The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
How Did Music Begin?
Do you play an instrument? Some kids learn to play the piano or violin. Others join the school band.
You and your friends or family might enjoy music at home, in the car or at concerts. Even if you just like to sing, you’re using a completely natural musical instrument — your voice!
Music is a big part of our modern lives. But music in one form or another has been part of people’s lives for thousands of years.
March is Music in Our Schools Month. This year’s theme is Music Connects Us. The Mini Page plays along by looking at the origins of some musical instruments.
The earliest musicians
Prehistoric music is music made before people were writing things down. Because there are no records, experts have to
hypothesize (hi-POTH-eh-size), or make guesses, about howearly people made music.
Human voices
Humans used different noises to express fear or joy. These sounds, along with some of the sounds they heard from animals, such as birds’ chirping, might have led them to makemusic.
Finding a rhythm
When people began to use tools, for instance to pound grains, they may have done so in a
rhythm, or a regular pattern. These sounds
Percussion instruments
might have led themtomake other pleasing rhythms with the first percussion instruments.
Early humans probably banged rocks together to make tools. When they did, pieces might have broken off that they used for another purpose, such as scraping.
Those same pieces of stone could have been used to scrape rhythms on shells, wood or other stones.
Early people probably made clapping sounds with their hands. They also might have hit sticks on a hollow tree and noticed how loud it was. This may have been the beginning of a hollow wood instrument called a slit drum. These drums are still played in parts of Africa, Southeast Asia and Oceania.
Later, people stretched animal skins over wooden frames, then hit the drums with their hands or sticks. Such drums were used in honor of animals or plants.
Some filled gourds, shells or other items with small stones, nut shells or animal teeth and shook them as rattles. They were used to
accompany, or go along with, music and dance.