Music in it's earliest form

[Felixissimo]

I just had a thought...., or maybe it's a wondering..., or possibly a pondering..
anyway

Whats the oldest ever preserved music known? You know, playable.

an intruiging question really ;)

[rbowser-]

HI, Danial - Do you mean "playable" as notation of some sort that can be read, or "playable" as in playing back an audio recording? The former has to be thousands of years old, the latter not all that much over a century!--an amazing thought on its own.

Randy B.

[Styxx]

My first thought was the Rolling Stones. Ya just can't get any older than that! :D

[lunker]

I remember hearing something on NPR about some scientists (I can't remember who) who had filtered the EMF radiation waves from the sky,and discovered that the background/underlying note was a Bb (many octaves below the human range of hearing). Does that count?

Or a related topic, you've probably seen the cute applications that can take a picture and turn the colors/patterns into some kind of audio signal. We could run some of the Hubble telescope images through that, and probably say that we were able to "listen" the the "sound" of the Big Bang. You can't get much older than that (except for the Rolling Stones!).

[rwayland]

[quote=Felixissimo;605103]

Whats the oldest ever preserved music known? You know, playable.
/quote]

Not so long ago, I read an article stating that the ancient Greeks had a means of writing their music. It produced an example and explanation. I have forgotten where I read it, and have not heard of it elsewhere. But this could provide you with a starting point in researching the matter.

Richard

[buckshead]

I have a book with 2 manuscripts in it that are quite old, one is 1400 BC, so 3400 years old.Never got in the charts tho. The other is 140 BC.

I'd return it to the library but I can't afford the fineshttp://northernsounds.com/forum/images/icons/icon7.gif

I expect there are others out somewhere.

[schneb]

The oldest manuscript that I ever heard of was an original Beethoven Eroica with crossed out title after Napoleon declared himself emperor.

Non-manuscript related can be dated back to God telling Job that the stars sang for joy at His creation.

Job 38:4-7
“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
Who determined its measurements?
To what were its foundations fastened?
When the morning stars sang together,
And all the sons of God shouted for joy?" - edited

[bigears]

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll30/jtan232/etlux1.jpg

[etLux]

http://davidsosnowski.com/images/dinosaur.jpg

[Felixissimo]

Very interesting thought on this forum ~| I appreciate it :);)
I guess I was kinda fuzzy, I guess what I really meant was: what's the oldest "music" (and by that I mean a melodic line or something) written down that can be translated into regular notation and played?
I other words, how did ancient music sound? :p

[rbowser-]

Hello again, "Felixissimo"

As Richard also referred to, once in awhile I've noticed mentioned of some very old (B.C.) texts which are various ancient methods of notating music. But it's always unclear and controversial as to how these forgotten notations are meant to be interpreted - so no such discoveries can definitively answer the question " how did ancient music sound?"

Randy B.

[jmpaquette]

http://davidsosnowski.com/images/dinosaur.jpg
Randy -

As the above picture shows, etLux was there with the dinosaurs . . living and dead . . . cogitating the muse. I'm sure he was writing it down, and playing it, to soothe the savage breast and lull the monsters to sleep.:wow:

[bigears]

that's a scary thought......Sarah Palin was right! Humankind and dinosaurs were on the earth at the same time. :wow:

[jmpaquette]

that's a scary thought......Sarah Palin was right! Humankind and dinosaurs were on the earth at the same time. :wow:
Exactly what I was thinking!

[rbowser-]

"...Sarah Palin was right! Humankind and dinosaurs were on the earth at the same time..."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! )(~

To think of all the wisdom we're missing out on because of the way the election went. :p

Randy B.

[schneb]

"...Sarah Palin was right! Humankind and dinosaurs were on the earth at the same time..."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! )(~


Just because you disagree, doesn't give you mocking rights, bigears and Randy.

[Fabio]

Well, from a "payable" point of view, the corpus of ancient Greek music (not so much, to be honest, but enough to have some intriguing experience, of true melodic fragments like the "Epithaph of Sikilos" that is quite famous and has been used frequently for some modern arrangement) is the only one we are almost confident we can play well, due to some good contemporary theorethical description of instruments, timing and intonation, based on mathematics of strings and pipes, then we can go very close to the right intervals of the different Greek scales (modoi and topoi).

But some other important and older civilizations left music (Egyptians, mesopothamians, Chinese, Indians), that unfortunately for lack of informations we are quite far from play without arbitrary and unrelaiable modern interpretation.

Even the instruments are so corrupted and damaged by time, that the intervals (mostly considered penthatonic anemitonic, but sometime very difficult to measure) are not really defined, so some scientist still is arguing that different scales, maybe closer to modern Arabian or Asian taste, including microtonal variation and more than 5 tunes in a scale were existing.

Archeomusicology and Ethnomusicology are for sure fashinating and intriguing...at least for me. Aren't they?
~|

[rbowser-]

Just because you disagree, doesn't give you mocking rights, bigears and Randy.

I will gladly exercise my right to mock any person claiming to deserve a leadership role who so flagrantly displays their ignorance. This side comment about dinosaurs wasn't on an issue of "opinion," it was in reference to facts. I'll thank you, Schneb, to not presume to tell me how to behave in public.

Randy B.

[Felixissimo]

Well, from a "payable" point of view, the corpus of ancient Greek music (not so much, to be honest, but enough to have some intriguing experience, of true melodic fragments like the "Epithaph of Sikilos" that is quite famous and has been used frequently for some modern arrangement) is the only one we are almost confident we can play well, due to some good contemporary theorethical description of instruments, timing and intonation, based on mathematics of strings and pipes, then we can go very close to the right intervals of the different Greek scales (modoi and topoi).

But some other important and older civilizations left music (Egyptians, mesopothamians, Chinese, Indians), that unfortunately for lack of informations we are quite far from play without arbitrary and unrelaiable modern interpretation.

Even the instruments are so corrupted and damaged by time, that the intervals (mostly considered penthatonic anemitonic, but sometime very difficult to measure) are not really defined, so some scientist still is arguing that different scales, maybe closer to modern Arabian or Asian taste, including microtonal variation and more than 5 tunes in a scale were existing.

Archeomusicology and Ethnomusicology are for sure fashinating and intriguing...at least for me. Aren't they?
~|

Now that's a good answer. Thanks Fabio :p I looked up this "epithaph of seikilos" and according to sources (well, wikipedia ;)) it's:
"the oldest surviving example of a complete musical composition, including musical notation"

And there's even notation! Yaay! )(~
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seikilos_epitaph

[schneb]

I'll thank you, Schneb, to not presume to tell me how to behave in public.

You can behave any way you please. But to mock difference of opinion is a reflection upon me who happens to believe the evidence. This forum is not for that. I'm finding more of it here, and wishing to see less of it.

[etLux]

Randy -

As the above picture shows, etLux was there with the dinosaurs . . living and dead . . . cogitating the muse. I'm sure he was writing it down, and playing it, to soothe the savage breast and lull the monsters to sleep.:wow:

An unfortunate side effect of listening to my stuff appears to
have been to scald the meat right off the bones of at least
one of those critters.

[rbowser-]

"You can behave any way you please. But to mock difference of opinion is a reflection upon me who happens to believe the evidence. This forum is not for that. I'm finding more of it here, and wishing to see less of it."

Schneb, why are you prolonging a conversation that you think isn't appropriate for the Forum?

When the passing, joking reference was made to Palin's belief about human beings coexisting with dinosaurs, my reaction was to laugh again at how she was ever taken seriously as a leader, and who under emergency circumstances could have stepped into the presidency.

My joining in on the chuckle was not a reflection on you or any other private citizen who is free to believe whatever they want. I wasn't mocking a difference of opinion, I was laughing at Palin, and will always laugh at her. It wouldn't surprise me if she thinks the Earth is flat. I think that belief is as patently absurd as the Flintstones version of prehistory, but that wasn't the point of my earlier post.

Sorry you can't always enjoy everything you see posted, but offending you or anyone else but Palin was the last thing on my mind.

Randy B.

[etLux]

But, but... Randy, the world IS flat!

http://800ceoread.com/images/books/99/9780374292799/1652263.jpg

[rbowser-]

hehehe---Thanks, David - you are the Image Meister sometimes!

Thanks for helping to deflate an unfortunate moment of friction here. I really never intend to rub people the wrong way, and I'm sorry to see when that's happened.

Back to the topic at hand - I remember the intriguing bit of investigating some people were doing trying to decipher what they thought were musical passages in the Old Testament - Psalms I'm rather sure.

Interesting mysteries to ponder - what ancient music really sounded like.

Randy

[garymosse]

If a set of knowledge from college almost 50 years ago is still valid:
The greek modes were scales starting on a different letter note which created different kinds of melodies. We only have descriptions of emotions & feelings influenced by the music, such as sadness in a scale similar to our minor keys.
We have descriptions on water organs used in the Roman Colosseum (?)during the killing of Christians in the arena.
The early church modes were based on these Greek modes & were written in an early style of writing notes etc. These were plain song or Gregorian chant.
(around the 9th Century AD)
Our current style of written music dates to the 12th Century. I remember that as being the period when written music was similar to present day.
After a hunt in my copy of GROUT, I can't confirm that.
Gary

[jmpaquette]

An unfortunate side effect of listening to my stuff appears to have been to scald the meat right off the bones of at least
one of those critters.

Crisped his toast, you did!

)(~)(~)(~

[rbowser-]

An unfortunate side effect of listening to my stuff appears to
have been to scald the meat right off the bones of at least
one of those critters.
Well at least this helps solve the mystery of how the dinosaurs died off!

Randy

[etLux]

Crisped his toast, you did!


It was probably that Eb 9,11,7,maj7,5+,b2,#4/E,F chord.


Well at least this helps solve the mystery of how the dinosaurs died off!


Beware the piece I release 12/21/2012...

[rbowser-]

"...12/21/2012..."

OH Noooo! I'm skeered already! :eek:

Randy

[webbiedave]

Felixissimo, you might want to check out Jieshi Diao Youlan.