(no subject)
13 MARCH 2006, MONDAY (PUBLICK)
Someone made a comment on the Fire Tribe email list on the original drums developed by 'cave men' (my apologies for the use of this term to any that are still around).
Anyway, I did a quick search of the internet and found two interesting articles on drums and instruments I would like to share...
From: http://www.tabla.com/tablahs1.html
The oldest instruments...
All over the world, archeologists list simple idiophones as the first prehistoric musical instruments. This includes rattles, scrapers, and bone flutes (without holes). The neolithic strata contains slit drums, flutes (with holes), shell trumpets, and musical bows. The paleolithic strata yields basket rattles, xylophones, flutes, friction sticks. These early instruments, at least the instruments which survived, often resemble tools that early society utilized. In India, the doddu rajan, found among the Savaras, resembles a fire producing implement (a tool to create heat by friction). This type of scraper, also found as the kokara among the Palayans of Kerala perhaps became the Palayans' scraper, and used in the music of exorcism.
Earthen pots, used for cooking and storing grain, served as percussion instruments. Examples are the noot, rouf (Kashmir), matki (Rajastan), gugri, gagra (north India), ghatam (south India). Since many of these instruments, built out of perishable materials, did not leave evidence for us to trace their history, we rely on sculptures, paintings, and manuscripts which depict or describe them.
The seals of the Mohenjodaro
The seals of the Mohenjodaro Indus valley civilization contain depictions of men playing long cylindrical drums hung around their necks played horizontally. These drums are most similar to the kharrang of Assam and with the dhole of the Reddis of Andra Pradesh. Other drums inscribed on the seals include an hour glass shaped drum like the hudukka, castanets and cymbals. Some arched harps found in their hieroglyphics and unearthed clay whistles demonstrate they developed a tonal system, but no literature exists which we can translate in order to learn about that system.
Vedic literature
Our first documentation of music occurs in the Vedic scriptures, of the Aryan culture. The most ancient Vedic literature describes drums covered with the skins of wild animals, large earthen drums, and the role of the drums in various rituals. The bhumi-dundubhi, a giant earth drum, consisting of a hallow pit covered with skin, struck by legs of wood, signaled danger or approaching enemies with its thunderous and deep resonating pitch. Vedic singers used the dundhubi, a drum formed out of hallow tree trunks with the upper part covered with skin.
Literature from the Nardiyasiksa and the Natyasastra.
A great deal of our musical knowledge of India stems from the Nardiyasiksa (written approximately around 100 B.C.E.) and Bharata's Natyasastra, a later work during that period which offers a scientific approach (also called: the Natyaveda, panchamaveda, gamdarvaveda, or the "fifth" veda).
Naradiysiksa, describes vedic and ghandharva music. It states that semi-divine ghandharva music is composed of three elements: svara, tala, and pada. Narad describes the essentials of vocal and instrumental music. In the 31st and 32nd chapters, the Natyasastra gives descriptions of tala, the fundamental aspects of India rhythm. According to Bharata, tala was known as 'ghana' and time as 'kala'. Laya, called kalapata, subdivided into vilamvita (slow), madhya (medium), and druta (fast). Kala divided into three parts, citra (two matras), vartika (four mantras), and daksima (eight mantras). Bharata stated that tala, or time unit, was known as the measurement of kala, ('kala kala pramanena tala ityabhdhiyate' 31.7). Two kinds of talas existed, n'sabda (soundless or beatless), and sa'sabda (with sound or beat). The soundless tala again subdivided into 4 kinds: samya, tala, dhruva, and sannipata. Other terminology regarding rhythm included: yati (a method of applying a tempo of a tala -- of which they had several kinds: sama, srotogata, gopuccha, damaru, pipilika), prakarana (to make a song ready for singing), satala (with any rhythm), atala (without rhythm). With such terminology they clearly developed a complicated rhythmic system. This originated before the classical music age (600 to 500 B.C.E.), as ghandharva music became obsolete before the Bharata period. Ghandharva music provides the link between vedic music and post-vedic marga type of music (which evolved around 700 B.C.E., and provides insight to the classical period as well.
During the classical and post-classical period...
