Music+of+Mesopotamia

Introduction
Music was quite a big part of a Mesopotamian life style, music would usually be played on special occasions like births and and weddings of the royal family. Musicians would learn to play in schools and soon came into professional classes in Mesopotamia. Musicians would wash there hands before playing a stringed instrument. Dancers would usually use clappers to make rhythm instead of drums, eventually the wind instruments came into play. Most of the Music made was for the Goddess Inana Goddess of love and war. Little while later the discovery of instruments and pictures of musicians was found in royal burial sites.

This picture is of a musician palying on a lyre.

Instruments
Mesopotamian instruments include harps, lyre, lutes, reed pipes and drums. They shared some of there instruments with close countries. They didn't just dance and play music they sang as well, they liked to sing in nasal tones and learned how to sing with Asian techniques. Singers would put there hand on they're ears to listen to themselves also creating intense expressions for they're audiences. some archeologists found harps and lyres in the royal tomb of Ur as well as other pictures of musicians from 2500 bc. For Babylon which took place 1800bc writings were made that looked quite similar to the white keys of a piano but they're are so worn down from over the ages that they're are barely able to understand.

This is a picture of some musicains handing each other instruments.

**Critical thinking** Before our ancestors the Mesopotamian people were hunter gathers. We probably played music but not very much because we had to spend mostly all our time hunting and gathering, but as we grew and learned how to harvest our food we had more time to develop our musical intelligence.

Music compared to our present day music is not that much different because we kept most of the so called customs. Mesopotamia’s music was played in weddings, births and any religious ceremony well same as us we play music in funerals weddings and even births sometimes just for fun. Most of the Mesopotamian music played was for the goddess Inana ,but since our countries have mixed cultures and all cultures have different gods and goddesses we all don’t just sing to one god we sing to a whole bunch but all depends on what god you believe in.

Mesopotamian dancers used to use clappers to create rhythm instead of drum, in some cultures like in Spain the dancers use clappers to create rhythm as well.This helped us alot now ,without music everything would be boring and soundless, music helps us come together as family and friends music gives us joy and pleasure. without music the world wont go round.!

**Conclusion**

I've learned that musicians and instruments grew a lot since then and the present day today. Musicians learned new tricks and how to write music and what each note means. They used musical notes to show different types of strategies. Now they use music to create effects and moods in all films, for some people music helps you think and concentrate and other things that can help us a lot in our daily lives so for that we should gratefully thank our ancestors in Mesopotamia for giving us lovely entertainment that everyone will love over the centuries.!

Here is a video of some Mesopotamian music you may want to listen to

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