MUS 211 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Music Theory, Perfect Fourth, Absolute Pitch
Document Summary
Western music draws strong influences from greek culture. Historical traces of music: physical remains (musical instruments, performing spaces, visual images of musicians, instruments, and performances, writings about music and musicians, music itself preserved in notation, oral tradition, or (after 1870) through recordings. Finger holes bored into animal bones and mammoth ivory (ancient flutes and whistles) abt. Wall paintings also show historical instruments and dancers. Primary evidence for the role music played in ancient cultures. Bronze age : 4 millenium bce, metal instruments appeared. Stringed instruments appeared around the same time, few have survived. Very limited knowledge due to lack of written record. Writing, developed by sumerians, gave way to records that mention music. Pictures depict how instruments were held and in what context they were played. Lyre : strings run parallel to resonating soundboard and attach to crossbar supported by two arms. Harp : strings are perpendicular to soundboard, and the neck that supports is.
