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History of music
Music is thought to have originated in antiquity as a means of communication, used to imitate natural sounds and in rituals and festivals. Early instruments used included percussion instruments (stone or wooden sticks) and flutes (animal bones or wooden ones).
As discussed in ‘Sound, Rhythm, Melody and UX’, music influences human emotions, and as time progressed and civilisations took shape, music became closely associated with important events that shaped the culture of human societies, such as religion and festivals.
For example, music in religion has come to play an important role in many religious ceremonies and services, such as Christian chants, Hindu bhajans (hymns) and Buddhist sutra chanting. There, musical expressions of prayer and praise were used as a means of uniting devotees, creating a sacred atmosphere, bringing spiritual upliftment and inner peace to devotees, reinforcing sacred experiences and conveying religious messages, and serving to strengthen bonds between devotees and enhance a sense of community It also came to play a role in the development of the community.
In the more primitive experience of festivals, music has also become an important element of the festive atmosphere, expressing feelings of joy and celebration and uniting participants, as in the musical accompaniment at Japanese festivals and dance music at Diwali festivals in India. The age-old melodies and rhythms played at these festivals became an important means of transmitting local traditions and culture to the next generation, or certain instruments and melodies had ritual or symbolic significance.
As time progressed further and unique cultures were formed, music evolved in different directions, for example, in Western civilisation, which had its origins in ancient Greece and Rome and spread to Europe, the Middle East and later the Americas, and in Eastern civilisation, which developed mainly in Asia, including China, India, Japan and the Korean peninsula.
西洋音楽
In Western music, there was a development of music theory in ancient Greece, as described in ‘On the “Socratic apologetics” and what philosophy aims to achieve’, where the basic concepts of scales and harmony were formed, and music was considered important as part of education and religious rituals, with the philosopher Pythagoras studying the relationship between music and mathematics. The relationship between music and mathematics was also studied, for example by the philosopher Pythagoras, who created geometry.
Later, with the rise of Christianity, which is also described in ‘Christianity, the Bible and Related Writings’ as the basis of Western thought, religious music such as Gregorian chant spread and played an important role in church services, while secular music such as troubadours and minstrels spread as folk music and were played alongside songs and poetry. and were performed alongside them. There, performances were increasingly accompanied by performances containing love, chivalry, stories, poetry, folk songs and even satirical content.
Further on, during the Renaissance (14th-17th centuries), as described in ‘On the Road to the Southern Barbarians (1) Xavier and the Basque Country’ and ‘On the Road to the Southern Barbarians (2) Spain and Portugal’, a polyphonic style was established in which multiple melodies were played simultaneously, increasing the expressiveness of the music. The expressive power of the music increased. Along with these developments, there was an increase in the variety of instruments, particularly the lute and organ, which spread and improved performance techniques. The invention of letterpress printing also led to the spread of musical notation and the spread of musical techniques and styles throughout Europe.
During the Baroque period, which saw the Reformation, the rise of civic culture and the development of court culture, as described in ‘On the Road to Holland’ and ‘On the Road to Ireland (1): A Journey through England’, opera emerged as a form of musical theatre that emphasised dramatic and emotional expression, forming the basis of the Baroque orchestra. and instruments such as the violin, cello and trumpet came to play an important role.
Musicians of the Baroque period include Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Friedrich Handel and Antonio Vivaldi, whose operas, cantatas, oratorios, concertos and suites are the foundation of modern classical music.
The music of the Baroque period includes classical music with clearly established structures such as sonata forms and symphonies by the later Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, as well as Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Wagner, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Dvořák, Berlioz, leading to Romantic music expressing personal emotions and nature.
These further lead to the jazz described in ‘Jazz overview and machine performance’, the blues described in ‘History of the blues and automatic generation by Clojure’, bossa nova described in ‘Dis is bossa nova’, and further to rock and electronic music.
Oriental music
Western music is based on tonality (key) and harmony, relying mainly on the relationship between melody and harmony, and in the form of musical compositions, many have a clear structure, such as sonata forms, fugues and symphonies, which are commonly performed according to a musical score. This has its roots in the mathematical approach of the Greek period.
In contrast, Eastern music evolved differently from Western music, with a different concept of tonality and harmony, an emphasis on the use of scales, and a focus on improvisation and transmission in musical form, generally without a clear musical structure.
Specifically, the seven-note scale (do-re-mi-fa-solasi), which is the scale in Western music, evolved into, for example, the C Major Scale (a common keyboard sequence) with whole notes between do (C) and re (D), re (D) and mi (E), fa (F) and so (G), so (G) and la (A), la (A) and si (B), mi (E) and fa (F ), whereas between si and (B) and do (C) are semitones (no black keys).
Oriental music, such as Chinese and Japanese, uses a pentatonic scale without chromatic scales, called the petatonic scale.
In China, this is a scale based on the notes ‘gong, shang, ang, chou, hu’, which in Western music is ‘de re mi so la’, and in Japan, as described in ‘The November Steps, Toru Takemitsu and the Music Concrete’, the ‘Lu scale’ and ‘Ritsu scale’ are used and consist of five notes ‘do mi fa so shi’. The five tones are composed of ‘do-mi-fa-so-si’.
These do not emphasise the connection of sounds such as melody, rhythm and harmony, but rather the use of the sounds themselves and the space between them, which makes them seem different from music if you try to listen to them with a Western musical concept.
Considering the original purpose of music, which is to appeal to people’s emotions, it can be said that this approach to emotions is based on a different cultural background from that of the West.
Even in the East, the music of India and the Middle East uses subtle intervals (microtones) that cannot be expressed in the Western 12-tone scale, making it extremely complex.
This is a feature based on the improvisation characteristic of Indian music, where the performer is free to develop melodies and rhythms on the spot, and the choice of scales and use of sounds is also highly improvisational.
This approach is in line with the aim of flexibly expressing personal feelings of the moment, and the perspective of musical flexibility and improvisation is similar to that of the blue notes, which are sound hazards in the blues, and the rhythmic hazards of swing and syncopation, as described in ‘History of the blues and automatic generation with Clojure’. Swing and syncopation, which are the sound hazards of the blues, or improvised chord progressions, ensemble interaction and collective improvisation in jazz, as described in ‘Jazz overview and machine playing’.
Reference book
Reference books include.
Musical Culture in East Asia: Stories and Exchanges
An Illustrated History of Japanese Music
Chinese Music Culture: Three Thousand Years of History and Theory
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