The most ancient wind instrument. Varieties of ancient musical instruments

The Greek goddess of wisdom Athena invented the flute, the god Pan made the shepherd's pipe, and meanwhile the Indian god Narada invented and gave people a harp-shaped instrument - the veena. But these are just myths. Musical instruments were invented by people. This is not surprising, because man is the first musical instrument. And the sound he makes is his voice.

With his voice, primitive man conveyed information to his fellow tribesmen and reported his emotions: fear, joy, love. To make the “song” more interesting, he stomped his feet and clapped his hands, knocked stone on stone and hit the stretched mammoth skin. Thus, objects surrounding a person began to turn into musical instruments.

If you divide the instruments according to the method of extracting sound from them, you will get three groups– drums, winds and strings. So why did primitive man knock, what did he blow and what did he pull? We don't know what exactly the first musical instruments were, but we can guess.

The first percussion instruments were made from dried animal skins and all kinds of hollow objects: wooden blocks, shells of large fruits, and later clay pots. They hit them in different ways: with fingers, palms, sticks. Ancient drums and tambourines were used in ritual ceremonies and military operations. And African tribes even communicated with each other at a distance through combat.

Next group – winds. It is not known why the ancient man blew into a piece of bamboo, a reed reed, a horn or a hollow bone of an animal, but it became an instrument when special holes appeared. On the territory of modern Hungary and Moldova, pipes and tweeters are found that date back to the Upper Paleolithic era. And the most ancient instrument is considered to be a flute, found in southwest Germany. More precisely, these are the remains of an instrument resembling a flute made from swan bone, which is more than 35 thousand years old! In rock paintings you can also find images of the first wind instruments.

The first string instrument It is considered to be a hunting bow. While pulling the bowstring, the ancient hunter noticed that when he plucked it, the bowstring “singed.” And the stretched vein of the animal “sings” even better, and most importantly longer, if you rub it with the animal’s hair. This is how the bow appeared, a stick with a tuft of horsehair stretched over it, which was driven along a string made from twisted animal sinew, and later from silk threads. This divided string instruments into plucked and bowed instruments. Also, ancient people noticed that strings stretched over a hollow object resonated - they sounded louder and richer. The resonator can be a clay vessel, a dried pumpkin, but, of course, wood sounds best.

The most ancient stringed instruments are the lyre and the harp. Similar instruments are found among all ancient peoples. Ur harps are the oldest stringed instruments found by archaeologists. They are over 4500 years old!

The truth is that we cannot say exactly what the first musical instrument looked like, but it is certain that music, even in its primitive form, was part of the life of primitive man!

Did you know that several years ago archaeologists discovered the oldest musical instrument? Do you think this is some kind of fossilized primitive proto-drum or prehistoric double bass from a mammoth skull? No matter how it is! Hurry up - under the cut!

It turns out that the most ancient musical instrument is

it's a flute!

In 2009, in one of the caves in southwestern Germany, archaeologists found the remains of an instrument reminiscent of the familiar flute:

Its age is more than 35 thousand years. This flute is 21.8 cm long and only 8 mm thick. Five round holes were punched in the body, which were closed with fingers, and at the ends there were two deep V-shaped cuts.

This flute, as you probably already guessed, is made not of wood, but of bone - here the opinions of scientists differ: some say that it is a bone from a swan's wing, others - a griffon vulture. This is the oldest, although not the first discovery of such a tool. Researchers believe that southwest Germany is the site of one of the first settlements of our European ancestors who came from Africa. Now they make assumptions that our prehistoric ancestors had a well-developed musical culture. ()

In general, flutes are not the only thing that archaeologists find. Among the ancient musical instruments at different times they found: bone pipes and flutes, animal horns, trumpets made of shells, drums made of animal skins, rattles made of stone and wood, musical [hunting] bows. The oldest musical instruments (flutes and tweeters) were found on the territory of modern Hungary and Moldova, and date back to the Paleolithic era - approximately 2522 thousand years BC, and the oldest musical notation - the 18th century BC, was found during excavations Sumerian city of Nippur (territory of modern Iraq).

