The Evolution of Music through History

Prehistoric Music categorizes all music that was created in the preliterate age (a period before any cultures had created a system to read and write.)

Because it’s occurrence was prior to recorded history, the origin of music is still unknown; however, some believe that it’s creation was stemmed through the occurrence of natural sounds and rhythms. Humans may have learned to incorporate these natural sounds into their music by using patterns, repetition, or tonality.

Even today, many cultures create music that is purposely intended to imitate certain sounds in nature. (For example this type of music is woven into shamanistic beliefs or practices. Another reason this may be used is for practical reasons such as hunting in wildlife.) i.e. shamanism is usually practiced in Siberia or in Sami groups where there music intentionally involves mimicking sounds.

Music during this era was very simple and had no written form or scale, meaning there were no harmonies, tuning, or musical notation involved, just simple sounds.

It was said that many ancient cultures used music as a mnemonic device to remember and imprint important stories and myths into minds. It was a common way to pass down tribal history, and is locked quickly into memory.

The first musical instrument that was most likely used was the human voice.

However, humans learned pretty early on how to make their own instruments. It seems that Ice Age men were also quite fond of music, seeing that a bone flute was found in a cave in the Swabian mountains of south-western Germany dating back 35,000 years ago, in the Late Pleistocene Era. The flute was made from the tusk of a wooly mammoth. Back then, ivory was the considered the most beautiful and extravagant material you ...

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