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Overheard at National Geographic

Ancient Orchestra

Overheard at National Geographic

National Geographic

Science, Society & Culture

4.5 • 10.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 November 2021

⏱️ 26 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sound on! From conch shells to bone flutes, humans have been making musical instruments for tens of thousands of years. What did prehistoric music sound like? Follow us on a journey to find the oldest musical instruments and combine them into one big orchestra of human history. For more information on this episode, visit natgeo.com/overheard Want More? A conch is more than just a musical instrument. A mollusk lives in that shell, and it’s a staple food in the Bahamas—so much so that overfishing is threatening their existence, but a few simple solutions may solve the problem. The oldest musical instrument was once thought to be a cave bear bone flute made by Neanderthals, but recent evidence suggests that the holes were made by animals rather than tools. More information about each instrument The organization First Sounds found and brought to life the recordings of Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. For more information about that project, please visit www.firstsounds.org. Bettina Joy de Guzman travels the world, composing and performing music on ancient instruments. You can read more about her work on her website: www.bettinajoydeguzman.com More information about the bells of Bronze Age China can be found at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art. A virtual version of their collection can be viewed here: https://asia.si.edu/exhibition/resound-ancient-bells-of-china/ (Credit: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; gift of Arthur M. Sackler, S1987.4-9) The conch shell sounds you heard were research recordings of the approximately 3,000-year-old Titanostrombus galeatus conch shell horn—excavated in 2018 by John Rick and team from the UNESCO World Heritage archaeological site Chavín de Huántar, in Perú—from a 2019 acoustics and performance study by Miriam Kolar, Riemann Ramírez Rodríguez, Ricardo Guerrero de Luna Rueda, Obert Silva Espinoza, and Ronald San Miguel Fernández. Recordings were made at the Centro Internacional de Investigación, Conservación y Restauración de Chavín (CIICR) in the Museo Nacional Chavín as research conducted within the Programa de Investigación Arqueológica y Conservación Chavín de Huántar (PIACCdH). Site music archaeology and archaeoacoustics research information can be found on the Chavín de Huántar Archaeological Acoustics project website: https://ccrma.stanford.edu/groups/chavin/pututus.html. National Geographic Explorer Jahawi Bertolli is collecting the sounds of rock gongs from all over the African continent. More information about his rock project can be found here: www.jahawi.com/first-rock Flutist Anna Potengowski specializes in recreating the sounds of ancient flutes. You can hear more of her work here: open.spotify.com/artist/4a9uIQ2g8A5BIDN1VExUZq If you like what you hear and want to support more content like this, please consider a National Geographic subscription. Go to natgeo.com/exploremore to subscribe today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

So the first thing I want to do here, Amy, is just play you something.

0:11.6

Okay.

0:12.6

Out of the blue.

0:14.4

Okay, so that is not Chubaka, right?

0:22.8

No.

0:23.8

Just, okay, let's clear that up right now.

0:26.2

You like the oldies, right?

0:27.5

Yeah, but not that old.

0:29.2

All these people think like 1950s, in no way that that is 1950s.

0:34.8

Well, actually, it is from the 50s, just not the century you're thinking of.

0:40.3

Okay, which century?

0:42.1

The 1850s.

0:43.1

That's from the 1850s.

0:47.3

Okay, so that's before Edison.

0:51.1

Was that like one of those wax cylinder things?

0:54.4

Edison was the inventor of the wax cylinder.

0:56.2

Okay.

0:57.2

A long time people thought, oh, Edison is the guy who invented recorded sound.

1:00.5

Wait, wait, wait.

1:01.8

Is this one of those cases where Edison's taken credit for somebody else's invention?

1:05.7

Or did someone else just get there before him and nobody knew about it?

1:09.8

Someone got there before him and nobody knew about it, including the guy who invented

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