The classical or post-classical period featured drums with complex designs, like the puskara, bhanda, panava, and mrdanga. The ancient dhundubhi became a prototype for these drums, as well as, the bhanda vadya, the modern pakhawaj and the khole. The puskara consisted of three drums, two horizontal and one leaning drum. They tuned these drums to defined pitches (gandhama, sadja, and pancama -- the tones considered as the primal ones of the gama or 'scales'). The bhanda vadya, mrdanga, and the pakhawaj all have similar designs. Played horizontally, these barrel shaped (almost cylindrical) drums, feature a tuned multi-layered composite membranes covering both ends (connected by leather straps).
Other drums found in India during this period...
Other drums found in India during this period include the madal which features a similar but less sophisticated design. This drum is found among the Santals, Oraons, Baigans, and Ghasias (all the non-Aryan people of the central Indian belt). Similar drums existed throughout India with variations on this name: maddale (Kannada), madol (Bengalic), mandar (Hindi), mardal (Sanskrit), maddelam (Tamil). Other double membrane drums from this period include: the tavil (Tamil), the pung (Manipur), and the khole (Bengal).
Origins of the tabla, and development to present day.
The tabla developed as a hybridized drum, influenced by all of these varieties, in particular, the mrdangm and the puskara. Muktesvara temple (6th-7th century) and Bhuranesvara (and three other cave temples) of Badari in Bombay (6th century) contain depictions of the Puskara. Musicians often placed the puskara's smaller verticle drum (called 'alinga'), on their lap and played more than one drum at a time. Given the the design, technology, and musical structure for drums common in this this period, we can piece together numerious features of the tabla.
The name 'tabla', probably derived from the Arabic word for a drum (generic), called the 'tabl'; and possibly to some extent the Turkish word 'dawal'. Another popular notion is that Amir Khursuro invented the tabla by splitting the Pakawaj into two drums. This is highly disputed. Abul Fazil, the court recorder neither mentions nor describes the tabla, leaving doubt that Amir Khursuro invented the tabla, contrary to a previously popular notion. The Muslim invaders undoubtedly influenced the culture and structure of the tabla. However, the earliest depictions and literature describing the tabla as we recognize it today come from the 18th century.
Details available from this point on enable us to chart the development to modern day. Over the last two centuries the tabla begins to take the forefront of percussion instruments in north Indian classical music. We can trace the family lineage of the gharanas from the 18th century onward. Over this time, the tabla slowly changed, the dayan decreasing in size while the bayan increased. During this time the instrument slowly became the primary drum for both classical and popular music of north India.
From: http://whyfiles.org/114music/4.html
Neanderthal jam
You could learn a lot from old musical instruments. We're not talking about a pawnshop full of rusted saxophones and busted guitars, but about partly fossilized bones with holes that look suspiciously like wind instruments.
We're talking Neanderthal flute -- circa 50,000 BC.
These codgerly instruments could answer some key questions: What scale -- relationship among notes -- did the ancients use? What did their music sound like, and why did they make it? Ancient instruments, says Jelle Atema, a Boston University biologist and flute fanatic, provide "a window into what people may have heard a long time ago, what they played and what they wanted to hear." Atema is an accomplished amateur flutist who -- if you have to know -- gets paid to study lobster communication. Lobsters make little music -- which is just as well, cuz otherwise we might have drawn a wrasse wearing a Walkman -- but they do have a habit of discussing social status with chemical signals in their urine!
Golden oldies
Getting back on track, music goes back a long way, but it's unclear exactly how long. Paintings show people playing instruments in ancient and Sumeria. And, intriguingly, some stalagmites -- stony projections from cave floors -- show marks from striking instruments. Since the rocks still make musical sounds when banged, it's easy to presume that the ancients used them as chimes.
The evidence is scantier for instruments that were constructed rather than found. Strings rot. Ditto drum heads. Thus, says Atema, it "may be that they long preceded flutes, but we'll never know."
First flute
Until recently, the oldest known instruments were reed flutes from Egypt and Sumeria dating to about 5,000 years ago. In 1997, Atema got his mitts on a flute that was 10 times older. The instrument, found in Slovenia, was apparently made by Neanderthal people about 50,000 years ago from the bone of a cave bear. The flute is the oldest musical instrument to be firmly dated.
