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How Singing Began

We know that people learned to write long, long ago. For more than 7,000 years people have been writing down their thoughts. But even before people learned to write they could sing! Music began even before writing.

The people of old times drew themselves on rocks. Some of the pictures that preserved show dancers and singers, and also people playing some musical instruments. So our earliest ancestors were fond of music.

How did people learn to sing? What musical instruments did they play? Archaeologists and musicologists give the answer to these questions.

Our ancestors lived in groups because only together they could get their food and defend themselves from wild animals. They learned to make tools and work together.

The group of early men worked together like an orchestra and they usually murmured to each movement of their hand or foot. Without the murmuring (or “singing”) they could not do the work.

Later people learned to make other and better tools and it was not necessary to sing during their work. But singing began, and there are songs in many countries which are probably children of these first work songs.

When man made his earliest tools, he learned to make musical instruments, too. Those pictures on rocks show people playing musical instruments. A very careful analysis of the bones of animals that archaeologists found in a number of ice-age camps show that the men of that time could use them for making sounds. So bones of animals, horns, pieces of wood were man’s first musical instruments. By blowing into horns or bones people could make a very loud sound. They could also make sounds by beating one piece of wood against another or a piece of wood against a stone. People of that time could also use strings and fur to make musical instruments. That was the time when people did not have metal. And yet they could sing and were fond of music.

Read the text and choose the correct item to complete the sentence.

For more than 7,000 years people have been writing down their …

2. People could sing before they learned …

3. Some of the pictures on the rocks that preserved show …

4. Our ancestors lived …

5. The group of early men worked together like …

6. Our ancestors defended themselves from …

7. The ancient people could not do the work without …

8. When man made his earliest tools he learned to make …

9. The pictures on the rocks show people playing …

10. For making sounds the men of ice-age could use …

11. Murmuring is …