Midst the detritus and malevolence of our world, we are equally blessed with magic and beauty that makes it all worthwhile…a sunset, the birth of a child, the scent and loveliness of a single rose, the embrace of a loved one…and music.
It is music that excites us, sooths us, and holds our memories in the infinite variety of its rhythms as we travel through life. Eight notes arrayed on paper in ancient times, played at different tempos, with different instruments creating different sounds exploded through eons from madrigals to concertos to hip-hop. Tribal sounds evolved to Mozart and Beethoven and then to Blues and Jazz to songs of love and protest, each generation reflecting its message in their own way.
I cut my baby teeth listening to Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, the clarinet sounds of Benny Goodman, the scatting of Ella Fitzgerald, and the uncanny lyrics of Cole Porter and Johnny Mercer. I fell in love to the smooth sounds of Frank Sinatra. I tanned to the rhythms of the Beach Boys and gaped watching Michael Jackson perform.
Long before humans discovered the joys of karaoke and hip-hop, music had made its humble debut. The first note likely emerged when a particularly clumsy caveman stumbled into a hollow log, creating the first percussion solo. His audience of woolly mammoths were likely unimpressed, although one may have tapped a foot in mild approval.
Perhaps a Cro-Magnon woman, standing on a mountain, heard the wind, whooshing and whistling through the trees, producing a sound she tried to emulate by blowing into a hollow twig as she tried to impress a prospective mate.
As humanity evolved, so did its musical ambitions. Our ancestors observed the birds warbling and thought, “We can do that!” Thus was born the earliest vocal performance, or, perhaps a melody relating the tragedy of losing one’s favorite spear as the tribe gathered around their newly discovered fire, likely wishing they had noise-canceling sabretooth earmuffs.
Rhythm arrived and a savvy drummer discovered that bones made excellent maracas, Tribes began to sway and stomp, ushering in the Stone Age Dance Craze. With the invention of string instruments, music achieved a new sophistication. Imagine the delight of the first musician to stretch animal sinew across a turtle shell and pluck out a tune as he looked into the eyes of his mate.
And then, around the year 1000, an Italian monk, Guido d’Arezzo, organized the potpourri of sounds into a scale, eight notes, on a musical staff, and do, re, me, fa, sol, la, ti, do, were born. It would take another half millennium for the violin and brass instruments to evolve and another two centuries for the piano.
From those humble beginnings, music has grown into a symphony of genres, from cacophonous to soul raising as musical composers and arrangers introduced new sounds played in new ways, from the Indian sitar to Afro-Cuban beats and from the streets of Harlem to the beaches of Rio, our hearts beat a little faster.
So the next time you hum a tune, thank the caveman who banged on a log and called it art. After all, music is the universal language of joy, heartbreak, and the occasional kazoo solo. And if you can’t carry a tune in a bucket, fear not — neither could the gal with the hollow twig.