1. The oldest discovered musical instrument is 40,000 years old

Two flutes found in a cave in Germany are made of bird bone and mammoth ivory. These instruments are dated to what is considered the prehistoric period of music, or the time before music was notated. Due to the lack of notation, it’s difficult to know what music was like in the prehistoric era, but one can safely assume it was used in similar ways to today: for recreation and religious rituals.

2. The oldest recorded melody is over 3000 years old

Click the link above to listen to it. Hurrian Hymn Text H6 (circa 1,400 BCE) is the world’s earliest written music so far discovered. The 3,400 year old Hurrian Hymn was discovered in Ugarit, ancient northern Canaan (now modern Syria) in the early 1950s, and was preserved for 3,400 years on a clay tablet, written in the Cuneiform text of the ancient Hurrian language.

3. An opera singer once died on stage just as he had finished singing Verdi’s ‘Morir, Tremenda Cosi’ (‘To Die, a Momentous Thing’)

Click the link above to see a video of Leonard Warren performing on television ten years before his tragic death in 1960. Eyewitnesses including Rudolf Bing report that Warren had completed Don Carlo’s Act III aria, which begins Morir, tremenda cosa (“to die, a momentous thing”), and was supposed to open a sealed wallet, examine the contents and cry out “E salvo, o gioia” (He is safe, oh joy), before launching into the vigorous cabaletta. Bing reported that Warren simply went silent and fell face-forward to the floor. The cause of death was determined to be a cerebral hemorrhage; Warren was only forty-eight years old.

4. The first human in space, Yuri Gargarin, sang a Shostakovich tune during his first mission.

Click the link above to hear the song. The music for this song was composed by Shostakovich at the request of Dolmatovsky for a play he was producing which needed an “aeronautical beacon,” or a song for a pilot to sing to help him navigate through the Alps. The song apparently proved popular with real pilots because cosmonaut Yuri Gargarin sang “The Homeland Hears” while in orbit around the earth in April 1961.

5. There is a composition based on a cat walking across the keys

Click the link above to listen. Domenico Scarlatti composed his “Cat’s Fugue” after his cat, Pulcinella, walked across his keyboard.

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1. The oldest discovered musical instrument is 40,000 years old﻿

2. The oldest recorded melody is over 3000 years old

3. An opera singer once died on stage just as he had finished singing Verdi’s ‘Morir, Tremenda Cosi’ (‘To Die, a Momentous Thing’)﻿

4. The first human in space, Yuri Gargarin, sang a Shostakovich tune during his first mission.﻿

5. There is a composition based on a cat walking across the keys﻿

Want to make your own music?

1. The oldest discovered musical instrument is 40,000 years old

3. An opera singer once died on stage just as he had finished singing Verdi’s ‘Morir, Tremenda Cosi’ (‘To Die, a Momentous Thing’)

4. The first human in space, Yuri Gargarin, sang a Shostakovich tune during his first mission.

5. There is a composition based on a cat walking across the keys