Online Music, Piano, and Sheet

Music is a gateway to the soul. There is something deep within every human being that can only be touched with music. Whether mournful and melancholy, or upbeat and invigorating; music has a way a motivating people. Couples pick out a song that’s “their song”. Millions of dollars are spent to find that person who can reach out and touch an audience, and successful musicians are among our culture’s top paid individuals. Why? Music is so important because it is deeply ingrained within us. The history of music stretches back to times that predate history.

The earliest forms of music are labeled as prehistoric. Prehistoric is used to describe anything that predates writing, and the concept of music is a member of that select group. Not much is known today about prehistoric music today, apparently nobody was around taking notes. What we do know is that flutes and lyres were among the first musical instruments invented.

A flute, at its simplest, is a hollow tube with holes in it. One of the holes serves as an air escape, and covering different combinations of other holes changes the pitch of the sound created. A lyre is similar to the modern harp. Rather than a fully enclosed frame with individually adjusted strings a harp sports; lyres were often strung on a horseshoe shaped frame with an adjustable bar bridging the mouth of the horseshoe. These instruments bridged the gap from our prehistory into the music of the ancients, most notably the Greeks, the Persians, and the Romans made use of both flutes and lyres.

The concept of written music is important. It transformed songs from something that had to be passed on from master to apprentice into something that any student with the capacity to read music could acquire. The written music is not the piece of art itself, it’s like a paint by numbers or a sketch for a tattoo, it has the capacity to be reproduced into art, but it requires additional input. In the case of a sketch or paint by numbers you’d need tattoo guns, or art supplies like paints to create the art work. In the case of written music, you need an instrument and the ability to read to reproduce the art work.

The Greeks are responsible for originating the practice of writing down musical notes on papyrus. Their musical scale could denote pitch, note length, and harmony. It was in use for more than 1,000 years before falling into disuse. From the seventh to ninth centuries CE monastic orders developed the foundations of the musical notation used commonly today. They paved the way for modern sheet music to become available to the masses.

Modern music embraces the incredible diversity in a field with such a depth of background. The variety of instruments still falls into a few major categories, but the numbers of instruments within the categories themselves is amazing. Pianos for instance are hugely diversified today compared to what they were even a century ago; take a digital piano for example. You can find deals at a piano store. Great deals on musical instruments like guitars are found at general music stores.The emergence of electronics has led to the development of online music markets such as itunes, as well as music oriented games, such as rock band and guitar hero.

The rise of electronic studio modification has also allowed many who would not otherwise have been able to do so to become highly successful musicians. The pop genre is especially fond of digitally optimizing a singer’s voice as well. Web sites like youtube have given amateur artists a place to be discovered.

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