During excavations at the site of primitive hunters in Ukraine, interesting discoveries were made. At the site of the plague they found a whole “orchestra”; there were so many ancient musical instruments there. Pipes and whistles were made from bone tubes. Rattles and rattles were carved from mammoth bones. Dry leather covered the tambourines, which hummed when struck by a mallet.

Obviously, the melodies performed on such musical instruments were very simple, rhythmic and loud. In one of the caves in Italy, scientists found footprints on fossilized clay. The tracks were strange: people either walked on their heels or jumped on tiptoes on both legs at once. This is easy to explain: a hunting dance was performed there. The hunters danced to menacing and exciting music, imitating the movements of powerful, dexterous and cunning animals. They chose words to the music and in songs they talked about themselves, about their ancestors, about what they saw around them.

Gradually more advanced musical instruments appeared. It turned out that if you stretch the skin over a hollow wooden or clay object, the sound will become louder and stronger. This is how the ancestors of drums and timpani were born. (

The history of musical instruments. Video lesson.

When did musical instruments originate? You can get very different answers to this question (from 100 years to tens of thousands). In reality, no one can answer this question, since it is unknown. But it is known that one of the most ancient instruments found during archaeological excavations is more 40 thousand years(it was a flute made from an animal bone, the femur of a cave bear). But wind instruments were not the first to appear, which means that musical instruments arose even earlier.

What instrument appeared first?

The first prototype of a musical instrument was human hands. At first, people sang, clapping their hands, which were, as it were, his musical instrument. Then people began to pick up two sticks, two stones, two shells, and instead of clapping their hands, they hit each other with these objects, producing different sounds. The tools people used largely depended on the area where they lived. If they lived in a forest area, they took 2 sticks; if they lived by the sea, they took 2 shells, etc.

Thus, instruments appear on which the sound is produced by striking, which is why such instruments are called drums .

The most common percussion instrument is, of course, drum . But the invention of the drum dates back to a much later time. We cannot say now how this happened. We can only guess something. For example, one day, having hit a hollow tree in order to drive bees away from it and take honey from them, a man listened to the unusually booming sound that comes from hitting a hollow tree, and the idea came to him to use this in his orchestra. Then people realized that it was not necessary to look for a hollow tree, but that they could take some kind of stump and hollow out the middle of it. Well, if you cover it on one side with the skin of a killed animal, you will get an instrument very similar to drum. Many nations have instruments of similar design. The only difference is that they are made from different materials and slightly different in shape.

In the music of different nations, percussion instruments play different roles. They played a particularly important role in the music of African peoples. There were various drums, from small ones to huge drums, reaching 3 meters. The sound of these huge drums could be heard several kilometers away.

There was a very sad period in history associated with the slave trade. Europeans or Americans sailed to the African continent to capture and then sell its inhabitants. Sometimes when they arrived in a village, they found no one there; the residents managed to leave there. This happened because the sounds of the drum, which came from the neighboring village, warned them about this, i.e. people understood the “language” of drums.

Thus, the group was the first to arise percussion instruments .

What group of instruments appeared after the drums? These were wind instruments, which are called so because their sound is produced by blowing air. We also don’t know what prompted man to invent these tools, but we can only assume something. For example, one day, while hunting, a man came to the shore of a lake. A strong wind was blowing and suddenly the man heard a sound. At first he was wary, but after listening he realized that it was the sound of broken reeds. Then the man thought: “What if I break the reed myself, and blow air into it, try to make it sound?” Having successfully done this, people learned to produce sounds by blowing air. Then the man realized that short reeds made higher sounds, and long ones made lower sounds. People began to tie reeds of different lengths and, thanks to this, produce sounds of different pitches. This instrument is often called the Pan flute.