In reality, Atema didn't get to play the original. Instead, he played the reconstruction shown in the photo, which he made from cave-bear bone. This ancient flute was made from the bone of a cave bear."
Nonetheless, he reports that the reconstruction "produced five sweet tones in odd intervals. Altering the pitches by blowing and fingering could make the instrument sound like a modern flute (although with a small range)."
Atema, who wanted to become a professional flutist before turning to the lingo of lobsters, found that the flute played well in modern scales -- as long as he partly closed holes and used unusual fingerings. "I can play a very clear pentatonic or diatonic scale with it because you can twist the sound any way you like," he says.
Diatonic scales are used in most Western music.
Musical training is both an advantage and a liability, Atema intimates, "You automatically twist [the tone] to make what you want." The resulting sound may be easier on our ears, trained as they are on Western scales, but the bending undermines the effort to pin down the ancient scales. Although some people think the instrument could identify the Neanderthal scale, Atema disagrees. "I don't subscribe to it. It's very frustrating -- that's what everybody is really looking for."
Caveman clarinet?
Can the bone flute tell us whether the ancients played for enjoyment or, say, to attract mates or lure birds into bow-and-arrow range? Here, too, Atema says the Slovenian flute, like other ancient replicas he's played, is disturbingly silent.
A bone cannot reveal motivation.
On the other hand, the flute does indicate technical prowess among the Neanderthals who made it 50 millennia ago. To understand why, permit a digression on the category "flute": All instruments that make sound by splitting an air stream are flutes. The category includes transverse flutes like the familiar silver flute, which are played sideways, and two models played straight-on: the recorder, and the quena used in Andean music.
Where does the Slovenian flute fit? Slight breaks in the bone make the answer ambiguous. Slovenian musical experts Ivan Turk and Drago Kunej reconstructed it as a quena, a flute in which the player directs the airstream precisely at the element that divides the air to make sound.
Atema thinks the geezingest flute is just as likely to be a recorder, a more complicated instrument that directs the airstream through a channel to make an instrument easy enough for a six-year-old to play (if "play" is defined as making any sort of sound).
If Atema's recorder hypothesis is correct, the flute probably represents the fruit of a musical tradition that started long before the instrument itself was crafted 50,000 years ago.
Someone made a comment on the Fire Tribe email list on the original drums developed by 'cave men' (my apologies for the use of this term to any that are still around).
Anyway, I did a quick search of the internet and found two interesting articles on drums and instruments I would like to share...
From: http://www.tabla.com/tablahs1.html
The oldest instruments...
All over the world, archeologists list simple idiophones as the first prehistoric musical instruments. This includes rattles, scrapers, and bone flutes (without holes). The neolithic strata contains slit drums, flutes (with holes), shell trumpets, and musical bows. The paleolithic strata yields basket rattles, xylophones, flutes, friction sticks. These early instruments, at least the instruments which survived, often resemble tools that early society utilized. In India, the doddu rajan, found among the Savaras, resembles a fire producing implement (a tool to create heat by friction). This type of scraper, also found as the kokara among the Palayans of Kerala perhaps became the Palayans' scraper, and used in the music of exorcism.
Earthen pots, used for cooking and storing grain, served as percussion instruments. Examples are the noot, rouf (Kashmir), matki (Rajastan), gugri, gagra (north India), ghatam (south India). Since many of these instruments, built out of perishable materials, did not leave evidence for us to trace their history, we rely on sculptures, paintings, and manuscripts which depict or describe them.
The seals of the Mohenjodaro
The seals of the Mohenjodaro Indus valley civilization contain depictions of men playing long cylindrical drums hung around their necks played horizontally. These drums are most similar to the kharrang of Assam and with the dhole of the Reddis of Andra Pradesh. Other drums inscribed on the seals include an hour glass shaped drum like the hudukka, castanets and cymbals. Some arched harps found in their hieroglyphics and unearthed clay whistles demonstrate they developed a tonal system, but no literature exists which we can translate in order to learn about that system.
Vedic literature
Our first documentation of music occurs in the Vedic scriptures, of the Aryan culture. The most ancient Vedic literature describes drums covered with the skins of wild animals, large earthen drums, and the role of the drums in various rituals. The bhumi-dundubhi, a giant earth drum, consisting of a hallow pit covered with skin, struck by legs of wood, signaled danger or approaching enemies with its thunderous and deep resonating pitch. Vedic singers used the dundhubi, a drum formed out of hallow tree trunks with the upper part covered with skin.
