by
Dany Charbel, Msc
Robert Gorter, MD, PhD.
12th June 2024
History of Music
Music is a fascinating topic for evolutionary theory, natural philosophy, and narrative construction: music is a highly valued feature of all known living cultures, pervading many aspects of daily life, playing many roles. And music is ancient. The oldest known musical instruments appear in the archaeological record from 40,000 years ago.
Understanding the history of music in the ancient world primarily requires analyzing archeological evidence. The oldest playable musical instrument is a Neolithic flute discovered in central China. These flutes were formed from the bones of cranes and included between five and eight drilled holes. For thousands of years, Chinese emperors and leaders also added musical instruments like drums, ocarinas, and chimes to their tombs.
In Mesopotamia, archaeologists found evidence of musical expression dating back thousands of years. The Oxus trumpet was created around 2000 BC, and arched harps from the third millennium BC have been discovered in Western Iran. Pictorial depictions show harpists performing with drummers, vocalists, and wind players as far back as the third millennium in Mesopotamia.
The purpose of music in the prehistory period:
In ancient cultures, music was used as means of social communication, religious and ritual ceremonies, communication with ancestors and preparations for wars.
Drums and primitive horns made from shells and animal parts are used by primitive peoples even today to communicate over great distances. It is possible that early humans were impressed with the power of such communication and found the sounds to be uplifting as well.
India
India has the oldest musical traditions in the world. References to Indian classical music (marga) are found in the Vedas, ancient scriptures of the Hindu tradition. Instruments such as the seven-holed flute and various types of stringed instruments have been recovered from the Indus Valley Civilization archaeological sites.
The Incas and their predecessors used music to communicate with their ancestors, heal the sick, and bury the dead.
In Ancient Greece, Music was considered to be an important part of a well-rounded education. It was believed that music could help to develop the mind and soul better. Music was also used in religious ceremonies, theater productions, and other public events.
Also in ancient Greece, a priest combined being a religious man and a physician. Often, ill people went to the temple and were put in a more or less state of sleep and exposed to music (“temple sleep”) which would bring the ill person back into harmony with the cosmos and by doing so, improve or cure the ill.
Sleep temples (also known as dream temples or Egyptian sleep temples) are regarded by some as an early instance of hypnosis and psychotherapy over 4000 years ago, under the influence of Imhotep. Imhotep served as Chancellor and as High Priest of the sun God Ra at Heliopolis. He was said to be a son of the ancient Egyptian demiurge Ptah, his mother being a mortal named Khredu-Ankh.
Sleep temples were hospitals of sorts, healing a variety of ailments, perhaps many of them psychological in nature. Patients were taken to an unlit chamber to sleep and be treated for their specific ailment. The treatment involved chanting, placing the patient into a trance-like or hypnotic state, and analyzing their dreams in order to determine treatment. Meditation, fasting, massage, baths, and sacrifices to the patron deity or other spirits were often involved as well.
Sleep temples also existed in the Middle East and Ancient Greece. In Greece, they were built in honor of Asclepios, the Greek god of medicine and were called Asclepieions. The Greek treatment was referred to as incubation and focused on prayers to Asclepios for healing. These sleep chambers were filled with snakes, a symbol to Asclepios (Kundalini). A similar Hebrew treatment was referred to as Kavanah and involved focusing on letters of the Hebrew alphabet spelling the name of their God. In 1928, Mortimer Wheeler unearthed a Roman sleep temple at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire.
How Music enhances our physical and mental Health and Well-Being.
Throughout the centuries, music has been used to raise the spirit of people. The power of music in eliciting mental and physical well-being was already recognized by the ancient Greeks. Pythagoras was intrigued by the fact that people appreciated consonant sounds. He discovered that harmonic music is able to soothe people and cure ailments of the spirit, body and soul. He believed that the mathematical nature of music influenced the mind and the body and termed it ‘musical medicine’. In addition, he believed that the principles of harmony had the power to incite various emotions. In The Republic, book III, Plato declared musical training a more potent instrument than any other because ‘rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.
Neurobiochemical Features of Music Listening
The biological mechanisms involved in music appreciation are far from understood, but some hypotheses based on experimental results are worth considering. Fukui and Toyoshima mention that listening to music lowers the secretion of cortisol and improves mood disturbances (ADAH). This is a rewarding effect of listening to music. Furthermore, they hypothesize that these biological changes may facilitate neurogenesis as well as the regeneration and repair of cerebral nerves, possibly mediated by brain-derived neurotrophic factor.
