Memories survive the ravages of time in music

In the Koe (Letters to the Editor) section of the vernacular Asahi Shimbun, I recently saw a letter from a 60-year-old man about a 53-year-old xylophone that brought back memories of his mother.

According to the man's account, he was in the second grade when his mother bought him a xylophone and brought it to his school. He came across it the other day while cleaning out the family storage shed.

His mother died young, he wrote, as did his younger brother, who used the xylophone after him. The man wiped the musical instrument down with a rag and tapped the wooden bars--each marked by the corresponding note of the musical scale--to play the opening bars of "Kojo no Tsuki" (Moonlit castle ruins), a song composed by Rentaro Taki (1879-1903).

The melody must have revived old memories and unforgettable images of his long-deceased mother.

On the day the letter appeared, the newspaper also reported the discovery of a musical instrument from about 35,000 years ago in a cave in Germany. It was a 22-centimeter flute with five holes, fashioned from vulture bone. I am filled with curiosity about the memories that might dwell in the sound coming out of this thin, slightly bent pipe.

Because the flute had to be rebuilt by piecing together bone fragments, it is undoubtedly too fragile to be tested. Too bad. We can only imagine that the world's oldest musical instrument probably had a surprisingly broad musical scale. It seems cave dwellers acquired the ability to modulate sound as they sucked on bones after eating the meat on them.

Whatever the sound this flute produced, it must have delivered a certain kind of pleasure. We can safely conclude that there was music in the daily lives of Paleolithic humans.

Before the discovery of the flute, the same cave in Germany also yielded the world's oldest figurine--of a naked woman--fashioned from a mammoth tusk. Like the figurine, I imagine the bird bone flute represents the dawn of art; either that, or it was made for a religious or occult ritual.

Amusement evolves into entertainment, which is eventually elevated to the realms of aesthetic awareness and prayer.

Such a progression certainly applies to music, but it has another important role--as a vehicle for our memories. After all, even an old, dusty xylophone had the power to bring back someone precious from the past.

--The Asahi Shimbun, June 29(IHT/Asahi: June 30,2009)