This is due to the legend that a long time ago in Ancient Greece there lived a goat-footed god named Pan. One day he was walking through the forest and suddenly saw a beautiful nymph named Syrinx. Pan to her... And the beautiful nymph disliked Pan and began to run away from him. She runs and runs, and Pan is already catching up with her. Syrinx prayed to her father, the river god, to save her. Her father turned her into a reed. Pan cut that reed and made himself a pipe out of it. And let's play on it. No one knows that it is not the flute who sings, but the sweet-voiced nymph Syrinx.

Since then, it has become a tradition that multi-barreled flutes, similar to a fence of shortened reed pipes, are called Pan flutes - on behalf of the ancient Greek god of fields, forests and grasses. And in Greece itself it is still often called syrinx. Many nations have such instruments, but they are called differently. The Russians have kugikly, kuvikly or kuvichki, the Georgians have larchemi (soinari), in Lithuania - skuduchai, in Moldova and Romania - nai or muskal, among the Latin American Indians - samponyo. Some call the Pan flute a pipe.

Even later, people realized that it was not necessary to take several tubes, but that they could make several holes in one tube, and by pressing them in a certain way, they could produce different sounds.

When our distant ancestors made some inanimate object sound, it seemed to them a real miracle: before their eyes, dead objects came to life and found a voice. There are many legends and songs about the singing reed. One of them tells how a reed grew on the grave of a murdered girl, when it was cut and made into a pipe, she sang and spoke in a human voice about the death of the girl, and named the name of the killer. This fairy tale was translated into poetry by the great Russian poet M.Yu. Lermontov.

The fisherman sat cheerfully

On the river bank,

And in front of him in the wind

The reeds swayed.

He cut dry reeds

And drilled the wells

He pinched one end

It blew at the other end.

And as if animated, the reed began to speak -

Thus arose the second group of musical instruments, which are called brass

Well, the third group of musical instruments, as you probably already guessed, is string instrument group . And the very first stringed instrument was a simple one Hunter bow. Many times before a hunt, a person checks whether the tension is good bow string. And then one day, having listened to this melodious sound of a bowstring, a man decided to use it in his orchestra. He realized that a short string produces higher sounds, and a longer string produces lower sounds. But playing on several bows is inconvenient and the man pulled not one string on the bow, but several. If you imagine this instrument, you can find in it similarities with harp .

Thus, three groups of musical instruments arise: drums, winds and strings.

Even the tragic fate of Dr. Robert Ball, who died while making sounds from a metal horn of the Bronze Age, did not discourage archaeologists from trying to sound prehistoric and ancient musical instruments. And so from some of the original instruments, after hundreds, thousands and even tens of thousands of years, sounds began to flow again. Numerous replicas and copies of these instruments were also used. But how can we be sure that the sounds produced today are at least partially similar to those heard by people of the distant past? Frankly, it seems to us that the results of experimental archeology in this area will always be problematic. However, we have no other way yet. The most ancient musical instruments that have reached us are bone pipes and flutes. They were found at many Late Paleolithic sites scattered throughout the then inhabited territory. The sounds extracted from them were reflected from the white limestone massifs of the Pavlovsk hills in South Moravia and were heard in the vicinity of present-day Petřkovice. One such tool, originating from the Istalloskö cave in Hungary, is made from the femur of a cave bear. It has two holes on the front and one on the back wall. If this instrument is played like a transverse flute, it produces the tones “A”, “B flat”, “B” and “E”.

The most ancient musical instruments that have come down to us are bone pipes and flutes. They were found at many Late Paleolithic sites scattered throughout the then inhabited territory. The sounds extracted from them were reflected from the white limestone massifs of the Pavlovsk hills in South Moravia and were heard in the vicinity of present-day Petřkovice. One such tool, originating from the Istalloskö cave in Hungary, is made from the femur of a cave bear. It has two holes on the front and one on the back wall. If this instrument is played like a transverse flute, it produces the tones “A”, “B flat”, “B” and “E”.