Literature from the Nardiyasiksa and the Natyasastra.
A great deal of our musical knowledge of India stems from the Nardiyasiksa (written approximately around 100 B.C.E.) and Bharata's Natyasastra, a later work during that period which offers a scientific approach (also called: the Natyaveda, panchamaveda, gamdarvaveda, or the "fifth" veda).
Naradiysiksa, describes vedic and ghandharva music. It states that semi-divine ghandharva music is composed of three elements: svara, tala, and pada. Narad describes the essentials of vocal and instrumental music. In the 31st and 32nd chapters, the Natyasastra gives descriptions of tala, the fundamental aspects of India rhythm. According to Bharata, tala was known as 'ghana' and time as 'kala'. Laya, called kalapata, subdivided into vilamvita (slow), madhya (medium), and druta (fast). Kala divided into three parts, citra (two matras), vartika (four mantras), and daksima (eight mantras). Bharata stated that tala, or time unit, was known as the measurement of kala, ('kala kala pramanena tala ityabhdhiyate' 31.7). Two kinds of talas existed, n'sabda (soundless or beatless), and sa'sabda (with sound or beat). The soundless tala again subdivided into 4 kinds: samya, tala, dhruva, and sannipata. Other terminology regarding rhythm included: yati (a method of applying a tempo of a tala -- of which they had several kinds: sama, srotogata, gopuccha, damaru, pipilika), prakarana (to make a song ready for singing), satala (with any rhythm), atala (without rhythm). With such terminology they clearly developed a complicated rhythmic system. This originated before the classical music age (600 to 500 B.C.E.), as ghandharva music became obsolete before the Bharata period. Ghandharva music provides the link between vedic music and post-vedic marga type of music (which evolved around 700 B.C.E., and provides insight to the classical period as well.
During the classical and post-classical period...
The classical or post-classical period featured drums with complex designs, like the puskara, bhanda, panava, and mrdanga. The ancient dhundubhi became a prototype for these drums, as well as, the bhanda vadya, the modern pakhawaj and the khole. The puskara consisted of three drums, two horizontal and one leaning drum. They tuned these drums to defined pitches (gandhama, sadja, and pancama -- the tones considered as the primal ones of the gama or 'scales'). The bhanda vadya, mrdanga, and the pakhawaj all have similar designs. Played horizontally, these barrel shaped (almost cylindrical) drums, feature a tuned multi-layered composite membranes covering both ends (connected by leather straps).
Other drums found in India during this period...
Other drums found in India during this period include the madal which features a similar but less sophisticated design. This drum is found among the Santals, Oraons, Baigans, and Ghasias (all the non-Aryan people of the central Indian belt). Similar drums existed throughout India with variations on this name: maddale (Kannada), madol (Bengalic), mandar (Hindi), mardal (Sanskrit), maddelam (Tamil). Other double membrane drums from this period include: the tavil (Tamil), the pung (Manipur), and the khole (Bengal).
Origins of the tabla, and development to present day.
The tabla developed as a hybridized drum, influenced by all of these varieties, in particular, the mrdangm and the puskara. Muktesvara temple (6th-7th century) and Bhuranesvara (and three other cave temples) of Badari in Bombay (6th century) contain depictions of the Puskara. Musicians often placed the puskara's smaller verticle drum (called 'alinga'), on their lap and played more than one drum at a time. Given the the design, technology, and musical structure for drums common in this this period, we can piece together numerious features of the tabla.
The name 'tabla', probably derived from the Arabic word for a drum (generic), called the 'tabl'; and possibly to some extent the Turkish word 'dawal'. Another popular notion is that Amir Khursuro invented the tabla by splitting the Pakawaj into two drums. This is highly disputed. Abul Fazil, the court recorder neither mentions nor describes the tabla, leaving doubt that Amir Khursuro invented the tabla, contrary to a previously popular notion. The Muslim invaders undoubtedly influenced the culture and structure of the tabla. However, the earliest depictions and literature describing the tabla as we recognize it today come from the 18th century.
