Vox Populi
A curated webspace for Poetry, Politics, and Nature. Over 16,000 daily subscribers. Over 7,000 archived posts.
Video: Music from a Neanderthal flute
Found by archeologist Ivan Turk in a Neanderthal campsite at Divje Babe in northwestern Slovenia, this instrument made from the femur of a cave bear is estimated to be 43,000-80,000 years old. The flute’s four finger holes seem to match four notes of the diatonic (Do, Re, Mi…) scale. In the video, Macedonian musician Ljuben Dimkaroski plays a clay replica of the flute.
The prehistoric instrument does indeed produce the whole and half tones of the diatonic scale, so completely, in fact, that Dimkaroski is able to play fragments of several compositions by Beethoven, Verdi, Ravel, Dvořák, and others, as well as some free improvisations “mocking animal voices.” Dimkaroski says that he figured out how to play the instrument in a dream.
Vox Populi 
Extraordinary. To hear Ode To Joy played on a 60,000 old flute is moving beyond words!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reblogged this on theshammuramat.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The fragment for Le Sacre du Printemps gave me a chuckle.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pingback: Music from the ages | Jacob Russell's Magic Names
Reblogged this on Thoughts, Raves, and Outright Beatings.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I would like to get a reproduction of this ‘flute’ myself!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I read about the Neanderthal flute decades ago. I’ve always had an interest in ethnomusicology, and, when I went to play the notes clearly possible on the Neanderthal flute, I was transported by the fact that they were both diatonic and chromatic. I can still clearly remember the feelings I had, the intensity of the emotions, knowing that I was reproducing the very notes played so long ago. Whether or not the Neanderthal’s played Albinoni’s “Adagio” is another question. I like the way VP makes this — I think for most people — obscure bit of musicology accessible.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, John. Vox Populi is, as one reader put it, an “eclectic” mix of posts. We try to appeal to the imagination through poetry, music, and film. And we also try to have an ongoing discussion of political power and how it plays out in issues of the environment, law enforcement, race, and war and peace… The dialogue between imagination and power continues…
LikeLike
Amazing how we’re all connect in fragments.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on kailashkatheth1's Blog.
LikeLike