X is for Xylophone

Ethiopian Lithophones with Stand, Monastery of Na’akuto La’ab. Photo by A. Davey.

The Xylophone is a very simple instrument, perhaps one of the first Fisher-Price toys you had as a kid. Bang a stick on different colored bits of metal to make different sounds. The xylophone is also one of the most ancient of inventions, replicated in different ways over time and across cultures, with different names. Same principle. Hit something with a stick and make music. The music produced isn’t always simple; in 2019, music professor Lee Hinkle of the University of Maryland performed a 21-scene solo opera on the xylophone.

Today, the sounds are made with metal or plastic, but for centuries they were made on wood and on stone. Ancient xylophones may have appeared first in the Far East, especially the Southeast, an area passed over by archaeologists. People made them throughout Africa, where they still play them today. Sometimes the wood or rocks were chosen and arranged together. In other places, the rocks that made music were part of the where people lived, at least to the imaginative. If the music is made from rocks, those instruments have a special name: lithophones. Some of those lithophones may just be 12,000 years old.

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M is for Music

Bone flute, from Germany @43,0000 ya, Photo by Cangminzho.

It warms the cockles of my heart to know that music was invented before royal government archives. Much as I am in favor of libraries, yesterday’s topic, I don’t think we need the blow-by-blow details of every king’s battle conquests as much as we need music. Whether it’s a single fiddle playing out “Danny Boy” or a full-blown choir and symphony, ringing out with Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” music reaches the heart and mind at once.

Archaeomusicologists must be very jealous of art archaeologists. While we might debate, as we did with the “Kiss,” whether a 15,000-year-old smear of paint was two people or a moose, at least we have a picture. We don’t have any recordings of 30,000-year-old flute or kithara players, and there’s disagreement over whether bits of bone and stone are even instruments. Yet, by the time the great cities of the world built their palaces–in Assyria, Memphis, Knossos, the Indus Valley, or Shaanxi–music was a significant part of the culture. We can see paintings of musicians and dancers and know that there must have been intricate choreography and complex arrangements. Somehow, we got from a couple of holes in a bear femur to Coachella, Egyptian-style.

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T is for Tone

Lute, oud what’s in a name?

The oud, the chant, the guzheng, and the morin khuur. There aren’t many stories of medieval bards out on the Silk Road, but there must have been. Even the conquerors appreciated art and music. The cities of Baghdad, Samarkand, Constantinople, and Hangzhou were considered the happening places to be back in the day. Marco Polo weaves music in and out of his stories of Cathay and of Alaoudin.

When any one of them opened his eyes, saw this delightful spot, and heard the delicious music and songs, he really believed himself in the state of blessedness.

Marco Polo, “On the Old Man of the Mountain”
Wikipedia shows range of medieval lute players.

Here’s a quick spin through some medieval instruments, with their links (sorry in advance if you run into a Youtube ad, but wait for the music!)

The Oud

The lute came out of Persia, an instrument with a neck, strings, and a rounded bowl for good sound. The Arabs called their version the oud. Apparently, it belongs to a class of instruments called chordophones, whose sound comes from vibrating strings. The singer Al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham (c. 965–1040) was known for his expertise.

Here is Naochika Sogabe, showing you what an oud sounded like:

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