Music In A Few Historical Steps

By Jack Wogan


It is very hard to establish when music started to be played. It might have been the result of a happy accident, as many of our best things today are. As to when this happened we can know for sure only it was in the prehistoric time. The first music was probably a series of rhythmic beats which had only one purpose: to serve a religious ceremonial. How do we know this? Archaeologists and anthropologists say that there are many similarities between the wild tribes still existing today and how the primitive people lived. So the wild beats which can still be heard in Africa or South America may be very close to what one could hear thousands of years ago.

As music broke loose with religion, innovations and new instruments were allowed. It evolved so much that ancient Greeks included it into their pantheon together with 8 other sister-muses.

With the end of the Antiquity Europe became the space of huge movements of populations. These movements changed a lot the face of the continent and for more than 800 years nothing seemed secured anymore. The Church was for a long time the only oasis of stability and while its power grew it started to dictate in many areas, from politics to private life, from economics to art. So music became again a part of a religious ceremony. But, although shyly, it was also played as entertainment by troubadours.

A Baroque age was needed so that music could become great. This period of time covering the 17th Century and most of the 18th saw the birth of opera and the talent of great composers like Bach, Vivaldi or Handel. At the end of the 18th Century and the beginning of the next the capital of a big empire became also a capital of music. Vienna concentrated talents like those of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven or Schubert and new musical styles came to life.

The last centuries brought huge changes in all areas of human life. It is only natural that music followed and many new musical styles appeared. Europe and Asia ceased to be the irradiant points for this art and its practice is even more accessible to us. You can learn to play piano or train your voice and talented or not you can always listen. And there is a whole universe of harmony in reach. Today music is appreciated not only for its aesthetics, but also for its therapeutic uses. From plants and animals to the little baby sleeping in his mother's arms everything responds to music. Maybe we are not only listening to it. Maybe we also need it.




About the Author:



0 comments: