don't know how one who claims to be logical can argue with such reason. :tiphat:


Ok, I will get serious, Sir!

That video you posted is not the 'actual sound' of the universe, but electromagnetic microwaves, that compose the Cosmic Microwave Background, _transduced_ to sound by using a computer. Also, this radiation doesn't come from the moment of the Big Bang itself. The photons that we detect today were emitted half a million years after the Big Bang in a period called 'recombination'. Before this period, photons were constantly being absorbed by free electrons and protons. At the recombination time, the temperature dropped enough for these free electrons and protons to form neutral hydrogen atoms. This makes the interactions with the photons more unlikely, and in this way these photons stopped being absorbed and started to propagate freely through space. After a big redshift caused by 13 billion years of expansion of the universe, we detect them now as an ubiquitous and very weak radiation background at 3 K.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

aleazk said:


> Ok, I will get serious, Sir!
> 
> That video you posted is not the 'actual sound' of the universe, but electromagnetic microwaves, that compose the Cosmic Microwave Background, _transduced_ to sound by using a computer. Also, this radiation doesn't come from the moment of the Big Bang itself. The photons that we detect today were emitted half a million years after the Big Bang in a period called 'recombination'. Before this period, photons were constantly being absorbed by free electrons and protons. At the recombination time, the temperature dropped enough for these free electrons and protons to form neutral hydrogen atoms. This makes the interactions with the photons more unlikely, and in this way these photons stopped being absorbed and started to propagate freely through space. After a big redshift caused by 13 billion years of expansion of the universe, we detect them now as an ubiquitous and very weak radiation background at 3 K.


Well, there, my dear friend... you're taking me clean out of context and insulting my intelligence. I'm quite aware of your current verbosity, but that isn't my point in the least. I had said in previous altercations that what we perceive as sound is only an energy frequency in accordance to human hearing.... I still defer to my original statement that everything is a consequence from the original spark of life. Humans in themselves have created nothing original. It's all a consequence of the evolving cosmos.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Vesuvius said:


> A concept in the mind, god is.


And in very serious trouble, you are. Further details forthcoming.

--God


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

KenOC said:


> And in very serious trouble, you are. Further details forthcoming.
> 
> --God


Welp, what do you know outside of your mind? I'd really like to meet someone who knows something outside of their mind. It's a contradiction in itself, really. Any takers?

Oh, lawd... this'll get shut down pretty quick. I can feel the tension before it starts.


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## stevens (Jun 23, 2014)

So this is a sharp sign from Neandethal or Cro-magnon era? Thats amazing!


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## echo (Aug 15, 2014)

see this could turn into the theist debate too - all it would take is someone to define music as the vibration between positive and negative fields --- ohh i suppose it's something distracting for the kiddies


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## stevens (Jun 23, 2014)

Can we conclude that the Neandertahls played in G major? -Or e minor? How about the Cro-magnons, did they play in flats?


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

The real question is, who invented _great_ music?


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

aleazk said:


> Who invented music?
> 
> Probably these guys...


Or their mum trying to hush them down when they where to rambunctious!

/ptr


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## stevens (Jun 23, 2014)

When did mankind forgot what they invented? Around 1910?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

stevens said:


> When did mankind forgot what they invented? Around 1910?


Hoohoohoo! Good thing you're only joking.

Aren't you?


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## muzik (May 16, 2013)

starthrower said:


> I knew it was the Monkees!


Monkeys.

.......


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## muzik (May 16, 2013)

stevens said:


> When did mankind forgot what they invented? Around 1910?


Nope. Jazz took over. The torch is still burning.


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