-Alessandro Moreschi (11 November 1858 – 21 April 1922) was a CASTRATO singer of the late 19th century and the only castrato to make solo recordings. -On 9th March 2008, this ethereal 10 second clip of a man (or woman) singing the French folk song "Au Clair de la Lune", was played for the first time in 150 years. -It is currently thought to be the oldest known recorded human voice, predating Thomas Edison's first phonograph recording of 1877. -1888, the year of the death of the composer Charles-Valentin Alkan (Chopin's friend and neighbour) is also the year of the earliest surviving recording of music and earliest recorded film. Combined on this video is the earliest surviving recording of music (a live performance of Handel's oratorio Israel in Egypt conducted by Sir August Manns, recorded by Edison engineer George E. Gouraud at Crystal Palace, London, England, 29th June 1888) and the earliest surviving recorded film (shot by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince in Leeds, England in October 1888: Roundhay Garden Scene (filmed 14 October 1888) and Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge (filmed late October 1888). In the Roundhay Garden Scene (filmed in the garden of the Whitley family home in Oakwood Grange Road, Roundhay, Leeds, England) are the following people (from the left at beginning of sequence): Adolphe Le Prince (the film maker's son), Miss Harriet Hartley, Mrs. Sarah Whitley, (the film maker's mother-in-law), and Joseph Whitley (the film maker's business partner). The original film was shot at 12 frames per second and lasts 2 seconds. Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge was filmed in Leeds, England in late October 1888, at 20 frames per second. -George Johnson's song Whistling Coon was one of the most popular of the Coon songs of the 1850-90s. While the records and the imagery that goes along with them are offensive, these are pioneering African-American recordings and songs. There are a number of virtually lost African-American songwriters from this period who tend to be left out of the Great American Song Book. Virtually none of these recordings are available today, although at one point 1 in 15 new records released by the major phonograph companies (Edison, Victor, Columbia) were coon music. -For fifteen years Prof. Anne Draffkorn Kilmer puzzled over clay tablets relating to music including some excavated in Syria by French archaeologists in the early '50s. The tablets from the Syrian city of ancient Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra) were about 3400 years old, had markings called cuneiform signs in the hurrian language (with borrowed akkadian terms) that provided a form of musical notation. One of the texts formed a complete cult hymn and is the oldest preserved song with notation in the world. Finally in 1972, Kilmer, who is professor of Assyriology, University of California, and a curator at the Lowie Museum of Anthropology at Berkeley, developed an interpretation of the song based on her study of the notation. -First Musical Instruments (40,000 BCE) Mammoth ivory and bird bone flutes The discovery suggests the musical tradition was well established in Europe over 40,000 years ago. This mammoth ivory and bird bone flutes are oldest musical instruments ever found. The first modern humans in Europe were playing musical instruments and showing artistic creativity as early as 40,000 years ago, according to new research. -Judge for yourself. Was the world's first rap song released in 1930? -This unique video, features my first of 2 arrangements for solo lyre, of the 3400 year old "Hurrian Hymn no.6", which was discovered in Ugarit in Syria in the early 1950s, and was preserved for 3400 years on a clay tablet, written in the Cuniform text of the ancient Hurrian language - The Hurrian Hymn (catalogued as Text H6) was discovered in Ugarit, Syria, in the early 1950s, and was preserved for 3400 years on a clay tablet, written in the Cuniform text of the ancient Hurrian language - except from a few earlier Sumarian fragmentary instructional musical texts from c.1950 BCE (Musical Instructions for Lipit-Ishtar, King of Justice) the Hurrian Hymn it is the oldest written song yet known, in History! -very old computer music. -On August 1, 1981, at 12:01 a.m., MTV launched with the words "Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll," spoken by John Lack, and played over footage of the launch of Apollo 11. Those words were immediately followed by the original MTV theme song, a crunching classical tune composed by Jonathan Elias and John Petersen, playing over photos of the Apollo 11 moon landing, with the flag featuring MTV's logo changing various colors, textures, and designs.

• published: 11 Jun 2015
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