The Oldest Song In The World

Here's the sheet music for the oldest song in the world:

The song was discovered in the ancient Syrian city if Ugarit in the early Fifties, and then deciphered by Professor Anne Draffkorn Kilmer. The tablets containing the notation were about 3400 years old, and contained cuneiform signs in the hurrian language that provided musical notation of a complete cult hymn. It's thought to be the oldest preserved song with notation in the world, and predates the next earliest example of harmony by 1,400 years.

n 1972, Kilmer, who is professor of Assyriology, University of California, and a curator at the Lowie Museum of Anthropology at Berkeley, developed an interpretation of the song based on her study of the notation. She wrote a book (Sounds From Silence) about her quest, which comes with a CD recording of the song: Link

You can listen to it yourself. Here is a midi version: download the oldest song in the world

From a February, 1988 issue of Archeologia Musicalis:

The top parts were the words and the bottom half instructions for playing the music. The song, it turns out, is in the equivalent of the diatonic "major" ("do, re, mi") scale. In addition, as Kilmer points out: "We are able to match the number of syllables in the text of the song with the number of notes indicated by the musical notations." This approach produces harmonies rather than a melody of single notes. The chances the number of syllables would match the notation numbers without intention are astronomical.

Evidence both the 7-note diatonic scale as well as harmony existed 3,400 years ago flies in the face of most musicologist's views that ancient harmony was virtually non-existent (or even impossible) and the scale only about as old as the Ancient Greeks, 2000 years ago. Said Kilmer's colleague Richard Crocker: "This has revolutionized the whole concept of the origin of western music."

Comments

[Andrew]

I'd give it an 86. It's got a great beat, and you can genuflect before Ba'al to it...

[Gavin]

Reminds me a bit of the fourth movement of the glorious Ninth.

[Mark Allen]

So much for Dr. Howard Bannister's theory on the inherent tonal qualities in the igneous rock formations of early man.

[craig]

how soon before this turns up in a kia commercial?

[yragentman]

isn't that the demo tune of old Casiotone?

I have the real oldest recordings made on Indian wire recorders found buried outside Curio AZ.

write to me for real story

Happy Harry Cox
Blue Mouse Trailer Resort
Hellmouth, CA 90666

[Nicholas]

I haven't heard it yet, but I'm going to pretend its "Free Bird" until I actually do.

[Nicholas]

I listened to it, and thankfully, its not "Freebird." It has a real call and respond sound to it.

[bartleby]

I thought the oldest song was the "Ur-song." I wish I'd known this earlier. I could have told those guys in woodshop a thing or two. Maybe better that I didn't.

[Edith]

I think it is facinating. What an amazing discovery.

[Rana]

It is Syria; my home land, the country of old civilization…

[Chris]

Thanks to Professor Anne Draffkorn Kilmer for deciphering this Sheet Music.
I think it is a gorgeous piece.

[Lourene]

sounds..........old! id say itl get a 95%, 10% 4 age!!

[Hello]

The link doesnt work, i cant listen to it. All i get is the quick-time icon with a question mark in the middle. :(

[Jack Campin]

Sounds VERY much like "Merrily We Roll Along". (There are other interpretations which don't).

[Fre]

My best friend made for me a seven string lap lyre, it always sounds like ancient music no matter what is played. I wish the midi recording had been done on a harp or lyre. Seems the tempo on that recording might have been a little too fast for a song to the Moon Gods wife, Goddess of the orchard. I think about a full moon night under the pear trees along the Sacramento river delta. Slow and romantic music comes to mind.I need and arrangement for my seven string lyre so I can play this song for my sweetheart at the next full moon.