• Question: When was music invented...or was it never invented?

    Asked by thatcoolkid to Anil, Blanka, Cees, Emma, Mike on 25 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Michael Cook

      Michael Cook answered on 25 Jun 2012:

      Music is one of the oldest parts of human culture, so old that it predates the invention of writing – and before writing it’s really hard to tell when or how anything happened!

      Music is also very common all over the world. Lots of cultures invented their own kind of music before meeting other societies or groups, so many people ‘invented’ music separately! Quite a nightmare to find out who to give the award to, eh?

      I took a peek on Google to find the oldest instrument – there’s a flute found in eastern Europe that’s thought to be over 40,000 years old! That’s even older than I thought. We probably won’t know who came up with the idea, but music is so universal that I don’t think it matters, do you?

    • Photo: Blanka Sengerova

      Blanka Sengerova answered on 25 Jun 2012:

      My gut feeling would be that music can’t really be said to be invented as it’s part of human culture – I am sure a caveman will have been tapping his foot to some kind of rhythm as he waited for some prey to come buy, whilst his wife was humming to herself as she gave birth to the cavebaby. But I stand to be corrected, of course…

    • Photo: Emma Trantham

      Emma Trantham answered on 2 Jul 2012:

      This is a really good question and Mike and Blanka have given great answers. I just wanted to add that it depends on what you call music. If by ‘music’ you mean any sound that has been made just for the purpose of hearing that sound then I wonder if some of the great apes also make music (eg when they hit sticks on rocks etc.)?

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