Judges 5:11 - "To the sound of musicians at the watering places, there they repeat the triumphs of the Lord, the triumphs of his peasantry in Israel."

Amos 6:5 - "who sing idle songs to the sound of the harp, and like David invent for themselves of music;"

Music is both an art and a means of expressing ideas and emotions; it is sometimes called a "universal language." This language makes possible the communication of ideas and feelings among people who are separated by language, customs, time, and space. Music grows out of human experience. It gives us an understanding of the people of other countries and of past generations.

Man began to make music long before he started to write history. We know about early kinds of music partly from the drawings and musical instruments left by men who lived many centuries ago. As man ate because he was hungry, so he made music because of his need to tell other people how he felt about the world. He learned that his voice could express his feelings by changing from loud to soft, of high to low. He discovered rhythm in the movement of his own body and in observing nature: falling rain, wind in the trees, the flight of birds, the rhythmic movement of animals. Gradually man began to sing and beat time and dance.

Man developed musical instruments as another means of musical expression. He found that he could make three kinds of instruments. He discovered that skin stretched across a hollow log produced an interesting sound when he struck it. He discovered that he could produce sounds by blowing on a hollow reed. Soon he found that reeds of different lengths made different sounds. Man learned that the sound of a vibrating bowstring pleased him. Strings of different lengths tightly stretched on a frame gave new and fascinating results.

Almost all musical instruments of today are of these three kinds. The primitive log drum led to modern drums and the other percussion instruments. The reeds blown by early man developed into the clarinet and other wind instruments we know. The bowstring led to the harp, the violin, and other stringed instruments. The only instruments not included in any of these three groups make sounds produced by electrons, as in the electronic organ.

Like all the men of the ancient world, the Hebrews attributed a quasi-divine origin to music: it was at mankind’s very beginning, a few generations after Adam, that Jubal invented the "flute and the kinnor," according to Genesis 4:21. Hebrew music was primarily vocal, yet many of the Psalms have signs indicating that they are to be accompanied by musical instruments. The "chief musician" occurs in the titles of 54 of the Psalms. Asaph and his brothers were apparently the first to hold this position, and the office was probably hereditary in the family.

Early Hebrew musicians probably traveled around the country playing in various places, and they probably also repaired metal products at the same time. They were paid by food, lodging, and money, very much as entertainers are today. By the time of the monarchy, a class of professional musicians arose, who eventually formed guilds and became very influential indeed. In time, they became so high in rank that they were next only to the king himself. Musicians, in fact, were sometimes spared the death penalty suffered by others who commited the same crime.

Apparently, the fame of Hebrew musicians was wide-spread. Part of the ramson given by Hezekiah to Sennacherib included male and female Judean musicians. Psalm 137 says that the Babylonians demanded from their Hebrew prisoners "songs of Zion." To ask for musicians as tribute and to show interest in the folk music of a captured people was extremely rare and high praise.

While many musicians may have been self-taught, it is likely that there was some form of instruction. Among the instruments which they used were the bagpipe, flute, horn, trumpet, lyre, harp, cymbal, tambourine, and the triangle.

In addition to their religious duties, there were musicians who were employed to play at weddings and funerals. In many ways, then, we can see that the professional musicians of today are very similar in respect to their instruments, their professional commitments, and their mode of payment to the ancient musicians. And there isn’t that much difference in the types of music, either. Today we have music of every kind, to suit every taste. In the past, there were also many types of music, each used in different situations.