The World's Earliest Music / Traced to Its Beginnings in Ancient Lands by Collected Evidence of Relics, Records, History, and Musical Instruments from Greece, Etruria, Egypt, China, Through Asyria and Babylonia, to the Primitive Home, the Land of Akkad and Sumer

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The World's Earliest Music, by Hermann Smith

“The eye is blind when the mind does not see.”— Arab Proverb.
BY COLLECTED EVIDENCE OF RELICS, RECORDS, HISTORY, AND MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS FROM GREECE, ETRURIA, EGYPT, CHINA, THROUGH ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA, TO THE PRIMITIVE HOME, THE LAND OF AKKAD AND SUMER.
BY Hermann Smith. Author of “ The Making of Sound in the Organ ,” “ Instruments of the Orchestra from Old to New ,” “ Modern Organ Tuning ,” etc.
Sixty-five Illustrations.
London: WILLIAM REEVES, 83, CHARING CROSS ROAD, W.C.
Preparing for Publication.
THE MAKING OF SOUND IN THE ORGAN. An Analysis of the work of the Air in the Speaking Organ Pipe of the various constant types, with an Exposition of the Laws of Time-distance and of the Tone of the Air, etc., etc., THE THEORY OF THE AIR-REED ELUCIDATED.
Also INSTRUMENTS OF THE ORCHESTRA, THEIR ORIGIN, HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT AND COMPARATIVE ACOUSTICS, etc.

A music-trail through many lands, over regions where dwelt the peoples of the earliest civilizations, this I have followed, attracted oftentimes to rambles by the way, gathering evidence on all sides in the course of my journey, picking up whatever seemed to be capable of throwing light upon the early conditions of music; from rock carvings, wall paintings, tablets and vases, marbles and sculpture, papyri and parchments, and records, the treasure-trove and finds of explorers old and new, who seem to have accounted for at least ten thousand years of human experience;—yet withal very few musical instruments of the earlier ages have been recovered, and these for the most part imperfect and unplayable, and we have to depend chiefly upon the ancient representations, drawings or carvings for what we know. Archæologists and antiquarians, unhappily for our quest, have not been very particular in truthfully copying even the drawings and sculptures, often leaving out important details, or supplying some imaginatively; in the absence of insight into the constructive principles of instruments, indifference may be a natural consequence, and that there was anything at all in a musical instrument worth thinking about, might probably never occur to their minds.