Music has seen global trends since the Bronze Age, and there is conclusive proof. If you thought that pop, rock, and everything else that has gone global is a modern phenomenon, you may want to think again. Indeed, a computer analysis of the most ancient music shows that music has united the globe for thousands of years (and even when politics could not).

The oldest musical composition that has survived—from the Bronze Age—comes from Ugarit, a prehistoric city located on the east coast of the Mediterranean. It is a hymn dedicated to the goddess Nikkal, encoded in a prehistoric near eastern musical notation. Yet this extremely old composition, dating from around 1400 BCE, is not the only music believed to date back to this period. The Rig Veda is a monumental collection of hymns that used to be sung back then as well. Today, it is still sung by more than a billion Hindus at their weddings and rituals. The text has been preserved with remarkable accuracy; only the pronunciation has slightly changed. As a researcher, I performed a computer-aided analysis to compare these musical documents—about 40,000 Rig Vedic verses and the two from Ugarit. It turns out they are closely related, and their relationship tells a fascinating story about global musical trends.

The computer-aided analysis I performed is based on the study of cadences - harmonic or rhythmic elements marking the ends of verses. The hymn from Ugarit has two cadences, one in the middle and one at the end. My analysis demonstrates that these cadences are rhythmically identical to the two most common cadences of the Rig Veda. Indeed, one in five verses of the Rig Veda ends with the rhythms from Ugarit. Furthermore, a close historical proximity is discovered. When focusing on the melody, it can be observed that the cohesion between the Mediterranean and India is strongest in the oldest hymns of the Rig Veda—those composed before the Vedic pronunciation changed. Thus, it can be reconfirmed that the Mediterranean clay tablet from 1400 BCE preserved music best corresponding to the oldest melodies of the Rig Veda—the core of 1500–1200 BCE. This congruence makes historical sense and seems evident once it is discovered. The geographical distance between the Mediterranean and India makes the discovery nevertheless surprising.

Perhaps the close historical but distant geographical connection that came to light in Bronze Age music becomes most relevant when one considers what happened later. The rhythm of the first of the two verses from Ugarit reappears on the Greek island of Lesbos, in the most famous Greek verses of early classical antiquity, authored by Sappho; then it is retaken in Rome, in the most famous Latin verses of late classical antiquity, authored by Horace; and finally, it is rediscovered in modern Europe, inspiring some of the finest verses of German classicism, authored by Hölderlin. In addition, the same rhythm reappears even in the national anthem of the USA. By comparison, the rhythm of the second verse reappears throughout the ensuing millennia and around the globe on all continents. It is a rhythm resembling a heartbeat—and one that unites the whole globe.

bit.ly/ni-ka-la

Dan C. Baciu, Western Kentucky University