The Beginning and the End

This video by the BBC Science Club offers a brief history of the development of music, and brings to mind an interesting idea. Although we know there must have been a time before human beings produced music, we have no real idea when it came to be a part of our different cultures. Was the voice first, as mothers perhaps sang to children or men chanted when hunting? Or did rhythm begin it all, as some enterprising Buddy Rich of the Neandertal set learned how to tap in time? Maybe instruments came before everything else, as a stray breath of wind over the right kind of object suggested to a paleolithic Stradivarius how to construct objects that made those same sorts of sounds.

We really don't know -- we just sort of assume it's always been there, but we don't know when it started.

We can, however, offer a pretty good suggestion as to when it came to an end.