In ancient Egypt, many kinds of musical instruments were played. Among these instruments were ivory and bone clappers, harps and lutes, and percussion instruments such as drums, rattles, and cymbals. The many instruments mentioned above can be summarized into four basic forms of musical instruments.
1. First, there are the non-membranous percussion instruments (idiophones), which include bell tongues, rattles, rap cymbals, and bells. This category of instruments is mainly used in religious activities, various ceremonies and rituals.
2. Second, there are membranous percussion instruments (membranaphones), including small hand drums (tambourines) - usually used in processions and rallies; and drums - used in military marches and some religious events.
3. Third, there were the wind instruments (aerophones), including flutes (flute), oboes (doubleclaris), doubleoboes, trumpets (trumpets), and bugles (bugles).
And the latter two wind instruments (trumpets and bugles) were more often used for army musters and marches. The earliest known wind instruments were reedflutes (reedflut last, which were stringed instruments (chordophones) and consisted of three types: the harp - which was indigenous to Egypt, the lute, and the seven-stringed lyre (lyre) - which was brought in by the instruments brought by invaders from Asia. e).
Professional dancers and players in ancient Egypt would perform musical programs at various social events. And traveling ensembles would perform for the public in the squares of large cities like toward Alexandria and Thebes.
Expanded Information
History
In the 17th to 15th centuries B.C., the West Asian Hicksians ruled Egypt; the Egyptians in turn conquered Syria and other places, and so Egyptian music had close exchanges with West Asian music.
The influence of West Asian music on Egyptian music is mainly manifested in the introduction of the triangular harp and the long-necked lute, which changed from a small harp to a large one; a double-reeded wind instrument replaced the flute on many occasions; and the scale was changed from five to seven tones.
From the remains of the ancient Egyptian dynasty and unearthed artifacts can be seen, in the life of the court aristocracy, music occupies an important position, chanting, dancing, as well as wedding and funeral ceremonies are accompanied by music. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, in the 5th century, Egypt's religious music and secular music were quite prosperous, and there were 600 people's chorus and 300 people's harp ensemble.
After the conquest of Egypt by King Alexander III of Macedonia in 332 B.C., Egypt was under the rule of the Greeks and Romans for a long time, and the music culture of Egypt merged with that of ancient Greece. With the introduction of Christianity, church music centered on vocal music, as well as instruments such as cymbals, cymbals, bells, and metal rattles, also came to Egypt.
Baidu Encyclopedia-Egyptian Music