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A short History of Music

MUSIC is found in every known CULTURE, past and present. Modern HUMANS emerged from AFRICA 160,000 years ago. Around 50,000 years ago these HUMANS began to disperse, reaching all the habitable continents. Since all PEOPLE of the WORLD, including the most isolated TRIBAL groups, have a form of music, we can conclude that music must have been present in the ancestral POPULATION prior to the dispersal of humans around the WORLD. Consequently music must have been in existence for at least 50,000 years and the first music must have been invented in Africa and then evolved to become a fundamental constituent of human life.

The emotions and ideas that music expresses, is really the story of humanity.... From the very ANCIENT and EARLY music, to the MEDIEVAL , RENAISSANCE , and BAROQUE music, the CLASSICAL and ROMANTIC period, to the 20th CENTURY music, with the JAZZ , right up to ELECTRONIC music, and BEYOND, it all seems to flow from the same spring..... The desire to express the impossible...

A short History of Humanity

"In the beginning".... This is a significant place to start. But where is the BEGINNING?. For some people, the book of GENESIS will fulfill their answers to the fundamental questions of "where did we come from?", and "why are we here?". For others it will not satisfy them, and they will keep on searching.... or not searching at all. At least, all SACRED books and different belief, school of thoughts, RELIGIONS, and PHILOSOPHIES, set the groundwork for answering the fundamentals questions about life and death, good and bad, and right or wrong. Whatever our believes are, there are many ways to go...

About 5000 B.C., when the historic curtain first rises, in some favored regions, as in the valleys of the NILE and the EUPHRATES, there were nations and CIVILIZATIONS already venerable with age, and possessing ARTS, governments, and institutions that bear evidence of slow growth through very long periods of time.

Thousands of years ago, the forces that make our society what it is today were already in play in great civilizations that flourished long before our age. From the development of the first urban societies in MESOPOTAMIA, SUMER, the birthplace of writing, legal CODES, and the wheel, where the Epic of GILGAMESH come from, perhaps the oldest written story on Earth. BABYLON and its Hanging Gardens, ASSYRIA and PERSIA, and so many other people competing and fighting for that rich piece of land, right up to today.... as we speak.... The political and religious traditions of the ancient EGYPTIENS, the first cities of SOUTH ASIA and the "Golden age" of INDIAN history, to the Ancient civilizations of SOUTH AMERICA, the dynasties of CHINA, the small, loosely organized political communities of AFRICA, Iron Age EUROPE, the mighty ROMAN EMPIRE, ancient GREECE and its legacies, from columnar architecture to the concept of democracy, and much more.....

From the dark ages of the MIDDLE AGES in Europe, to the explosion of the RENAISSANCE, and from the classical societies of EGYPT, GREECE, and ROME to the cultures of Asia, Southeast Asia, and Africa, those civilizations shaped the modern world. Encompassing CULTURE, SOCIETY, ART, and RELIGION.

The epic history of human evolution over four millions years is our story. After all, " Know thyself " was inscribed in the Temple of Apollo at DELPHI.

By studying and learning the past, we can learn and understand so much better who we really are....