Details available from this point on enable us to chart the development to modern day. Over the last two centuries the tabla begins to take the forefront of percussion instruments in north Indian classical music. We can trace the family lineage of the gharanas from the 18th century onward. Over this time, the tabla slowly changed, the dayan decreasing in size while the bayan increased. During this time the instrument slowly became the primary drum for both classical and popular music of north India.
From: http://whyfiles.org/114music/4.html
Neanderthal jam
You could learn a lot from old musical instruments. We're not talking about a pawnshop full of rusted saxophones and busted guitars, but about partly fossilized bones with holes that look suspiciously like wind instruments.
We're talking Neanderthal flute -- circa 50,000 BC.
These codgerly instruments could answer some key questions: What scale -- relationship among notes -- did the ancients use? What did their music sound like, and why did they make it? Ancient instruments, says Jelle Atema, a Boston University biologist and flute fanatic, provide "a window into what people may have heard a long time ago, what they played and what they wanted to hear." Atema is an accomplished amateur flutist who -- if you have to know -- gets paid to study lobster communication. Lobsters make little music -- which is just as well, cuz otherwise we might have drawn a wrasse wearing a Walkman -- but they do have a habit of discussing social status with chemical signals in their urine!
Golden oldies
Getting back on track, music goes back a long way, but it's unclear exactly how long. Paintings show people playing instruments in ancient and Sumeria. And, intriguingly, some stalagmites -- stony projections from cave floors -- show marks from striking instruments. Since the rocks still make musical sounds when banged, it's easy to presume that the ancients used them as chimes.
The evidence is scantier for instruments that were constructed rather than found. Strings rot. Ditto drum heads. Thus, says Atema, it "may be that they long preceded flutes, but we'll never know."
First flute
Until recently, the oldest known instruments were reed flutes from Egypt and Sumeria dating to about 5,000 years ago. In 1997, Atema got his mitts on a flute that was 10 times older. The instrument, found in Slovenia, was apparently made by Neanderthal people about 50,000 years ago from the bone of a cave bear. The flute is the oldest musical instrument to be firmly dated.
In reality, Atema didn't get to play the original. Instead, he played the reconstruction shown in the photo, which he made from cave-bear bone. This ancient flute was made from the bone of a cave bear."
Nonetheless, he reports that the reconstruction "produced five sweet tones in odd intervals. Altering the pitches by blowing and fingering could make the instrument sound like a modern flute (although with a small range)."
Atema, who wanted to become a professional flutist before turning to the lingo of lobsters, found that the flute played well in modern scales -- as long as he partly closed holes and used unusual fingerings. "I can play a very clear pentatonic or diatonic scale with it because you can twist the sound any way you like," he says.
Diatonic scales are used in most Western music.
Musical training is both an advantage and a liability, Atema intimates, "You automatically twist [the tone] to make what you want." The resulting sound may be easier on our ears, trained as they are on Western scales, but the bending undermines the effort to pin down the ancient scales. Although some people think the instrument could identify the Neanderthal scale, Atema disagrees. "I don't subscribe to it. It's very frustrating -- that's what everybody is really looking for."
Caveman clarinet?
Can the bone flute tell us whether the ancients played for enjoyment or, say, to attract mates or lure birds into bow-and-arrow range? Here, too, Atema says the Slovenian flute, like other ancient replicas he's played, is disturbingly silent.
A bone cannot reveal motivation.
On the other hand, the flute does indicate technical prowess among the Neanderthals who made it 50 millennia ago. To understand why, permit a digression on the category "flute": All instruments that make sound by splitting an air stream are flutes. The category includes transverse flutes like the familiar silver flute, which are played sideways, and two models played straight-on: the recorder, and the quena used in Andean music.
Where does the Slovenian flute fit? Slight breaks in the bone make the answer ambiguous. Slovenian musical experts Ivan Turk and Drago Kunej reconstructed it as a quena, a flute in which the player directs the airstream precisely at the element that divides the air to make sound.
Atema thinks the geezingest flute is just as likely to be a recorder, a more complicated instrument that directs the airstream through a channel to make an instrument easy enough for a six-year-old to play (if "play" is defined as making any sort of sound).
If Atema's recorder hypothesis is correct, the flute probably represents the fruit of a musical tradition that started long before the instrument itself was crafted 50,000 years ago.