Music: An Eternal Melody

Music: An Eternal Melody

There are many languages spoken throughout this world, but there is one that everybody speaks. Music is a universal language to all people and nations. Be it vocal or pure instrumental, music is used for weddings, graduations, religious events, or as a nation's anthem. It can change people's moods, feelings, or actions. It's easy to say that almost everyone enjoys listening to a tune on the radio. It's been around for a long time, but the question is how long has music really been around for?

For the believers of Darwin's Theory of Evolution, Darwin suggested that singing originated from man's imitation of animal cries and the sounds of nature surrounding him. Singing may have also originally been a form of communication, almost speech-like which arose from the need to give signals using sound. "Man's first songs ranged from celebratory aspects and prayers to godlike divinities to chants used as a form of magic to induce the listener into a trance-like concentration" (Digital Daydreams). Because there is no type of documentation or dates, the exact origins of music are unknown. Music far in the past was usually passed down from teacher to pupil, so it was never written down. Samaria, Egypt and China all have a history of not transcribing music. The Greeks gave us some of the first and most significant theoretical discoveries regarding music. "The purpose of music was therapeutic, to purify the mind and harmonize the soul through dancing or song" (Digital Daydreams). Some of the big names that come up in Greek history related to music in one way or another.

Pythagoras (c.585-c.479) had many musical theories; he stretched a string to calculate the length ratios of every conceivable musical interval. He developed music and numbers into a cosmology and evolved and defined a precise mathematical relationship for the notes on a scale. Pythagoras was probably also responsible for the principle of the octave. 3000 years later, musicians still harmonize almost any tune by using the chords of the three most important notes laid down by Pythagoras: tonic, dominant and subdominant. (Digital Daydreams)

Greek music would later on be taken to medieval Europe by Roman writers and Arabs.

There were two major types of music playing in the medieval era, religious and secular. The Medieval Church regarded any instrument besides the organ non-religious, therefore considered as pagan. This proved that music in the medieval era was still mainly vocal. Carols began to surface around the 14th century and started out as a one person song. These carols were usually danced to with some added music using a variable stanza.

Secular music on the other hand was used to entertain and amuse the public. Secular music usually used more than one person in the song. It also contained far more instruments than that of the religious music. Instruments at that time were only different by the amount of sound produced, rather than the type of sound that was produced. Many traveling musicians called Jongleurs would walk around amusing peasants singing, dancing, and using acrobatics.

During the Renaissance period most music that was created was now being written down using the printing press. Secular music was now becoming more popularized than religious music because power moved away from church towards kings and nobility. Instruments had a bigger emphasis