Flipping forward to The Middle Ages…This time period was very crucial to the development of modern-day music; this time period was when new styles were created as well as a semblance of modern-day musical notation. Many academic institutions began focusing their studies on the history of music and the figures involved with the synthesis of musical concepts. A few of these studied people included: Apollo, who is said to be the god of music, as well as Jubal from the Bible, who is said to have played the flute.
The most popular person to be credited with the founding of music was Pythagoras, a Greek philosopher. Pythagoras is better known for his right triangle theorem, but he also studied what is now the base of modern music theory. Some legends say that, while listening to the sounds of a blacksmith’s hammer striking an anvil, he noticed that some strikes sounded higher in pitch than others. He determined that there must have been some mathematical reasoning behind this. Curious, he went into the shop and noticed that different lengthed hammers made different sounds, with smaller hammers creating higher pitches. This led to his discovery of absolute intervals. While there is no proven evidence to support this story, there is documentation that Pythagoras discovered the relationship between the length of a piece of string and the pitch that it will play. He found the exact ratios of length to form the octave, 3rd, and 5th. This concept is now known as the harmonic series.
It is hard to pinpoint early, prehistoric roots of music because of undiscovered notations for music at those times, yet this understanding allows us to understand this evolving art form and its role in our lives. Perhaps we are more connected to the people in our history textbooks than we thought.