Archaeologists discovered on the banks of the Desna near Chernigov a whole set of bone musical instruments, which made it possible to form a very decent orchestra 20 thousand years ago. Six musicians could choose to their taste a pipe or syrinx (Pan's flute), a xylophone from the two lower jaws of a mammoth or a drum from a piece of skull, a timpani from the shoulder blade and pelvic bones with a stick from a mammoth tusk, or a rattle from several bone plates. Along with them, a percussionist from Mezin in Ukraine could take part in the concert, for whom a set of carved bones allowed him to play a six-tone scale by striking a stick. Finally, to complete our understanding of the Paleolithic orchestra, let us recall the long-known fresco in the French cave of the Three Brothers (Trois Freres): a hunter dressed in animal skin plays a kind of musical bow, reminiscent of instruments that are still used by some African tribes .

Pan flutes (consisting of several pipes of different lengths) have existed since the Late Paleolithic, but only a few examples have survived. Pipes dating back to the 5th century BC. e., have from four to seven trunks. And a three-thousand-year-old artifact from Poland, found in the burial of an elderly man, consists of nine pipes that make the sounds “do, re, mi, sol, la, do, re, mi, sol.” It is a two-octave pentatonic scale, and if realized consciously as a musical formation, its existence in prehistoric Poland makes a striking impression. In Malhelm Tarn in Yorkshire, English archaeologists discovered a recorder dating back to the last centuries before the change of chronology. They managed to extract the tones “C, C sharp and F” from the instrument.

The oldest ocarina, which also belongs to the class of pipes, comes from Austria and was made at the end of the third millennium BC. e. It has a single injection hole and a characteristic oval resonator chamber. She plays “A, B flat, B, C.”

These and similar instruments have a fortunately limited potential sound range. Therefore, based on experiments, we can say with a certain degree of plausibility that it was these sounds or some of them that people listened to in prehistoric times.

The next group of wind instruments consists of horns and trumpets of various types. Researchers are generally unanimous that the prototype for musical horns was the horns of animals, and the prototype for musical trumpets were tubular bones.

Probably the best known of these instruments are the Late Bronze Age luras. They are made of bronze, their length is from one to two meters. Usually they are paired, and of the same size, but curved in opposite directions. Both instruments were tuned to the same key, and playing two luras at the same time either led to heterophony ("dissonance") or caused accidental harmony (consonance). The first experiments with lurs were carried out by the creator of three centuries of archaeological periodization, Christian Jürgensen Thomsen. Recent research in Denmark has shown that most lurs can produce between seven and nine tones, which is likely to be within the capabilities of Bronze Age musicians. Professional trumpeters, using all sorts of tricks, even played sixteen tones. Mouthpieces on lurs come in a variety of varieties and are not very convenient for playing music. Equally, deficiencies in the processing of the internal parts of instruments lead to an opinion about the relative indifference of ancient musicians to the purity of musical expression - we judge this, of course, from a modern point of view.

The next large musical instrument is the Celtic Iron Age horn, which originated from Ardbrean in Ireland. Its height is almost two and a half meters. It narrows approximately to the middle like a bell, and then takes the shape of a cylinder, ending abruptly without any mouthpiece rounding. The instrument was voiced using a simple metal mouthpiece; it produced three tones: B flat, F, B flat. It is curious that without a mouthpiece the experimenter was able to extract as many as seven tones. The sounds of this horn are like two peas in a pod to the sounds extracted from the paired Danish lur from Brudevelte.

The largest "family" of metal horns survives in Ireland. They date back to approximately 900-600 BC. e. We know almost a hundred instruments, of which twenty-five can be voiced. There are two types of horns. In some, air is blown in at the end, in others - from the side. Archaeologists have not yet discovered a single mouthpiece from instruments with a hole in the side. Therefore, it is not certain that mouthpieces were even used in this embodiment. Each of these horns can produce a single tone, but their overall range extends from G to D sharp. The lowest tone (produced by an eighty-centimeter horn) is salt. This is followed by a group of horns sounding A and A sharp. Finally, half-meter horns gave C sharp, D, D sharp. Horns in which air is blown from the end turned out to be much more musical. The experimenter was able to extract four tones from some of them.

