Musicians were often singers, and poets frequently sang about their uncertainties and pleasures. In schools of music, dance, and poetry, vocal arts were also taught. In pre-Columbian times, the voice was also an important musical element. During the colonial period any instrument whose use was thought to be linked to the ancient religions was banned as heretical by the Inquisition. Musical instruments were decorated with symbolic figures, and for this reason they had specific purposes. Some of these percussion instruments are still in use today. The best-known instruments were flutes, whistles, and ocarinas of clay the horizontal wooden drum called tunkul and the slit wooden drum called teponaztli the three-legged, vertical wooden drum called huéhuetl and the Mayan timbal, a small, U-shaped, clay drum. Musician-artisans devoted their inventive efforts chiefly to wind and percussion instruments. The oldest known musical instrument originated in the Olmec civilization (Veracruz and Tabasco, Mexico, 1500–100 bce). The forms of animals, metaphysical entities, and people of the time were incorporated into many instruments. For this reason, instruments were conceived in accordance with the spiritual requirements of each situation, and great attention was paid to the acoustical quality. In ancient times, the character of music was more functional than aesthetic. Religion, war, ceremonies, births, feasts, games, love, and death had unique and unmistakable musical contexts. From the beginning of civilization on the American continent, music was linked to almost every human activity.
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