What are the origins of the different types of musical instruments?

The existence of music goes back thousands of years. That said, no one is able to say who created music. What we can be sure of is that musical accessories were invented in prehistoric times. With this advent, we can now distinguish the different families of musical instruments.

Origin of the musical accessories of the wind instruments category

One of the oldest musical accessories to date is in fact a whistle. Father of all wind instruments, this one was carved in a reindeer bone and dates from the Paleolithic period. Indeed, one could not qualify this last one as a musical instrument. In reality, according to the analyses the role of this whistle was less artistic than practical. It was used as an object to alert or to communicate. However, one could really speak about musical instrument when one discovered holes on bones cut 30 000 or 40 000 years ago.

Origin of the musical accessories of the stringed instruments category

To this day, the harp is considered one of the oldest musical objects in the universe. Similarly, this musical accessory is the one that introduces those of the stringed instruments category. In fact, in history, the origins of the harp are still confused with those of the lyre. These two instruments were found for the first time in Mesopotamia and are 3500 BC old. They were also discovered in ancient Egypt. To be clear, the harp is an asymmetrical instrument on which there are strings of unequal length. While the lyre is the opposite of this one. The lyre has parallel strings stretched between two posts.

Origin of the musical accessories of the category of the instruments of percussion

According to information from recent archaeological investigations, the earliest known percussion accessory is stone. Carved in the Neolithic period, lithophones are among the oldest musical tools known to exist today. These stones were designed between 8000 and 2500 years before our time.