Mikes Music Room – Music Articles

From the music of the Israelites and the Greeks, widely removed in character from each other as they were, originated the highly-developed musical art of modern times. Culture, and spirituality, using the word in its broadest and most abstract sense, are the guiding stars of music, as of all true art; and of this culture is Greek, and spirituality is Hebrew.

Of the music of the Israelites we possess a wider, although less definite, knowledge than of that of Assyria and Egypt. Beyond doubt the music and musical instruments of Israel must have closely resembled those of Assyria, a land peopled by a closely-allied race; and in the same way it may reasonably be assumed that when the national music of the Israelites departed from the manner of their Assyrian kinsmen, it only the more closely resembled that of the Egyptians, a supposition which a glance at the map will do much to confirm.

Proceeding on this hypothesis, the numerous allusions to music and musical instruments contained in the Scriptures may well be translated, as it were, into the pictorial representations of musicians and their instruments to be found in the sculptures of Assyria and Egypt. The same principle of elucidation may also be made use of in the reverse way, the Scriptural allusions to music being employed to illustrate the attitude towards music of the nations outside the borders of the Chosen People.

Of the musical system of the Israelites we can only judge by inference; and the only instruments of which authentic representations exist are the silver trumpets, taken from the burning Temple by the Roman soldiery, and the Temple horn, or schofar. The trumpets, as figured on the Arch of Titus at Rome, are long, and perfectly straight; the schofar, as still in use in the synagogues, is curved, and about eighteen inches long. The trumpets were of great size, and were supported upon a frame or rest. They were intended to be used in summoning the entire nation together

In the sculptures, wall-paintings, and papyri of the Egyptians, we are furnished with another glimpse into the obscurity of early musical history. Among the ancient Egyptians we find music at a somewhat similar pitch of development to that already observed among the Assyrians, technically, that is, but imbued with a far loftier spirit; at least so one would imagine by comparing such memorials as exist of the musical life of the two peoples.

The Egyptians regarded music as of sacred origin, they employed it largely

In the sculptures found in what are conjectured to be the ruins of Nineveh are many representations of musicians and musical instruments. The latter appear to have been of very finished workmanship, and to have reached that stage of development where beauty and essential fitness meet on an equal footing; in fact, within their limits, the instruments of the Assyrians may be said to be artistically perfect.

Most of the sculpture-work discovered at Nineveh is now in the British Museum, and repro

Musical instruments are divided into three great classes

Music, like articulate, connected speech, must be reckoned one of the primary things or human life. It is almost impossible to conceive of the existence of a race of people unpossessed of at least some rudimentary form of music, and certainly no such race has yet been discovered. Wherever explorers have penetrated, they have invariably found a more or less definite national music esteemed and cultivated. In the remotest corners of the world, among the Indian tribes of the Americas, the most barbarous of the African tribes, the least known peoples of the far East, wherever travel and exploration have opened up the recesses of a strange land, it has been found that music existed there, and often in a curiously forward state of development compared with the useful arts of life.

Of the beginning of music we know no more than we do of the beginning of speech. The most primitive nations have each and all their own national music, just as they have each their own national form of speech. Music is thus an immemorial thing; for the sculptures of Nineveh, and the sculptures and paintings of the ancient Egyptians, the oldest records of life and manners extant, represent musicians and musical instruments in such a way as leads one to the conclusion that, even in the period to which these carvings and paintings belong, music had already travelled a long way on the path of development. What the music from which the comparatively finished art of the Assyrians and Egyptians was evolved was like, we may perhaps be best able to judge from a brief survey of the music of various uncivilised nations as existing at the present day.

All the world over, the music of the more primitive of the uncivilised races may be said to move on parallel lines, and it is only as tribes and nations rise somewhat in the scale of nature that their music begins to display any marked degree of differentiation. Down on what might be called the bed-rock of humanity they are all pretty much alike, and in the national music of the most widely removed races the same phenomena present themselves with but trifling modification.

Vocal music is common to all the nations of the earth. Man, in an absolutely primitive state, gives expression to the primary emotions and passions by means of the voice as a matter of instinct, just as is done by the brute creation. The first step in advance is taken when the savage becomes conscious, as it were, for the first time, of the sounds which are born of certain circumstances, and endeavours to reproduce these sounds irrespective of the feelings from which they arise. This is the first recognition of sound as possessed of meaning; and from it to early stages of the rhythmical narrative, and to the song, is no inconceivable transition.

With the sense of rhythm, which was most probably evolved from the natural cadence of the human footstep, whether in walking or in dancing

Introduction – Part 2

In part 1 of this two part article, we discussed that the correct use of the hands when playing the piano keyboard can produce a beautiful sound.

But before any accurate observations can be made of what the hand is doing, it is necessary that the eye should know what to look for, as it can see only that which it brings the power of seeing.