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Through the Ages
To understand the
role that music has played throughout the ages
it is important to explore the full spectrum of
 origin,
development and proliferation of music and instruments.
Music can been seen as audio expression
existing along side visual art as a means to communicate
and collaborate in entertainment, media, war and
spiritualism. The oldest instruments, usually
bone flutes, recovered from deep caves in France
and Germany have their origins at the same time
and in close proximity to the first examples of
cave art some 37 to 40,000 years ago. Structured
sounds and pictures have interwoven ever since.
The most immediate example that comes to
mind is the remarkable success of the music video
in recent years. Many cultures have music
in their legends of origin. A Particular
ancient example that survives is that of Aboriginal
people in North Australia who tell that a didgeridoo
was played by a god and a man came out the end.
Music has a long association
with war and conquest. Some of the oldest
visual images depicting war include horns, pipes
and drums. Instruments that were made specifically
for this purpose have been evolved to a high degree.
From Persian mouth pipes in the centuries
BC to Celtic war trumpas in the middle Iron Age
to Highland war pipes which were deployed in battle
in the great war of the early twentieth century
AD, music has been used to embolden friends and
terrify enemies. Yet the greatest role
of  music
is as a means of communication and emotional stimulation.
A song may tell a story of life in another
time: it may contain a lesson to be learnt: it
might draw tears of love or loss. Music
can induce feelings of spiritual awareness and
communion or lift the spirits into happiness or
ecstasy.
Music traditions and
instruments have evolved to great heights of perfection
and specialisation resulting in the  huge
diversity of sound and song that we have today.
By tracing back into music through the
ages we can find the progression of steps which
allowed a bow and arrow to evolve into a grand
piano or a kudu horn to lead to a brass band.
Central to this story is the way instruments
emerged in different parts of the world and then
moved and interchanged through travel, trade and
conquest. These musical movements could
help to verify existing knowledge of otherwise
unrelated events or legends. Continuing
research reveals a far greater degree of movement
and communication than previously thought.
A lute may begin its evolvement in China playing
Chinese music and then be carried west all the
way to Europe and though the music is different
and the instrument may have been altered to suit
another tradition yet it is still a lute.
A fascinating aspect of music through the ages
is the re-emerging of an ancient instrument into
the present day musical traditions. A sound
that has been asleep for three thousand years
is awakened and immersed in a living music so
that it is altered and enriched by the experience.
The instrument is acting as an audio time
capsule which can bring back a flavour of an era
long gone but can also function as a ‘new’
sound which will enable a music form to evolve
in a different way. Thus the past really
does become the future.
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