Observations placeholder
David Lewis-Williams - Paleolithic music making
Identifier
003558
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
some background about how old music making isA description of the experience
The Mind in the Cave – David Lewis-Williams
… The shaman’s trance experience includes sounds of various kinds. It is common to find that shamans hear not only the sounds of musical instruments, spirit people and spirit animals, but those animals also speak to them, give them instructions and teach them songs….. To these inner sounds must be added those made by people to accompany rituals and mental experience
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There is evidence that Upper Paleolithic people had the means to make music. More than 2 dozen so called flutes have been reported, but it is not always clear if the holes in these hollow bones were made to facilitate the sounding of different pitches or if they are simply the result of the bone having been bitten by animals. But some are convincing and it appears that people used hollow bones to make sounds