Music
What is Music?
Music is god's gift which is also a form of art.
Music is sound that has been organized by using rhythm, melody or harmony. If someone bangs saucepans while cooking, it makes noise. If a person bangs saucepans or pots in a rhythmic way, they are making a simple type of music.
There are four things which music has most of the time:
Music often has pitch. This means high and low notes. Tunes are made of notes that go up or down or stay on the same pitch.
Music often has rhythm. Rhythm is the way the musical sounds and silences are put together in a sequence. Every tune has a rhythm that can be tapped. Music usually has a regular beat.
Music often has dynamics. This means whether it is quiet or loud or somewhere in between.
Music often has timbre. This is a French word (pronounced the French way: "TAM-br"). The "timbre" of a sound is the way that a sound is interesting. The sort of sound might be harsh, gentle, dry, warm, or something else. Timbre is what makes a clarinet sound different from an oboe, and what makes one person's voice sound different from another person.
When was Music invented?
Even in the stone age people made music. The first music was probably made trying to imitate sounds and rhythms that occurred naturally. Human music may echo these phenomena using patterns, repetition and tonality. This kind of music is still here today. Shamans sometimes imitate sounds that are heard in nature. It may also serve as entertainment (games), or have practical uses, like luring animals when hunting.Some animals also can use music. Songbirds use song to protect their territory, or to attract a mate. Monkeys have been seen beating hollow logs. This may, of course, also serve to defend the territory.The first musical instrument used by humans was probably the voice. The human voice can make many different kinds of sounds. The larynx (voice box) is like a wind instrument.The oldest known Neanderthal hyoid bone with the modern human form was found in 1983, indicating that the Neanderthals had language, because the hyoid supports the voice box in the human throat.Most likely the first rhythm instruments or percussion instruments involved the clapping of hands, stones hit together, or other things that are useful to keep a beat. There are finds of this type that date back to the paleolithic. Some of these are ambiguous, as they can be used either as a tool or a musical instrument.
Which was the first musical instrument?
The oldest flute ever discovered may be the so-called Divje Babe flute, found in the Slovenian cave Divje Babe I in 1995. It is not certain that the object is really a flute. The item in question is a fragment of the femur of a young cave bear, and has been dated to about 43,000 years ago. However, whether it is truly a musical instrument or simply a carnivore-chewed bone is a matter of ongoing debate.In 2008, archaeologists discovered a bone flute in the Hohle Fels cave near Ulm, Germany. The five-holed flute has a V-shaped mouthpiece and is made from a vulture wing bone. The researchers involved in the discovery officially published their findings in the journal Nature, in June 2009. The discovery is also the oldest confirmed find of any musical instrument in history. Other flutes were also found in the cave. This flute was found next to the Venus of Hohle Fels and a short distance from the oldest known human carving. When they announced their discovery, the scientists suggested that the "finds demonstrate the presence of a well-established musical tradition at the time when modern humans colonized Europe".
The oldest known wooden pipes were discovered near Greystones, Ireland, in 2004. A wood-lined pit contained a group of six flutes made from yew wood, between 30 and 50 cm long, tapered at one end, but without any finger holes. They may once have been strapped together.
In 1986 several bone flutes were found in Jiahu in Henan Province, China. They date to about 6,000 BC. They have between 5 and 8 holes each and were made from the hollow bones of a bird, the Red-crowned Crane. At the time of the discovery, one was found to be still playable. The bone flute plays both the five- or seven-note scale of Xia Zhi and six-note scale of Qing Shang of the ancient Chinese musical system.
What is Musical notation?
"Musical notation" is the way music is written down. Music needs to be written down in order to be saved and remembered for future performances. In this way composers (people who write music) can tell others how to play the musical piece as it was meant to be played.
Solfège (also called solfa) is the way tones are named. It was made in order to give a name to the several tones and pitches. For example, the eight basic notes "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do" are just the names of the eight notes that confirm the major scale.
Music can be written in several ways. When it is written on a staff (like in the example shown), the pitches (tones) and their duration are represented by symbols called notes. Notes are put on the lines and in the spaces between the lines. Each position says which tone must be played. The higher the note is on the staff, the higher the pitch of the tone. The lower the notes are, the lower the pitch. The duration of the notes (how long they are played for) is shown by making the note "heads" black or white, and by giving them stems and flags.
Music can also be written with letters, naming them as in the solfa "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do" or representing them by letters. The next table shows how each note of the solfa is represented in the
The Standard Notation was made to simplify the lecture of music notes, although it is mostly used to represent chords and the names of the music scales.
These ways to represent music ease the way a person reads music. There are more ways to write and represent music, but they are less known and may be more complicated.
How to enjoy music?
We can enjoy music using three methods. They are:
By listening
People can enjoy music by listening to it. They can go to concerts to hear musicians perform. Classical music is usually performed in concert halls, but sometimes huge festivals are organized in which it is performed outside, in a field or stadium, like pop festivals. People can listen to music on CDs, Computers, iPods, television, the radio, cassette/record-players and even mobile phones.
There is so much music today, in elevators, shopping malls, and stores, that it often becomes a background sound that we do not really hear.
By playing or singing
People can learn to play an instrument. Probably the most common for complete beginners is the piano or keyboard, the guitar, or the recorder (which is certainly the cheapest to buy). After they have learnt to play scales, play simple tunes and read the simplest musical notation, then they can think about which instrument for further development. They should choose an instrument that is practical for their size. For example, a very short child cannot play a full size double bass, because the double bass is over five feet high. People should choose an instrument that they enjoy playing, because playing regularly is the only way to get better. Finally, it helps to have a good teacher.
By composing
Anyone can make up his or her own pieces of music. It is not difficult to compose simple songs or melodies (tunes). It's easier for people who can play an instrument themselves. All it takes is experimenting with the sounds that an instrument makes. Someone can make up a piece that tells a story, or just find a nice tune and think about ways it can be changed each time it is repeated. The instrument might be someone's own voice.
