The Origin and Growth of Music

From the Living Room to the office, from raucous Raon Street in Quiapo Manila, to lonesome valleys, and from the cradle to the grave around the world, we hear it. For music the art of pleasing and expressive combinations of tones, is as free as the air we breathe. Well, not always, since it can sometimes not only be deafening but also very expensive.

The origin of music accidentally occurred when an ogre stepped on embers that had burned some animals for food. The searing pain his feet got from the embers made him to stump around and repeatedly scream something like "Ag, aggg, aggguuuuy!"

Among the trumpets of mastodons and the screeches of large primitive birds sweeping down from the sky, the sound- now known as "rhythm" - was something new because it had a beautiful lilt. A lilt is a gently pleasing, rising and falling rhythm in songs.

The ogre's colleagues noticed that sound from the movements of the different parts of his body, like the hands in walking and the feet in running.

The poor fellow got a powerful clubbing from an Amazon who mistook him for a hungry wolf approaching her for a bite. The additional pain the ogre got form his head form the clubbing increased the lilt in his voice and made music a howling success.

The growth of music from that incident started century later with the coming out of "melody"and "harmony". With the invention and use of instruments, music evolved from purely voice to vocal with instruments and, later, to purely instrumental or abstract.

The last transition came when a musician felt embarrassed by his neighing instead of continuing the regular sound- so he stopped his voice as he continued using his instrument.

It evoked a lot of horselaugh because the musician made a mute out of himself that resulted in the scandalization of the conservative. However, the innovation was accepted in the course of time.

The earliest instrumental piece was Pythic Nome (585 B.C. ) ,a composition by a Greek about the fight of Apollo with a dragon.

In ancient times, people used music as medium of sorcery, exorcism and incantation, but it was mainly a manifestation of the divine. Some tribes in many places around the world still carry on this practice.

Among them are the people in Northern Luzon where the extensive Philippine rice terraces became world famous.

The Ifugaos, Igorots, and other tribes started to build those terraces more than two millennia ago during which they held rituals that involved dancing, singing, and making incantations to the accompaniment of instruments.

Carmel Mabuhay Sr.