| Musical instruments are divided into three | | | | They are doubtless things of age-long use; |
| categories, percussion instruments, wind | | | | but many centuries would appear to have |
| instruments, and stringed instruments. Simple | | | | affected their development very little and in |
| forms of these are known to every tribe on | | | | the same way that we are accustomed to regard |
| the earth, and in their simplest form may be | | | | the races who use them as standing but on the |
| available the hand of early man. So almost | | | | threshold of human life. Therefore, we may |
| any hard substance could be fashioned as an | | | | perhaps, regard these simple instruments of |
| instrument of the drum kind. The wind | | | | to-day, and the vague musical systems with |
| instrument is merely the stem of a reed or | | | | which they are allied, as presenting a |
| the horn of some animal and the sonorousness | | | | parallel illustration of the state of matters |
| of a cord or fibre in a state of tension | | | | from which the musical art of the earliest |
| could hardly escape observation in any land | | | | civilisation was evolved. |
| whose people numbered bows and arrows among | | | | |
| their weapons. The violin is an obvious | | | | It should be noted that in the above |
| development of the principle that a tightly | | | | statement we cannot include electronic organs |
| stretched cord can be made to produce sound | | | | and electric keyboards, common to the twenty |
| by being set in vibration. | | | | first century. When we guess at the type of |
| | | | musical instruments that were used by early |
| These, then, are the simplest forms in the | | | | man, we can be sure that there was no Yamaha |
| production of music-the voice; the stretched | | | | electone organs or Roland G70 and Ketron |
| cord; the reed-pipe or horn; and the drum, | | | | Audya arranger keyboards. Anyway, these |
| clapper, or rattle, these last being but | | | | modern keyboards would have been useless |
| varying applications of the same principle of | | | | because they hadn't invented electricity yet. |
| percussion. These primary means of producing | | | | |
| sound are well known to all the primitive | | | | Thus it is not very difficult to imagine what |
| peoples of the world, and by most have been | | | | music may have been like in the earliest ages |
| carried to a varying pitch of development. | | | | of the world; but of its history in those |
| Thus the ideas of solo singer or narrator | | | | times we know nothing; and the earliest |
| alternating with a chorus, and of one body of | | | | records extant give us but brief, |
| voices alternating with another, are to found | | | | disconnected glimpses of an art already of |
| almost everywhere. | | | | high antiquity. Our oldest sources of |
| | | | information upon the subject of music are to |
| The knowledge that varying-sized sonorous | | | | be found in the sculpture work of the |
| bodies produce varying tones is also common | | | | Assyrians, the carvings and wall-paintings of |
| to early man in general, and many tribes | | | | the Egyptians, the Old Testament, and Homer. |
| have, from slabs of wood or stone of a | | | | From these four sources, we can obtain a |
| specially sonorous quality, devised an | | | | great amount of information, information, |
| instrument of the harmonicon kind. The same | | | | however, which it is impossible to present in |
| principle of combination has also been widely | | | | any certain chronological sequence. |
| applied to the wind instru�ment; and | | | | |
| pipes of varying size, double-pipes, pandean | | | | All that we can be sure of is that we see |
| pipes (the syrinx of the ancients), and pipes | | | | music as existing among four distinct races, |
| with finger holes, are to be found in all | | | | and in each case, in a state of high |
| countries. A further step has been taken in | | | | development. But whether the musical systems |
| cases where there has been what might be | | | | of the Assyrians, Egyptians, Israelites, and |
| called a cross application of the fundamental | | | | Greeks were developed separately, or whether |
| principles of the different types of musical | | | | they were varying developments of a common |
| instrument. For instance, the discovery that | | | | inheritance derived from some still earlier |
| the volume of sound produced from a stringed | | | | civilisation, or whether each race had |
| instrument can be increased by the addition | | | | carried on a purely independent process of |
| of some contrivance of the sounding-board | | | | evolution from the beginning of time, are |
| order, belongs to an early stage of | | | | questions that may never be answered. All |
| development. | | | | that we know is that music undoubtedly |
| | | | existed among these ancient nations, and |
| Such are the general types of musical | | | | existed in a state of high development; |
| instruments in use among uncivilised races. | | | | beyond that, we can only deal in guesswork. |