14/10/13- Introduction to Musical Notation

Looking into the origins of musical notation, I have uncovered a lot about the development of musical symbols I was not aware of before, and most importantly, a lot of my findings have a pretty direct link to the topics we have already covered! 
Now, different sources have different versions of the history of music and its origins, and therefore it is very difficult to pinpoint the first ever use of symbolic notation to represent musical theory, but what is definite is that some of the first examples of such notation have been discovered in cunieform. 

The second of two hymns to Apollo written on the original stone
at Delphi. The musical notation is the occasional symbols above certain
parts of the Greek text

We know for certain that music has been around for hundreds of thousands of years, and even before instruments, we can be sure that the earliest humans must have experimented with sounds and tones- it is just part of our nature. The problem is that wood rots very easily, so the earliest instruments will have been lost through the years, but the earliest form of instruments to be discovered to date are simple flutes made from bone and ivory, dating 42,000-43,000 years ago, found in Germany. This is prior to the concept of notation, however, when music and ideas were passed down through generations, so it is likely we will never know what the earliest forms of music actually sounded like.

It seems unclear which is the definite earliest forms of musical notation, as across the world there were independent communities finding their own methods and symbols to understand music, all of which are very different to the universal notation we use and understand in the present day.