Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Music is WAY Important In Egypt!


Egyptian Musicians

Image from: funkywindowart.co.uk
 Music was a part of a large range of activities in Egypt. These activities featured religious festivals, funerals, royal coronations, dinner parties, weddings, courting rituals, and for celebrating victories! WOW! Music in Egypt is also important because it helps people. When a friend of someone in Egypt is sick, they would sing to cheer them up. When a friend of someone in Egypt is down, music would be used to bring them back up. They also use the music with relatives to cheer them up as well. As you can obviously see, music is REALLY BIG in Egypt.

Egyptians Love Them Some MUSIC


These are the ancient Egyptian music notes.
 I'd hate to be in that music class.

Image from: aniwilliams.com
 In Egypt, there were a lot of banquets and gatherings. In these gatherings were, you guessed it, MUSIC. The Egyptians used music almost EVERYWHERE. Wealthier Egyptians entertain guests by holding HUGE banquets with TONS of music! At temples, musicians and singers were a big part of worshiping the Egyptian gods. Obviously, Egyptians love them some music! Professional musicians would be hired to play at parties to keep everyone entertained.

Our Music Can Relate to Egyptian Music?!

A harp we would see today

Image from: hubarts.com
An Egyptian harp.

Image from: zwoje-scrolls.com
Yeah, it's kind of true. Well, not the TYPE of music, but how they see music. Music is important in both Egypt and the U.S. They might not be the same exact types of music, but we both think that our music is important to both of our countries. Egyptians don't care who hear them sing. They sing anywhere, at anytime. Sounds like High School Musical to me. In Egypt, different instruments belong to different groups. Just like we have different groups for our instruments such as percussion instruments. In some jobs in Egypt, it's normal to sing while working! The way we see music also relates because we have many of the same types of instruments such as harps, flutes, bells, cymbals, drums, clarinets oboes and MANY more.



So, What Instruments Did Egyptians Play?


This is a double clarinet, one of the many
Egyptian instruments


image from: smoking-hookah.com

Yeah, ancient Egyptians TOTALLY had electric guitars-not. Egyptians had ivory clappers, harps, flutes, tambourines, etc. Actually, most of these are the same type of instruments we have here! Basically, there are 4 different groups of instruments; Idiophones, Membranophones, aerophones, and cordophones. Idiophones included clappers, sistra, cymbals and bells. The membranophone group include tamboruines and drums. One of the earliest Egyptian aerophone type of instrument was the flute. Notice how there's a LOT of the same instruments that are in the United States and also in Egypt. Anyways, back on track. The double clarinets, oboes, and trumpets (called bugles in Egypt) belonged to the aerophone group as well.

How the Egyptians JAMMED

In ancient Egypt, they didn't have Taylor Swift, Michael Jackson, or Black Eyed Peas. Well, neither did we, but that's beside the point. The ancient Egyptians most likely wouldn't have pop, rock or techno either. Now, I know what you're thinking, "How could they live?" Well, believe it or not they DO have music. The Egyptians have music that's about their culture, religion, the gods, the after life, everything that they believe. Egyptians had certain types of music just to honor their gods. Egyptians would also have calm, peaceful music usually played on a flute. Some songs featured different instruments just as the songs we have here in the United States.