Welcome to the first official episode of Between the Barlines! I am your host, Dr. Maeve Berry. I wanted to begin with thanking you for taking time to listen to this podcast series. Whether you are at the finish line in your doctoral degree, preparing for an undergrad or graduate entrance exam, or just curious about music history and theory, thanks for joining! We have a lot to talk about, so let’s get started.
	
When one begins to grapple with music history, the most recent historic musical events as well as frequently occurring repertoire choices from the canon come to mind. We think of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, and many more. But, who came before all of those famous men? And, more importantly, who shaped the music world BETWEEN those men? 

Let’s start all of the way back with the prehistoric times. In academia, this isn’t spoken about frankly AT ALL, but it is believed that there has been music since our species’ predecessors, the neanderthals. Ultimately, this led to antiquity, where most academic institutions and textbooks begin. I’d like to brush the surface of antiquity today, and take the next few episodes to dive in a little more deeply to the different regions which impacted our history; these include countries in Asia like China and India as well as European influence from Greece and other resettled lands. 

Music at its stem can be seen as something that begins from a monophonic line. What is monophony? This is a single melody played or sung by a single person. You might be thinking that this is pretty self-explanatory, and in a sense it is. However, I think we as 21st century musicians forget how monophony affects the music that we make and create now. The largest examples of monophony that are still used today include folk songs and chants. Albeit our desire to harmonize those modes of monophony, these traditions harken back to way before music was even being written down.

If these folk songs and chants weren’t written down until a certain period in time, stay tuned for the next episode (!!), then how were they remembered? There is a certain aspect of oral transmission and tradition, but it’s a good educated guess to assume these melodies were often improvised and varied slightly at each recitation. This improvisation technique is still used today in a plethora of different genres like jazz, aleatoric music, and even opera. We will eventually make our way to the way those things work, but for now let’s process how something this old connects to us still even today. I think it’s so neat to think about this because the melodies that have been written down have thousands of years of exposure to ears from many different generations. It’s quite remarkable that they have survived! 

In our next episode, we will get down to the nitty gritty with exploring some of the world’s oldest written-out music as well as the impacts that Asia and Europe had on the formation of music as we know it today. Join me next time on Between the Barlines!