![](https://music.stellamarisacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2016/02/griffons-numes.jpg)
This month, our Senior Yard students started learning about music history, starting with the earliest evidence we have of humans making music! Many of us watched a short piece of Howard Goodall’s “The Story of Music” from the BBC. This miniseries is excellent, and I highly encourage you to CHECK IT OUT if you want a fun, easy to understand overview of music history. 🙂
Here’s a quick recap of what we’ve done so far:
Learned that the first evidence we have of music created by humans was found in the Chauvet Cave in southern France just a few years ago. Â Scientists believe that the people who created these caves placed paintings at strategic points of resonance in the caves, so that when people sang, they could use a type of echo-location (sort of like bats) to figure out where in the maze of tunnels they were.
![wikipedia.org](http://music.stellamarisacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2016/02/cave-300x169.jpg)
We know many ancient cultures had music and professional musicians, but we have NO IDEA what it sounded like because there was no system of musical notation yet.
![BBC](http://music.stellamarisacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2016/02/Banquet_scene_Louvre_G135-300x200.jpg)
Musical notation as we know it was just starting to emerge in the Middle Ages in the Catholic church. Â Here is an example of some of the earliest music we have today. Â These symbols are collectively called “numes.”
![griffons.com](http://music.stellamarisacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2016/02/griffons-numes-300x161.jpg)
To illustrate just how difficult it was to not only come up with a notation system, but then to READ it, I had the students choose a well known children’s song, rewrite the words, create their own kind of numes, then swap papers with another group to see who could figure out the song. Â We had a good laugh, and some of us actually succeeded in communicating the tune!
See if you can guess their tune!
![IMG_5028](http://music.stellamarisacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2016/02/IMG_5028-300x225.jpg)
![IMG_5029](http://music.stellamarisacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2016/02/IMG_5029-300x225.jpg)
We have lots more fun to have with the music of this time period!