A BAND STUDENT’S
GUIDE TO
MUSIC HISTORY
Early Music
40,000 BC –
600 AD
PREHISTORIC MUSIC (C. 40,000 BC)
Earliest instruments
 Human voice
 Bone flutes
 Early percussion
Purposes
 Survival
 Battle
 Defense
 Lots of downtime
30,000 year old flute carved from mammoth tusk
http://donsmaps.com/musicalinstruments.html
INSTRUMENTS
Bullroarer
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ODGE2f7gLQ
Bone Flute
 https://youtu.be/InV2vogeiec?t=73
Drums, percussion…
Voice
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN MUSIC (C. 3,000 BC)
Instruments
 Harp, lyre, lutes
 Flutes
 Double clarinets
 Cymbals
 Drums
Different scales
 Not major and minor
 Phyrgian, Lydian
Ancient Egyptian lyre and harp
ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC (C. 700 BC)
 “Music”
 named after Muses,
daughters of Zeus
 Instruments
 Aulos, lyre
 Pan pipes
 Roots of Music Theory
 Scales, modes
 Relation to moods
 Pythagoras
 Harmonic series
 “Harmony of the Spheres”
“The Harmony of the Spheres”
OTHER CULTURES
Ancient Roman
Music
 Instruments
 Roman tuba (Lituus)
 Aulos, pan pipes
OTHER CULTURES
 Music also developed in
Eastern civilizations,
like India, China,
Mesopotamia, and
Japan
 Many of these musical
traditions have become
incorporated into
contemporary
compositions, but
Eastern and Western
music remained
separate for many
years