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Thursday, June 9, 2011

Origin of music

The origin of music is somewhat speculative at best, due to the original creators, being on the razor’s edge of self awareness, having no reason to document their activities for future readers. We can only guess as to how music was created in the primitive psyche of the time. What follows is pretty much my guess. 
   Early man most likely took some interest in the sounds around him, in some cases it meant life or death, as in the roar of a tiger, or it was pleasing to the ear, as in a bird singing away. I can imagine that after a successful hunt, the hunters would prance and growl around a fire emulating the sounds of the fierce beast they had just slain. They might even have started hitting sticks together in an attempt to emulate the sounds of their clubs thumping dully upon the head of some prey, or the hollow melon sound of a neighbor’s skull when they were fighting amongst themselves over some chunk of meat, or for the best looking mate. The former most likely, due to the fact that the latter would be a six of one half dozen of the other proposition, cosmetics having yet to be invented.  
   In any case, as far as the origin of music is concerned, drums were probably the first primitive music instrument if we remove the human voice from the equation.

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