Music won’t die out, but we’re failing to nurture it
Tiffany Jenkins on music’s place in human history, our bad habit of putting down our instruments and the need to do more than just listen.
The exhibition on the Ice Age held at the British Museum, earlier this year featured a bone flute made from a griffon vulture’s wing, which had been discovered in a cave in south-west Germany. It is thought to be about 40,000 years old, making it one of the oldest instruments ever found. The long, off-white, thinly carved bone, with holes bored into it, was amazing. It was recognisably a musical instrument. Imagining what it sounded like and what it meant to the community connected me to a period in time about which we know very little in a way that no other artefact on show could.
From the earliest time, before recorded history, human beings sang and played music, communicating feelings and stories, giving meaning to their lives and providing respite. At the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford there are cases of flutes from different historical periods from all over the world, such as one from south Sudan made from an antelope horn, as well as a small bamboo flute from 19th-century Polynesia. People invented songs and initially relied on memory to pass them on. Musical instruments were fashioned from local materials. Notation, writing down the work, much later in history, has meant that we can still hear and perform many later pieces today.
Whilst music has always been with us and although there continues to be new music composed, we should pay attention to key moments in the history of music and note what enabled it to flourish. There is no danger that it will die out, but we are failing to nurture it in important ways. In particular, we are turning into people who listen but do not play a note. So few pianos are sold today – about 4,000 a year – that hardly any are currently made in Britain, yet in the early 20th century, in Camden Town, London, alone, there were 100 small factories. Despite the pleasure we get from hearing a tune, and despite the fact that it is important to listen well, that many of us have put down our instruments and that our children are taking them up in fewer numbers and for a shorter period of time, is a problem.
The exhibition on the Ice Age held at the British Museum, earlier this year featured a bone flute made from a griffon vulture’s wing, which had been discovered in a cave in south-west Germany. It is thought to be about 40,000 years old, making it one of the oldest instruments ever found. The long, off-white, thinly carved bone, with holes bored into it, was amazing. It was recognisably a musical instrument. Imagining what it sounded like and what it meant to the community connected me to a period in time about which we know very little in a way that no other artefact on show could.
From the earliest time, before recorded history, human beings sang and played music, communicating feelings and stories, giving meaning to their lives and providing respite. At the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford there are cases of flutes from different historical periods from all over the world, such as one from south Sudan made from an antelope horn, as well as a small bamboo flute from 19th-century Polynesia. People invented songs and initially relied on memory to pass them on. Musical instruments were fashioned from local materials. Notation, writing down the work, much later in history, has meant that we can still hear and perform many later pieces today.
Whilst music has always been with us and although there continues to be new music composed, we should pay attention to key moments in the history of music and note what enabled it to flourish. There is no danger that it will die out, but we are failing to nurture it in important ways. In particular, we are turning into people who listen but do not play a note. So few pianos are sold today – about 4,000 a year – that hardly any are currently made in Britain, yet in the early 20th century, in Camden Town, London, alone, there were 100 small factories. Despite the pleasure we get from hearing a tune, and despite the fact that it is important to listen well, that many of us have put down our instruments and that our children are taking them up in fewer numbers and for a shorter period of time, is a problem.