Many fundamental elements of today’s music can be traced
back thousands of years. Prehistoric societies developed
instruments, pitches, melody, and rhythm. Early civilizations
used music in religious ceremonies, to accompany dance,
for recreation, and in education - much as we do today.
Ancient writers directly influenced our ways of thinking about music,
from concepts such as notes, intervals, and scales, to notions of how
music affects our feelings and character. Medieval musicians
contributed further innovations, devising notation systems that led to
our own; creating pedagogical methods and sacred chants still in use
today; developing styles of melody that have influenced the music of all
later periods; inventing polyphony and harmony; and developing
techniques of composition, form, and musical structure that laid the
foundation for music in all subsequent eras.
The music and musical practices of antiquity and the Middle Ages
echo in our own music, and we know ourselves better if we understand
our heritage. Yet only fragments survive from the musical cultures of
the past, especially the distant past. So our first task is to consider how
we can assemble those fragments to learn about a musical world of
long ago.
Many fundamental elements of today’s music can be traced
back thousands of years. Prehistoric societies developed
instruments, pitches, melody, and rhythm. Early civilizations
used music in religious ceremonies, to accompany dance,
for recreation, and in education - much as we do today.
Ancient writers directly influenced our ways of thinking about music,
from concepts such as notes, intervals, and scales, to notions of how
music affects our feelings and character. Medieval musicians
contributed further innovations, devising notation systems that led to
our own; creating pedagogical methods and sacred chants still in use
today; developing styles of melody that have influenced the music of all
later periods; inventing polyphony and harmony; and developing
techniques of composition, form, and musical structure that laid the
foundation for music in all subsequent eras.
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