The low quality and stability of the tones extracted from Irish horns suggest that the main thing for both listeners and performers was, first of all, the very existence of these huge, majestic instruments, and not the specific sounds they produced.

John Coles notes that the total noise that would have been produced if all twenty-four horns and twice as many rattles had sounded simultaneously at the Dauris site in Central Ireland would undoubtedly have awakened the living and the dead.

The next group of prehistoric instruments consists of clay and metal rattles.

How easy it is to make them sound, and how little they contribute to the understanding of ancient music! Clay rattles have existed since the Neolithic. Neolithic also adds ceramic drums. Replicas of two of them, made by experimenters based on finds in the Czech Republic (the heads were covered with cowhide), produced such loud, piercing sounds that they were undoubtedly used only in open space. At the same time, the height of the drums did not exceed 20 and 26 cm, respectively.

Ancient musicians made other types of percussion instruments from bones, turtle shells and shells, which they struck with their hands or sticks. A model of such an instrument, based on Mayan frescoes, produced three different tones depending on which parts of the shell were struck.

Life is short, art is eternal.

The first convincing evidence of musical instruments dates back to the Paleolithic era, when man learned to make instruments from stone, bone and wood in order to produce various sounds. Later, sounds were extracted using a faceted rib from bone (the sound produced was reminiscent of gnashing teeth). Rattles were also made from skulls, which were filled with seeds or dried berries. This sound often accompanied the funeral procession. The most ancient instruments were percussion. The idiophone is an ancient percussion instrument. The duration of the sound and its repeated repetition were associated with the rhythm of the heartbeat. In general, for ancient people, music was primarily rhythm. Following the drums, wind instruments were invented. The ancient prototype of the flute discovered in Asturis (37,000 years old) is striking in its perfection. The side holes were knocked out in it, and the principle of sound production is the same as that of modern flutes!!!

Stringed instruments were also invented in ancient times. Images of ancient strings are preserved in numerous rock paintings, most of which are located in the Pyrenees. Thus, in the Gogul cave nearby there are “dancing” figures “carrying bows”. The “lyre player” struck the strings with the edge of a bone or wood, producing sound. In the chronology of development, the invention of string instruments and dance occupy the same time space.

In one of the caves in Italy, scientists found footprints on fossilized clay.

The tracks were strange: people either walked on their heels or jumped on tiptoes on both legs at once. This is easy to explain: a hunting dance was performed there. The hunters danced to menacing and exciting music, imitating the movements of powerful, dexterous and cunning animals. They chose words to the music and in songs they talked about themselves, about their ancestors, about what they saw around them.

At this time, an aerophone appears - an instrument made of bone or stone, the appearance of which resembles a diamond or the tip of a spear.

Threads were made and secured into holes in the wood, after which the musician ran his hand along these threads, twisting them. As a result, a sound resembling a hum appeared (this hum resembled the voice of spirits). This instrument was improved during the Mesolithic era (20th century BC). It became possible to play two or three sounds simultaneously. This was achieved by cutting vertical holes. Despite the primitiveness of the method of making such instruments, this technique was preserved for a long time in some parts of Oceania, Africa and Europe!!!

A fully preserved 37,000-year-old flute made from the bone of a bird of prey was discovered in a cave in the Swabian Albs in southwestern Germany.

The completely preserved flute with five finger holes and a V-shaped “mouthpiece” was made from the radius of a predatory subspecies of griffin (presumably a griffon vulture – author). Also, along with it, archaeologists found pieces of several more flutes, but made from mammoth bones.

The bird bone musical instrument was found in a region where similar instruments had previously been found, says study leader Nicholas Conard of the University of Tübingen, but the flute is "the best preserved one ever found in a cave." Until now, such ancient artifacts have been found extremely rarely, and most importantly, they have not made it possible to establish the date of the appearance of music as a cultural phenomenon in everyday life of mankind.

