Performing Art's- The Music History

          We will probably never know the how music began. its roots are older then the roots of speech itself, and are deeply buried in the prehistoric past. But by the studying the musical development of children an the music of primitive societies, we can get some idea of how it all began.

          Perhaps the firsts music instrument  was a hallow tree trunk, accidentally struck by a hand held stick. Perhaps it was a pair of died animal or human bones, struck one on the another. That first thump, the first rattle, must have produced a sound of strange, so mysterious that our ancestors must have thought it magical.

         From the simple yet musical sounds f these early percussion instruments, our forbears soon discovered the intoxicating power of rhythm, which propelled and organized ritual danced. From there it was a simple to use rhythmic beats to match to movements of labor, magically lightning the burden on daily toil.

         But the hollow- log drum and other percussion instruments were not the only sounds-makers in primitive society. Our ancestors also possessed the most natural, most expansive, most flexible instrument of all: the human voice.

          Those first musican may have used their voice to imitate bird song, the cries and mating calls of animals, and the ound of the wind and rain. Or perhaps the first crude chants and song grew out of the rising and falling inflections of everyday languages. Hunters may have learned to used definite pitches- so diffrent from the vague pitches of ordinary speech to signal the sighting of their prey, ot to announces the victorious kill.

           As early man grew more and more skilled in the use of tone of definite pitches, this element join rhythm to create primitive melody.  With the addition of words, or mouth sounds the imitated natural sounds, came the magical incantations of priest in sacred rituals, or the song to accompany dance.

            As tribal societies evolved, music remained a part of social life, and a part of man's natural response to his environment and to daily events. Ceremonies were accompanied by by singing dancing, and playing. Laborers chanted their work songs. As they sill do today, Children spontaneously created their own tittle songs and dances. Mothers hummed the first lullabies to their sleeping children. Hunters and warriors bucked up their courage with chants and cries and calls, and the beat of stick, bones and drums.

           From earliest time music was also tied to the deepest expressions of human emotions and desires: prayer work, play, love. Our ancestors, like us, played and sang and danced to express their joy and sorrow and fears; to worship their gods; to accompany them in battle; to express their pain or longing; and to give from to their stories, past on from one generation to next.