Usborne Story of Music - Music in Ancient TimesOnline version
Usborne Story of Music - Music in Ancient Times
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What did people probably do before instruments were invented?
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What were the earliest sounds originally used for?
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What did people eventually begin to do with these sounds?
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How old is the cave painting showing people clapping?
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Prehistoric people left very little direct evidence of their music because they had no writing and used materials that decay. However, some human societies today still live by hunting and gathering, similar to how early humans lived for most of history. Anthropologists study their music to understand how music might have functioned before civilizations existed.
Why do scientists study hunter-gatherer music?
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Hunter-gatherer societies usually do not write music. Songs are learned by listening, copying, and memory, and passed down across generations. Prehistoric humans also had no writing, so their music would have existed in the same way. This makes living oral music cultures useful for understanding how early music could survive without records.
What key similarity makes this useful?
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In many hunter-gatherer societies, music is not performed by professionals for an audience. Instead, most people join in by singing, clapping, and dancing together. Music happens during rituals, work, and celebrations. This suggests early human music was mainly about bringing groups together, not about fame or performance.
What does this suggest about early music?
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Although prehistorical musical traditions disappeared with the rise of civilization, some cultures today still preserve very pre-civilization musical forms. These include Indigenous cultures in Africa, Papua, Australia, South America and the Pacific. Their music is often learned orally, performed communally, and used in rituals and daily life.
Why are these cultures important for understanding early music?
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Humans originated in Africa, and many African societies still preserve musical forms that are very different from Western concert music. Some groups use group singing, body percussion, trance rhythms, and call-and-response patterns. Because Africa is where human history began, these musical traditions may reflect some of the oldest surviving patterns of human music-making.
Why is African traditional music especially important for studying prehistory?
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In Papua and Melanesian societies, music is often closely linked to rituals, storytelling, and group identity. Singing and drumming are performed by communities. These societies remained relatively isolated for much of history, which means some of their cultural practices changed less over time compared to large civilizations.
What makes Papua music useful for studying early human music?
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Aboriginal Australian cultures have some of the longest continuous cultural traditions on Earth, lasting tens of thousands of years. Their music is deeply connected to oral history, navigation, land, and spiritual knowledge, often transmitted through song rather than writing. This shows how music can function as a memory system for entire cultures.
Why is Aboriginal music especially important for understanding early human culture?
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Austronesian and Polynesian cultures like those shown in Moana use music for storytelling, identity, and group memory. Modern Polynesian-inspired music often preserved older patterns such as strong rhythms, group voices, and movement.
What does Austronesian and Polynesian music demonstrate about human musical history?
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In ancient Egypt, music was mainly part of:
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What kind of work did dancers and flute players accompany?
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Who usually entertained kings and noblemen?
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Where did some people study music in Egypt?
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Why was music important in Egyptian religion?
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The word "music" comes from:
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Who were the Greek muses?
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Why did Greeks think music was special?
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Greek festivals were held in praise of which god?
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What happened every year in Athens?
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Where were Roman concerts held?
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Who were Roman musicians usually?
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Why didn’t rich Romans play music in public?
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What often happened in Roman city streets?
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What instruments did Roman street musicians sometimes play?
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Where did the audience sit in Roman theatres?
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What were Roman actors accompanied by?
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