To establish the most accurate dating of the discovered tools, independent laboratory analyzes were carried out in Germany and the UK. And in both cases, the same date appeared - 37 thousand years ago, which was in the Upper Paleolithic era. The oldest flute gives archaeologists reason to assume that the local population had its own culture and traditions. The earliest flutes provide clear evidence of a musical tradition that helped people interact and strengthen social cohesion.

Nicholas Conard, together with a team of archaeologists from the University of Tübingen, discovered a mammoth tusk flute in the Geisenklosterle cave near Blaubeuren. This is one of the three oldest wind instruments in the world found by archaeologists. All three were found in the Geisenklosterle cave, but the latest find is very different from the previous two. This is not just a musical instrument, but also, undoubtedly, a luxury item.

Using radiocarbon dating, the researchers dated the age of the sediment layer in which the flute fragments were located from 30 to 36 thousand years. This means that the mammoth ivory flute is a thousand years younger than the bone flute found at the same site in 1995. The second study helped to finally determine the age of the musical instrument - about 37 thousand years.

The value of the mammoth tusk flute lies not in its record age, but in its significance for the debate about the origins of culture.

We can now say that the history of music began about 37 thousand years ago,” Conard emphasizes.

At that time, the last Neanderthals were still living in Europe, who coexisted with the first modern humans. Thanks to this flute, we know that the inhabitants of what is now Europe during the Ice Age were culturally no less capable than modern people!!!

According to Conard, a single musical instrument from the Ice Age could have been an accident, but after the third discovery it must be recognized that there can be no talk of an accident. Music was an important part of the life of ancient people. This is evidenced by the fact that three flutes were found in one cave. Archaeological finds from the Ice Age are disproportionately tiny “samples” from the entire complex of material culture. Friedrich Seeberger, an expert in archaeological music, reconstructed Ice Age flutes. It turned out that they can play a variety of pleasant melodies. The instrument made from a huge mammoth tusk differs sharply from its counterparts made from bird bones. It was extremely difficult to make, since the tusk is very hard and curved. The master split the tusk longitudinally, carefully hollowed out halves 19 centimeters long and connected them again. The sound of such a flute was deeper and louder than that of bird bone flutes.

If a person put so much effort into making a flute, it means that he attached great importance to the sounds of music. Perhaps his fellow tribesmen sang and danced to the tunes of the flute, and talked with the spirits of their ancestors.

The so-called Swabian Venus was also discovered next to the flutes:

During excavations of the site of primitive hunters in Mezina in 1908, interesting discoveries were made, including a figurine similar to the Swabian Venus and an entire orchestra of musical instruments.

I already wrote about one of the finds - https://cont.ws/@divo2006/439081 - A calendar from 20,000 years ago was found on the territory of the Russian Empire, which unites and explains many calendar systems later spread throughout the entire Earth!!!

At the site of the dwelling in Mezin, they found an entire “orchestra” consisting of bone tubes from which pipes and whistles were made. Rattles and rattles were carved from mammoth bones. Dry leather covered the tambourines, which hummed when struck by a mallet. These were the primitive musical instruments. The melodies played on them were very simple, rhythmic and loud.

About 30 years ago, a reconstruction of the sound of these instruments was carried out, and today you have a unique chance to hear the music that our ancestors played 20,000 years ago.

Concert on the most ancient musical instruments, 20,000 years old. (reconstruction).

I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that approximately 19,000 years have passed between the finds in Europe and in Mezina, they are separated by thousands of kilometers, and people are interested in music, make religious objects identical to each other, and carefully monitor the movement of visible celestial bodies, and record their observations, in the form of ornaments, on products made from mammoth bones. At the same time, the methods of processing bones are not clear, and are beyond our control today.

Modern science assures us that the people of the past were extremely primitive and differed little from monkeys. But how then can we explain the jewelry in the Denisovo cave of Altai, 50,000 years old, the musical instruments presented in this article, the runic writing on Venus from the Voronezh site, the most complex astronomical observations and calculations from Mezin, 20,000 years old, and the Achinsk rod, 18,000 years old, and much more.