DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3720#0040
24 DOMESTIC HABITS OF THE EGYPTIANS.
The invention of a stringed instrument might be of a very-
early age ; and a harp, or a lyre, of one octave, might be used
as well as the drum, the tambourine, and the pipe, long before
Music became a science, and when the simplest melody was
alone attempted. For at first, all music was confined to melody;
that of uncivilised man is always in a minor key; and the same
may be said of the winds, and other sounds of nature.
The strings of their instruments were of catgut; and it is
probable that the acquaintance with their sound was first
obtained from the twang of the bow used by the hunter, long
before the harp was thought of; and the earliest musical sounds
were perhaps obtained from the pipe made of a reed, which
continued to be used in Egypt to a late time. Dr. Burney,
indeed, thinks that " in the infancy of music no other instru-
ments were used than those of percussion;" but, with great
deference to his opinion, it may be said that, though the
clapping of hands was the first union of many rude performers,
the earliest efforts to obtain musical sounds were from some
kind of pipe, quite as easy to construct as an instrument of
percussion. It is the pipe of the shepherd and the moun-
taineer that we hear in the wildest countries; and the first
attempt of the child is to make a whistle, or a pipe, from some
common plant.
The primitive flute was also a very simple instrument. In
Egypt it was called sebi, the same name as the " bone of the
leg," showing how it was originally made. It was sometimes of
a hard wood; and a few have been found, like the pipe, made
of reed. Some Eoman flutes were also of bone ; and the name
tibia, corresponding with the Egyptian sebi, explains, like the
words avena an&Jistula, applied to the pipe, the material of which
it was often formed. The pipe, however, was also called tibia;
and the flute was distinguished by the epithet olliqua. The
The invention of a stringed instrument might be of a very-
early age ; and a harp, or a lyre, of one octave, might be used
as well as the drum, the tambourine, and the pipe, long before
Music became a science, and when the simplest melody was
alone attempted. For at first, all music was confined to melody;
that of uncivilised man is always in a minor key; and the same
may be said of the winds, and other sounds of nature.
The strings of their instruments were of catgut; and it is
probable that the acquaintance with their sound was first
obtained from the twang of the bow used by the hunter, long
before the harp was thought of; and the earliest musical sounds
were perhaps obtained from the pipe made of a reed, which
continued to be used in Egypt to a late time. Dr. Burney,
indeed, thinks that " in the infancy of music no other instru-
ments were used than those of percussion;" but, with great
deference to his opinion, it may be said that, though the
clapping of hands was the first union of many rude performers,
the earliest efforts to obtain musical sounds were from some
kind of pipe, quite as easy to construct as an instrument of
percussion. It is the pipe of the shepherd and the moun-
taineer that we hear in the wildest countries; and the first
attempt of the child is to make a whistle, or a pipe, from some
common plant.
The primitive flute was also a very simple instrument. In
Egypt it was called sebi, the same name as the " bone of the
leg," showing how it was originally made. It was sometimes of
a hard wood; and a few have been found, like the pipe, made
of reed. Some Eoman flutes were also of bone ; and the name
tibia, corresponding with the Egyptian sebi, explains, like the
words avena an&Jistula, applied to the pipe, the material of which
it was often formed. The pipe, however, was also called tibia;
and the flute was distinguished by the epithet olliqua. The