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No, I was *not* around back then.. But this article and soundbit may be the oldest song/piece in the world so far.
https://richarddawkins.net/201.....years-ago/
It also can show the importance for musicians of learning at least some form of notation. "Western Standard", TAB, ABC, or what have you, just some way of setting down a musical idea in "hard copy".
"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman
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Impressive. And not an unpleasant tune.
Thanks for posting.
Seen it all. Done it all. Can't remember most of 
..... What was I saying???? 
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wow... Daniel that is very very cool. And interesting. Thank you for posting.
Vibrato Desperato.... Desperately seeking vibrato
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It always amazes me hearing stories of how much more advanced early civilizations were than we(I) may have always thought they were. I think I have been guilty of believing we are somehow smarter or more advanced - but I wonder if that's true at all!
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@kylesito: I think that it is maybe a tendency of mankind in every age to assume that all previous ages were pretty much just barbarians or something. LOL It lets us feel better about the present time, perhaps.
But when it comes to music, a lot of our perception of musicality and harmony is due to how the human ear is constructed. Which, according to some theories I've heard, is why human music the world over actually has many points of commonality. Human ears were pretty much the same a few thousand years ago, so what sounded good as music, I'm not surprised that it may have been very similar to what we know in this time.
@coolpinkone: Glad you liked it. I thought it was highly cool to be able to hear even a version of some music from that long ago.
@Ferret: yeah, it's def a nice little tune. My first thought on hearing it was that those folks from long ago would probably def like banjos.. and maybe a bit of Bach, as well. LOL Seriously, especially the first few bars reminded me a bit of the harmonies in some places in Bach's compositions for a few seconds here and there.
Definitely sounded more familiar then unfamiliar in the sense of being music, though. It makes some musical sense to me.
"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman
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@DanielB Thank you for posting that information. Very intereting
Violinist start date - May 2013
Fiddler start date - May 2014
FIDDLE- Gift from a dear friend. A 1930-40 german copy, of a french copy of a Stradivarius. BOW - $50 carbon fiber. Strings - Dominants with E Pirastro Gold string.
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@DanielB
Dan
How about you try to play it on one of your instruments. 
And post it for us.
How good would it be to be able to play the oldest tune there is 
Seen it all. Done it all. Can't remember most of ..... What was I saying????
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Not all notational systems are equivalent. To quote that page: "what does the oldest song in the world sound like? ... the rhythm of the piece is only a guess." Every musical notation loses some information; written music is an abstraction of the music as performed. Their notation was more lossy than today's standard notation. Had they used a better notation, we wouldn't be guessing as much.
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On musical systems depending on our ears ... I'm thinking it's likely that our musical systems depend mainly on the nature of sound and the properties of numbers. The twelve-tone systems have certain properties, just as certain numbers and other mathematical objects have unique properties, for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.....ect_number and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.....ree_groups . I think that for any given system, there are implications regarding the complexity of the music that can be produced. Of course I don't expect the ancients either planned or rationalized the diatonic system, and I wouldn't guess that that has yet been done in a very satisfying way in detail. Here is a little piece of an attempt to explain the diatonic scale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.....operty Along these lines, I would expect the diatonic system to be used by beings on other planets. IMO
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The first six notes of the piece remind me of Ode to Joy. I didn't try to understand how the scholars discerned the pitch notation, but the primary research paper was published long ago, so I assume it's been scrutinized thoroughly by musicologists by now. But as they said, the rhythm is speculative. It does have a very nice sound though. IMO
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That was very interesting, Dan.
Very nice tune indeed. I can imagine its expressive power as in a worship gathering, or liveliness as in a social dance setting, especially performed by some back then instruments vs standard MIDI sample.
Thank you for posting, Dan.
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