Brian Bassanio Paul
MUSICOLOGY
National Music Academy
MUSICOLOGY
Report Submitted to:
Sir Brian Bassanio Paul
Report submitted by:
Salman Obaid (Diploma Student)
Surviving Instruments and purpose of instruments
Many early musical instruments were made from animal skins, bone, wood, and other non-
durable materials. Musical instruments developed independently. If we take a look on early
humans it seems that music came into being accidently. Early humans use instruments made up
of wood, skin, strings. But the question is how which instrument came into being from wood? It
might be flute because when the air passes from the wood it reduces a sound and the early
humans identify that sound. If we talk about the string instruments it might be made from bow
and arrows. With bowed instruments, the player rubs the strings with a horsehair bow, causing
them to vibrate. With a hurdy Gurdy the musician operates a mechanical wheel that rubs the
strings.
Bowed instruments include the string section instruments of the Classical music orchestra
(violin, viola, cello and double bass) and a number of other instruments
(e.g., viols and gambas used in early music from the baroque music era and fiddles. used in many
types of folk music). All of the bowed string instruments can also be plucked with the fingers, a
technique called "pizzicato". A wide variety of techniques are used to sound notes on the electric
guitar, including plucking with the fingernails or a plectrum, strumming and even "tapping" on
the fingerboard and using feedback from a loud, distorted guitar amplifier to produce a sustained
MUSICOLOGY
sound. Some types of string instrument are mainly plucked, such as the harp and the electric
bass. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology,
string instruments are called chordophones. Other examples include
the sitar, rebab, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, and bouzouki.
In most string instruments, the vibrations are transmitted to the body of the instrument, which
often incorporates some sort of hollow or enclosed area. The body of the instrument also
vibrates, along with the air inside it. The vibration of the body of the instrument and the enclosed
hollow or chamber make the vibration of the string more audible to the performer and audience.
The body of most string instruments is hollow. Some, however—such as electric guitar and other
instruments that rely on electronic amplification—may have a solid wood body.
The history of musical instruments dates back to the beginnings of human culture. The human
voice was probably the first musical instrument, the earliest known invented musical instruments
are however considerably different from those what man discovered of course. Most early
instruments were made in the Upper Paleolithic age.
1. Percussion Instruments [165,000 years ago]
MUSICOLOGY
A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound by being hit with an implement,
shaken, rubbed, scraped, or by any other action which sets the object into vibration. The human
voice was although the first discovered musical instrument, but percussion instruments such as
stones, sticks, rocks, and logs were almost certainly the next steps in the evolution of music
especially the stones, they were cut in different shapes and designs to change quality and pitch of
sound.
2. Flute by Bob Flink [67,000 years ago]
The date and origin of the first device of disputed status as a musical instrument dates back as far
as 67,000 years old. In July 1995, Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Turk discovered a bone carving
in the northwest region of Slovenia. The carving, named the Dive Babe flute, features four holes
that Canadian musicologist Bob Fink determined could have been used to play four notes of a
MUSICOLOGY
diatonic scale. Researchers estimate the flute’s age to be 67,000 years old, making it the oldest
known musical instrument and the only musical instrument associated with the Neanderthal
culture.
3.Mammoth Ivory Ice-Age Flute [43,400 years ago]
Second world’s oldest known musical instruments have been discovered by German
archaeologists. The 18.7-centimetre-long flute, which is carved from mammoth ivory, has three
finger holes and would have been capable of playing relatively complex melodies. The flute was
found in 31 pieces in the Geißenklösterle cave in mountains near Ulm in southern Germany.
Carving a flute from solid ivory is much more demanding than making a flute from bird bones,
which are already hollow. The crooked mammoth tusk had to be split and the two halves
carefully hollowed out, then bound and glued together along a perfectly airtight seam.
4.Elephant Skin Drum [37,000 years ago]
MUSICOLOGY
The earliest known drum was 30,000 years old when man used animal hide stretched to create
sound. The first discovered is from an elephant skin used since it was preserved from scavenging
in Antarctica’s ice age.
