History of music
Upon the development of writing, the music of literate civilizations—ancient music—was present in the major Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, Indian, Persian, Mesopotamian, and Middle Eastern societies.
In addition to religion or the lack thereof, a society's music is influenced by all other aspects of its culture, including social and economic organization and experience, climate, and access to technology.
[12][13][n 2][n 3] There is little consensus on any particular theory for the origin of music, which have included contributions from archaeologists, cognitive scientists, ethnomusicologists, evolutionary biologists, linguists, neuroscientists, paleoanthropologists, philosophers, and psychologists (developmental and social).
[35] Some cultures credit multiple originators of music; ancient Egyptian mythology associates it with numerous deities, including Amun, Hathor, Isis and Osiris, but especially Ihy.
[38] There are many stories relating to music's origins in Chinese mythology,[39][n 5] but the most prominent is that of the musician Ling Lun, who—on the orders of the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi)—invented bamboo flute by imitating the song of the mythical fenghuang birds.
[50] Purportedly used by Neanderthals, the Divje Babe Flute has received extensive scholarly attention, and whether it is truly a musical instrument or an object formed by animals is the subject of intense debate.
[46] The earliest objects whose designations as musical instruments are widely accepted are bone flutes from the Swabian Jura, Germany, namely from the Geissenklösterle, Hohle Fels and Vogelherd caves.
[52] Dated to the Aurignacian (of the Upper Paleolithic) and used by Early European modern humans, from all three caves there are eight examples, four made from the wing bones of birds and four from mammoth ivory; three of these are near complete.
[53][n 8] Considering the relative complexity of flutes, it is likely earlier instruments existed, akin to objects that are common in later hunter and gatherer societies, such as rattles, shakers, and drums.
[62] Following the advent of writing, literate civilizations are termed part of the ancient world, the first of which is Sumerian literature of Abu Salabikh (now Southern Iraq) of c. 2600 BCE.
[64] Varying song forms were present in Ancient cultures, including China, Egypt, Greece, India, Mesopotamia, Rome, and the Middle East.
[59] Of the tomb, the by-far most notable instrument is the monumental set of 65 tuned bianzhong bells, which range five octaves requiring at least five players; they are still playable and include rare inscriptions on music.
People used them to appeal to supernatural forces for survival needs,[87] while pan flutes may have been used to attract birds while hunting,[88] and drums were common in sacrifices and military ceremonies.
[95] During the Warring States Period when of Confucius's lifetime, officials often ignored this distinction, preferring more lively suyue music and using the older yayue traditional solely for political means.
[96] Confucius and disciples such as Mencius considered this preference virtueless and saw ill of the leaders' ignorance of ganying,[97] a theory that held music was intrinsically connected to the universe.
[108] In practice, however, many officials ignored or downplayed Confucius's high regard for yayue over suyue music, preferring to engage in the more lively and informal later.
[113] Ancient Sanskrit, Pali, and Prakrit literature frequently contains musical references, from the Vedas to the works of Kalidasa and the Ilango Adigal's epic Silappatikaram.
[125] In his Histories, Herodotus noted that Achaemenid priests did not use aulos music in their ceremonies, while Xenophon reflected on his visit to Persia in the Cyropaedia, mentioning the presence of many female singers at court.
Music was evidently used in ceremonies and celebrations; a Parthian-era stone frieze in Hatra shows a wedding where musicians are included, playing trumpets, tambourines, and a variety of flutes.
[128] Musicians in Khosrow's service include Āzādvar-e Changi (or Āzād),[125] Bamshad, the harpist Nagisa (Nakisa), Ramtin, Sarkash and Barbad,[116] who was the most famous.
[143] In the late 7th century the kanōn overtook the kontakion in popularity; Andrew of Crete became its first significant composer, and is traditionally credited as the genre's originator,[144] though modern scholars now doubt this attribution.
By the middle of the 15th century, composers and singers from the Low Countries and adjacent areas began to spread across Europe, especially into Italy, where they were employed by the papal chapel and the aristocratic patrons of the arts (such as the Medici, the Este, and the Sforza families).
Germany cultivated polyphonic forms built on the Protestant chorales, which replaced the Roman Catholic Gregorian Chant as a basis for sacred music, and imported the style of the Venetian school (the appearance of which defined the start of the Baroque era there).
France developed a unique style of musical diction known as musique mesurée, used in secular chansons, with composers such as Guillaume Costeley and Claude Le Jeune prominent in the movement.
The major and minor scales began to predominate over the old church modes, a feature which was at first most obvious at cadential points in compositions, but gradually became pervasive.
[clarification needed] German, Italian, French, Dutch, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, and English Baroque composers wrote for small ensembles including strings, brass, and woodwinds, as well as for choirs and keyboard instruments such as pipe organ, harpsichord, and clavichord.
Along with the gradual displacement of the voice in favor of stronger, clearer melodies, counterpoint also typically became a decorative flourish, often used near the end of a work or for a single movement.
Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert were transitional composers, leading into the Romantic period, with their expansion of existing genres, forms, and even functions of music.
For example: Béla Bartók, Anton Webern, Dmitri Shostakovich, Olivier Messiaen, John Cage, Benjamin Britten, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Sofia Gubaidulina, Krzysztof Penderecki, Brian Ferneyhough, Kaija Saariaho.
[n 22] The term has its roots in the music of the American Tin Pan Alley, a group of prominent musicians and publishers who began to emerge during the 1880s in New York City.
