Tracing Music’s Origin—part 5

Tracing Music’s Origin—part 5

            As we review the recent history of music history treatices, we see that finally archaeology is now forcing music historians to retain God in their knowledge.  Grout basically fails to recognize the authenticity of Bible music, and seems to lean toward the “real” history of music beginning with the Greeks.  Borroff doesn’t do any better with her analysis of the beginnings of music.  By the time of Stolba’s book the evidence is overwhelming that, based on the evidence available, Western music as we know it most probably did not start in the West, but rather in the Near East.  If they had listened to Plato or if they had believed what the Bible teaches about music, historians could have avoided much of these misconceptions.  Most certainly a careful study of the te’amim would have proven a written music long before the existing Greek fragments.

            So, after much confusion, musicologists are now face to face with the fact that the notation of Bible music is authentic and that it is very ancient.  Music historians now realize that the Ugaritic notation is 1400 to 1500 years older than the Greek fragments and that Bible music notation is at least 3000 years old.  Depending on when the te’amim were developed, written Bible music may be much older than the 3000 years date given by Stolba.