It is generally said that "the origins of music are unknown" or that it "was the product of the development and elevation of language". Something as if the primitive man sitting inside a cave wrapped in a skin and ingesting the remains of an animal crossed his head something similar to this thought:
"I can not make syncopated rhythms hitting stone with bones of this animal until I develop my language well". And so the poor man in the wild limited his own musical productions, hoping to satisfy the theories of some unimaginative historians who many centuries later would evoke such "scientific theory".
To respond to such "theorists" with a bit of imaginative wit, it is amply demonstrated that certain birds imitate sounds (such as parrots that can speak) or like others that imitate the sounds of their potential lunches; primitive man could not be less. Besides, as an animal, it is not one of the most physically graceful for survival on Earth and feeding on a daily basis in the wild way. The man was not even in the need to create the Royal Spanish Academy to eat a miserable bird but to devote himself to imitate its sound to attract it and then give a stone in the middle of the head. For this, previously improved his aim (not even having read the works of Shakespeare).
Undoubtedly, during centuries of human evolution from the Man of Cromagnon to the Neanderthal have marched for days or weeks in search of water and suddenly hear the sound of thunder and water begins to fall from the sky.
Let's put our mind in this happening: thunder noise = water.
It will have been a long time before some thirsty ape, after years of hearing this, took a bone or a stick and began to hit the ground in search of water falling. At no time did he think that it would be the product of the condensation of water droplets in the atmosphere and that the thunder was simply the shock wave caused when a ray heats the air that moves between the clouds. IT IS A BEING WITH BEHAVIOR THINKING !!!! It does not need to create a language to draw a more than obvious conclusion for its evolutionary level.
So there we have an ape making percussion trying to create the conditions to drink water without knowing that it was the predecessor of Tito Puente.
Even if he hit the ground with a bone, the water did not fall and his thirst increased. This is how you would have imagined that you should look for a way to match those sounds and you have been trying to hit stones, dead animals, trees, or your chest with your hands, etc in different ways and creating rhythms that are similar to the sound of thunder. And although it may seem a lie, so much hitting a day starts to rain and the man blindly believes that imitating the sound of something unknown produces the rain as if imitating the sound of a bird it approaches and becomes dinner. Remember that throughout this story the primitive does not say a single "word" and has already originated the first music, invented the percussion, has been perfected by making several rhythms, has dined that bird that imitates to perfection and has taken all the water that has fallen thanks to his musical ability. Many years or centuries later he would also dedicate some time to paint all these exploits on the wall of his cave, since painting requires some more skills.
Let's say that language is not very necessary in this evolutionary stage for music to be born by the daily needs of the first men. When I say "language" I am speaking in the terms of these scientists who conceptualize a language as something finished as we speak today and not the gestural, bodily or sound language that exists since the world is world in all nature.
In the end only with a post, we already have the origin of percussion and some imitative sounds made with the voice and the only need to eat or drink. Precisely this need continues to this day, where the musician is not an ethereal being raised from the crowd by other supraterrenal questions but a simple mortal with needs that must be met and that is the true origin of the music.
About the Author:
My name is Gabriel Beguerie, I'm a Music Teacher and Piano Teacher in the city of Mar del Plata, Argentina.
Currently I work at the Luis Gianneo Provincial Conservatory and the Art No. 1 High School.
Passionate about History in general and the History of Music in particular.
Contact: gabriel.arturo.beguerie@gmail.com
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