Another biochemical feature of listening to music is the increased secretion of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Using PET imaging with 11C-radiolabeled raclopride, Salimpoor et al. were able to demonstrate endogenous dopamine release in the striatum at peak emotional arousal while listening to music. It is known that increased levels of dopamine in healthy subjects improve executive functions, cognition, attention and concentration.
Music and Depression.
In depressed individuals, without exception, studies show that music listening or music making reduces depression. The importance of music making as a social and pleasurable event has been stressed by Maratos et al., who mentioned that music therapy may result in high levels of engagement in patient groups who are difficult to engage. Moreover, in patients with mild-to-moderate dementia and associated depression, group music making may have a beneficial effect.
Mozart effect
Soon after the publication by Rauscher et al. on the so-called “Mozart Effect,” a flurry of research activity focused on the notion that ‘music makes you smarter’. The effect on cognition has been replicated by Smith et al., who showed a better spatial reasoning performance in young adults. Previous studies by Rideout and Laubach, et al., Jausovec and Habe and Jausovec et al. confirmed that the first movement of Mozart sonata K 448 enhanced the learning of three-dimensional mental rotation tasks. Suda et al. reported that this music enhanced cognitive performance in intelligence tests, compared with music by Beethoven or silence. These findings confirmed pioneering work by Schellenberg, who studied 144 children and noticed intelligence enhancement in those taking music lessons compared with those in randomly assigned control groups receiving drama lessons or no lessons at all.
Music and Spirituality
The Chinese ritual and music system is a social system that originated in the Zhou dynasty to maintain the social order. Together with the patriarchal system, it constituted the social system of the entire ancient China and had a great influence on the politics, culture, art and thought of later generations. The feudal system and the Well-field system were two other institutions that developed at that time. According to legend it was founded by the Duke of Zhou and King Wu of Zhou.
The Ritual Music System is divided into two parts: ritual and music. The part of ritual mainly divides people’s identity and social norms, and finally forms a hierarchy. The music part is mainly based on the hierarchical system of etiquette, using music to alleviate social conflicts.
The system developed from older shamanic traditions and was seen as having cosmological significance, it was seen as representing the balance between Yin and Yang and the Five Elements.
In Anthroposophical medicine, music therapy is the deliberate use of the musical elements of melody, harmony, rhythm, tone, interval, and movement employing a variety of stringed, wind, and percussion instruments as well as the human voice with the intent of supporting the balance and integration of the four bodies of man: physical, etheric, astral bodies and the Ego-organization.
This therapeutic approach can be beneficial for anyone at any age. Individuals who suffer from depression; immune deficiencies; acute or chronic states of illnesses including cancer; disturbances in the respiratory tract, such as asthma; and others that affect the breathing of body and soul may benefit from music therapy that is designed to their particular needs. Aside from that, working with children with behavioral or developmental issues has shown very positive results, especially with those who, due to a heightened awareness and awakeness in the nerve and sensory realm, lack the integration that is needed. Here, the music can create a safe haven in which the soul can feel reconnected with its home and find a source of strength from which it can draw. “Children blossom forth in their whole being when their souls are warmed, strengthened and developed by music. Music is a food from heaven for the soul of man.” (H. Walter, MD, “Music as a Means of Healing”)
Melody, tone, rhythm, intervals, etc., are the elements which, combined and creatively applied, aim to support this realignment on the deepest level. Through this musical “fine-tuning,” a growing sense of well-being and harmony can be gained. In singing, toning, and playing various instruments, the individual becomes creatively engaged in the process itself. In this active involvement, a deepening of the capacity to listen, and a sensitivity and refinement in the social realm are cultivated, qualities that are so significantly threatened today.
Conclusion
Music (and singing) as played one of the most important roles in human society in the fields of festivities, religious gatherings, funerals and cremations, healing and warfare.
References :
K,Anton. The origin of music: evidence, theory and prospects ,2018.
Salimpoor VN, Benovoy M, Larcher K, et al. Anatomically distinct dopamine release during anticipation and experience of peak emotion to music. Nat Neurosci. 2011;14:257–262.
Noble EE, Billington CJ, Kotz CM, et al. The lighter side of BDNF. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol. 2011;300:R1053–R1069.
Maratos A, Crawford MJ, Procter S. Music therapy for depression: it seems to work, but how? Br J Psychiatry. 2011;199:92–93.
Rideout BE, Dougherty S, Wernert L. Effect of music on spatial performance: a test of generality. Percept Mot Skills. 1998;86:512–514.
Schellenberg EG. Music lessons enhance IQ. Psychol Sci. 2004;15:511–514.