Where Did Music Come From?

Is music a happy accident? Is this glorious organization of sounds the product of millennia of chance discoveries, trial and error, and so-called evolutionary development? Did vocal music originate from prolonged grunts of early human-like beings? Did instrumental music develop accidentally from a prehistoric hunter becoming fascinated with how his bow twanged after an arrow was unleashed?
The greatest human minds in musicology cannot answer this most basic question: What is the origin of music?
The answer is as inspiring as it is little understood.
Most music historians begin their study of music around the third century AD at the earliest, overlooking millennia of music history – and completely ignoring music’s origin.
The history of “ancient” music needs rewriting, because the greatest source available has been rejected: the Word of God.
Even many professed Bible scholars, though they may reject evolutionists’ happy-accident theory, believe music originated with a descendent of Cain named Jubal (Gen. 4:21). Because some view the Bible as a valid yet flawed historical resource that is not superior or more special than any other historical text, they lend no special credence to what the Bible says over any other historian’s work.
The Bible actually indicates that the FIRST man knew and practiced music. What’s more, music existed LONG BEFORE ADAM.
When God was talking to Job, putting this wise man in his place in comparison to the creative feats of God Almighty, He asked a question that gives insight into history BEFORE Earth’s creation. “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth?” God asked, “When the morning stars SANG together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:4,7).
This reveals that God created angels before He created Earth, that they witnessed this magnificent moment, that they shouted for joy, and they were SINGING!
Consider how sound exists in this spirit realm. Ezekiel heard the “noise” of the great cherubim (Ezek. 1:24). The book of Revelation records the lyrics of the angels’ shouting and singing around God’s heavenly throne, not to mention that they are playing instruments in this spiritual dimension.
The Bible reveals that God SINGS (Zeph. 3:17). The question then arises, since God has always existed, wouldn’t His attributes – including His voice – have always existed, as well as His infinite wisdom? (see Prov. 8:22). Surely therefore, music – or at least the capacity for music – has ALWAYS existed.
Now, there was a moment when music took on a more institutionalized form. That was with the creation of angels. In them, God created innate musical ability. The chief of this angelic (and musical) creation was the archangel Lucifer.
Ezekiel chapter 28 describes Lucifer’s characteristics ending in “the workmanship of your tabrets and of your pipes was prepared in you in the day that you were created.”
This is not a physical king or else the notion of musical instruments being created “in” him makes no sense. This refers to a magnificent, beautiful, wise spirit being, an angel, who was in Eden.
This being’s “tabret” is very similar to a timbrel, or percussion instrument of the Hebrews. The phrase “your pipes” comes from a root meaning something “hollow”, but it is not the word used to describe the typical Hebrew pipes. In fact, the word neqeb is used only here in the Hebrew Bible. It appears this was a unique spirit instrument that required a unique Hebrew word, though similar to the pipes.
This great cherub Lucifer was endowed with musical talents beyond human capability. God told Job the morning stars “sang together.” This means there was ensemble, community and cooperation in music, and Lucifer was of course included. How this must have changed, though, when he rebelled! Imagine how distorted and warped Lucifer’s music became when he turned from God’s way. Just before the description of Lucifer’s fall, Isaiah 14:11 talks about the “noise” of his neballim – another instrument, perhaps like bagpipes – being brought to the ground.
After God created angels, He created the material universe. Did you know that music was BUILT INTO this physical realm? The Hebrews have long understood the idea of the “harmony of the spheres.” This harmony refers to the planets actually being analogous to each other as musical pitches – philosophically in the sense that their distances held the same ratios as between pleasing musical intervals, and literally in the sense that the planets, or spheres, resounded in actual tones.
This belief is now attributed to Pythagoras. Aristotle said that, to the Pythagoreans, “the whole heaven was a musical scale and a number.”
In his book, “Music of the Spheres”, science writer Jamie James explained, “Here, in our first encounter with the concept of the musical universe, it is clear that the Pythagoreans did not simply discern congruities among number and music and the cosmos: They identified them. Music was number, and the cosmos was music. The Pythagoreans conceived of the cosmos as a vast lyre, with crystal spheres in the place of strings”.
The spheres were known to be spaced according to the same ratios that existed between frequencies in the musical scale.
King David has this understanding. In Psalm 19, he states, “The heavens declare the glory of God…there is no speech or language where their VOICE is not heard. Their LINE is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world…”. The word for “line” is verse 4 can mean rope or musical string. In fact, when the apostle Paul quoted this verse to the Romans, he used a Greek word for “line” that actually translates into “musical sound.” “But I say, have they not heard? Yes truly, their SOUND went into all the earth, and their words unto toe ends of the world.”.(Rom. 10:18).
