Music and Its Masters

by O. B. Boise

Some writers have endeavored to solve the problem presented by Hebrew music in the midst of incongruous conditions by attributing its development to the influence of presumable intercourse with prehistoric Egyptian civilization. This does not appear logical, for Hebrew music seems to have been little, if at all, affected by the continued direct contact during the long sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt.

The Jewish and Egyptian characters were so diametrically opposed (as was evinced in their beliefs, habits, and aspirations) that their emotional forms of expression could not possibly have followed common lines.

Intercourse with Egyptians did not impart even a scientific impulse to the Hebrew mind. It is therefore safe to conclude that my previously mentioned hypothesis—that the force of their impulses carried Jewish music and poetry to unique positions, as compared with those of their other arts and branches of learning—is worthy of credence.

The first mention of music is made in Genesis iv. 21. Jubal, the son of Lamech and Adah, is described as the "father of all such as handle the harp and organ." Jubal was of the seventh generation of Adam's descendants, and the world was, according to Biblical records, in its second century of existence. These "harps and organs" were doubtless similar to those depicted in pictures painted in the fourth Egyptian dynasty. The first named were frames upon which one or, at most, a very limited number of strings were stretched, and the "organs" were pan-pipes (a series of reeds of graded lengths, bound together, and played by blowing into them as they were passed back and forth across the lower lip). The pan-pipes were probably played in unison with the voice, whereas the primitive harp was used, with the existing instruments of percussion, to mark rhythms only.

All historians agree in their deductions as to the order in which the several classes of instruments made their appearance on the musical stage. As rhythm is the heart pulsation of music, it naturally took hold of the first singers of in any measure formulated melody, leading to swaying of the body, clapping of the hands, stamping of the feet, and quickly suggested the employment of other resonant means for marking its progress. Our drums were at first only hollow pieces of wood, our cymbals, triangle, and gong may have had double duties,—musical and culinary,—and our harp and piano were anticipated by single strings stretched to yield a sonorous tone regardless of pitch.

Next came the wind instruments,—at first single reeds blown to mark rhythms, then pan-pipes, and much later single pipes provided with finger-holes like the unimproved flute. Last of all came the instruments from which the tones are drawn by passing a bow over the strings. The idea of adapting the vibrating length of strings to a desired pitch, through pressing them down upon a fingerboard, is comparatively modern. These general classes took on numerous forms and were made from various materials.

The existence of Jubal and his musical line of descendants bespeaks a wide-spread interest in and use of song, but Genesis yields no further enlightenment, no texts, nor any other allusions to the subject of music.

Exodus xv. furnishes the next mention. The treacherous quicksands of the Red Sea having swallowed up the Egyptians, Moses and the children of Israel join in a song of rejoicing and thanksgiving to God, to whose direct interposition they ascribe their deliverance. The song as recorded is too circumstantial to have been spontaneous. Moses, in writing his account of the occurrence, doubtless embodied the sentiments which burst forth from the hearts of his people in the presence of the event in a more orderly and more amplified form. The sentiments are lofty, and the effect produced by the singing of that vast chorus of just rescued was, beyond compare, the grandest focus of human enthusiasm that the world has witnessed; for Moses had six hundred thousand fighting men alone.

"Miriam the prophetess," after the song, or during lapses in the singing, to incite the throng to renewed efforts, "took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and dancing. And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea." The timbrels were drums, probably much like our tambourines in size and shape.

The trumpet is mentioned three times in the nineteenth and twentieth chapters of Exodus in connection with the delivery to Moses of the Commandments. The last occasion is after the consummation of this universe-shaping ceremony,—viz., "And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking."