Search results
Apr 24, 2020 · 1888: 'The Lost Chord'. This is the earliest recording of music known to exist. In 1888 a recording of Arthur Sullivan's song 'The Lost Chord' was etched onto a phonograph cylinder. Sullivan was astounded at this new technology, but had his reservations too. At the time he said: "I can only say that I am astonished and somewhat terrified at the ...
Jan 3, 2024 · In the case of ‘Au Clair De La Lune’, the music is unique in being the first song ever recorded and is bound to a technological invention that predates the gramophone by three decades. In March 1857, the French printer, bookseller, and inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville invented the phonautograph.
Jul 4, 2018 · First Album, First Song: The 150 Best Lead-Off Tracks. Albums clockwise from upper left: Crosby, Stills & Nash self-titled, Fleet Foxes, self-titled, Patti Smith, Horses, Stevie Wonder, The Jazz ...
- The Neanderthal Flute
- Bullroarer
- Jiahu Gǔdí
- Tutankhamun’s Trumpets
- Xun
- Lithophone
- Lyres of Ur
- Auloi
- Bow Harp
- Shofar
Up first on our list of very old musical instruments is the Neanderthal flute. However, this isn’t the modern concert flute we recognize today; it’s theNeanderthal flute discovered in 1995 in a cave in Slovenia. It’s thought to be around 60,000 years old. It’s literally the oldest instrument in the world! It is made from the bone of a cave bear and...
Up next is the bullroarer, an ancient musical instrument that dates back to 18,000 BC. It can be found all over the globe. It’s usually a flat elliptical-shaped plank of wood with a long string attached to it. The wood ranges in size from four to 14 inches, some even as long as 28 inches. To use a bullroarer, a person holds the string and whirls th...
Our next instrument is one that can be traced back to roughly 6,000 BCE in China. This makes the Jiahu gǔdíthe oldest musical instrument from this country. To give you a little bit of context, the burial grounds of Jiahu in the Henan Province of central China contained artistic remains, including bone flutes. Six complete bone flutes and fragments ...
Another very old instrument is Tutankhamun’s trumpets, which were discovered in Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s burial chamber. They originated around 5,000 BC. Archaeologist Howard Carter was credited with having discovered the trumpets in 1922. One trumpet was about 19 inches in length and made of bronze. The other was silver and 22.5 inches long. The trum...
Another Chinese instrument makes an appearance on our list. The xunwas a famous instrument in ancient China. The one discovered in Zhejiang was 7,000 years old and is considered the oldest xun artifact. Other xun instruments were also discovered in other places, such as Henan. Xun is an egg-shaped clay sculpture with no more than ten holes on the e...
If it’s called a prehistoric instrument, then you know it’s really old. The lithophone, also known as the “rock gong,” is a percussion instrument made of rocks. It’s believed to have been invented between 8,000 and 2,500 BC. The oldest lithophone was discovered in Vietnam in 1949, consisting of 11 slabs of stones. Lithophones were also found in oth...
Four lyres were discovered in the Royal Cemetery of Ur, which was once part of ancient Mesopotamia. As they are over 4,500 years old, the Lyres of Urare the oldest stringed instruments. Each lyre had an animal head on the front of the sound box to identify its pitch. All these are box lyres, meaning they have a boxlike body. The performer plays by ...
Our next entry is an ancient Greek wind instrument. The auloiwere invented around 2,450 BC. It has two separate pipes, each double-reed, and played at the same time. That is why some would call them a double flute. Later, people would perform using only one pipe. The early auloi were made from wood or bone. Later on, other materials were used, such...
The bow harp, also known as benet, is a type of harp that originated in ancient Egypt. Throughout pharaonic history, it was one of the most popular musical instruments. Bow harps were said to originate in the first dynasty, making them a very old instrument. Harps were already in existence around 2,500 BC. By then, they were the kind of harp consis...
Up next is the shofar, a Jewish instrument traditionally made from the ram’s horn. The shapes and sizes differ depending on the animal and construction. It is blown like a trumpet. Notably, it has no pitch-altering mechanisms. The pitch control is done by modulating the player’s breath control using the lips, tongue, and teeth. In Biblical times, t...
- Guns N’ Roses (Welcome To The Jungle) Appetite For Destruction defined Guns N’ Roses as the greatest rock’n’roll band of their generation, and no song was more potent than its opener.
- Boston (More Than A Feeling) The success of More Than A Feeling catapulted Boston’s self-titled debut album to sales of over 20 million worldwide, taking the band from Tom Scholz’s basement to venues like Madison Square Garden in double-quick time.
- Asia (Heat Of The Moment) When the guitarist from Yes, a former King Crimson frontman, one half of Buggles and the drummer from Emerson, Lake & Palmer got together to form a supergroup, progressive rock was no longer no longer the force it once was, and radical thinking was required.
- Black Sabbath (Black Sabbath) There may be other Black Sabbath songs you prefer. Perhaps you favour the Ronnie James Dio era. But no other band has ever defined themselves as brilliantly and as perfectly as Black Sabbath did with the self-titled opener to their self-titled debut album.
Dec 18, 2015 · Along with a near-complete set of musical notations, they also include specific instructions for how to play the song on a type of nine-stringed lyre. “Hurrian Hymn No. 6” is considered the ...
People also ask
What was the earliest recording of music?
Who wrote the first song?
What was the first sheet music hit?
What is the oldest song in history?
What is the oldest musical instrument?
What is the oldest percussion instrument?
The first song ever notated (to our limited knowledge of history) was the “Hurrian Hymn.” Discovered in 1950, 3,400 years after its debut on the ancient clay charts from the 13th Century BC.