The ancient Hebrews, who were well aware of this astronomical reality, undoubtedly applied it to their understanding of music theory. Man did not start with a one-, three- or five-note scale and slowly decide that seven tones work better together mathematically. God gave His people understanding in science, and the use of stringed instruments – and a seven-tone scale whose relationships parallel the solar system!
In addition, the Hebrews believed, as the Bible indicates, that the movement of these celestial bodies produces certain sounds.
Aristotle believed this as well. James continued, “The motion of bodies of that size must produce a noise, since on our earth the motion of bodies far inferior in size and speed of movement has that effect. Starting from this argument, and the observation that their speeds, as measured by their distances, are in the same ratios as musical concordances, then the sounds given forth by the circular movement of the stars is a sublime system of mathematical HARMONY.”
Now modern science is supporting what the Hebrews believed. Sound can occur anywhere pressure waves can travel, meaning that sound waves can echo through the atmospheres of the planets and even the gas surrounding an enlarging black hole. The universe contains the equivalent of rhythmic pulses like a percussion section, as well as low drones, like a bass section.
Science has also discovered “heavenly music bellowed out by the sun’s atmosphere” (Space.com, April 2007). These frequencies, at a thousandth of a hertz, are too low for human ears to hear (we can hear between 20 and 20,000 Hz). The sun’s corona carry magnetic sound waves similar to those of musical instruments. “Explosive events at the sun’s surface appear to trigger acoustic waves that bounce back and forth between both ends of the loops, a phenomenon known as a standing wave,” the Space.com article stated. “Standard waves are exactly the same waves you see on a guitar string.”
The Bible indicates that God created sound waves to emanate from all creation in an organized fashion to make a certain music – perceptible at least to Him. 1 Chronicles 16:33 states that “the trees of the wood sing out at the presence of the Lord.” Isaiah 44:23 reads, “Sing, O you heavens…shout you lower parts of the earth – break forth into singing you mountains…”. Isaiah 55:12 says, “The mountains and the hills shall break forth before yo into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” The other obvious natural music would be that of the animals, which also sing (Song of Solomon 2:12; Eccl. 12:4; Psa. 104:12).
God sees His creation as a musical composition. And perhaps even the smallest quantum particles are vibrating and resounding in lovely music that God can hear and enjoy.
Now we come to the first man and the Garden of Eden. Surely the Almighty Creator and Musical Expert would have wanted to instruct His creation in the science of sound and how it could be managed and organized for such magnificent purposes! After all, God enjoys music and possesses great capacity for it. God then would have instructed the first man in the basic principles of music, or at least have guided him in finding the fundamental facts in this field for himself.
Since God created man on the sixth day and used the seventh day to teach him these essential spiritual truths, would this first “worship service” have been without worship music? Or would it have been the ideal time to show man that it is “a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto your name, O most High”? (Psa. 92:1).
Perhaps the Creator God – ready to instruct Adam on that first Sabbath day – had a hymn for the first man and woman to sing. How appropriate this hymn would be, which actually teaches that it is a “good thing” to give thanks.
If Psalm 92 is, in fact, that first hymn for the first man and woman, then we have some incredible insight into Eden!
Verses 2-3 read, “To show forth your loving kindness in the morning, and your faithfulness every night, upon an instrument of ten strings [literally: “the tenth”], and upon the psaltery [Hebrew nebel], upon the harp [Hebrew kinnor] with a solemn sound.”
Music – singing hymns especially – was given to humans largely to draw our minds closer to God, especially on the day He has set aside for special worship of Him.
Could musical instruments have been in Eden? God had just created much more complex creations – for example, the human body. And God designed the garden to be where His presence was. God’s heavenly presence is surrounded by music – not just vocal but instrumental as well (see Revelation 5:8). Would God not have created or revealed the design for physical manifestations of these heavenly instruments?
Music did not originate clumsily and serendipitously from prehistoric brutes. Nor did it originate with the Bible’s Jubal, who fathered the mishandling of music. The capacity for music had no beginning – like the God who is surrounded by it, who created it in His angelic creation, the physical universe, and into the garden sanctuary where he planted the first human beings.
By being given the ability to understand, appreciate, enjoy and produce music, mankind can partake of something with an eternal past –the very mind and greatness of the Creator God!  

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