World’s Earliest Music

“A music-trail through many lands, over regions where dwelt the peoples of the earliest civilizations, this I have followed, attracted oftentimes to rambles by the way, gathering evidence on all sides in the course of my journey, picking up whatever seemed to be capable of throwing light upon the early conditions of music; from rock carvings, wall paintings, tablets and vases, marbles and sculpture, papyri and parchments, and records, the treasure-trove and finds of explorers old and new, who seem to have accounted for at least ten thousand years of human experience, ‘yet withal very few musical instruments’ of the earlier ages have been recovered, and these for the most part imperfect and unplayable, and we have to depend chiefly upon the ancient representations, drawings or carvings for what we know.

Archaeologists and antiquarians, unhappily for our quest, have not been very particular in truthfully copying even the drawings and sculptures, often leaving out important details, or supplying some imaginatively ; in the absence of insight into the constructive principles of instruments, indifference may be a natural consequence, and that there was anything at all in a musical instrument worth thinking about, might probably never occur to their minds.”
– Excerpts from the author’s Foreword

Other recent books published on Music:
A History of Arabian Music. To the XIIth Century
Farmer, H. G.

Indian Music.
With a Preface by F. Gilbert Webb
Shahinda (Begum Fyzee-Rahmin)

The Music and Musical Instruments of the Arab
Introduction on How to Appreciate Arab Music
Salvador-Daniel, F.
Director of the Paris Conservatoire of Music

Musical Instruments
Historic, Rare and Unique.
The Selection, Introduction and Descriptive Notes
“‘Hipkins & Gibb’ has, over the last hundred years, had a considerable influence, arousing an interest in, and love for, fine musical instruments and setting a standard for book illustrations of instruments.”- The Galpin Society Journal

The Rise of Music in the Ancient World. East and West
Sachs, C.

“Curt Sachs has written a book which is tremendous in scope. He seems to have seen and heard the ancient world at its music, and presents us with a verbal picture which is not only overwhelming in its scholarship, but which is also lively and challenging.. destroys the glib generalizations of music historians at every turn of the page.” Judith K. Eisenstein, Jewish Social Studies, New York