

Hurrian songs - tintinnabula
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurrian_songs

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topynate
Tolkien's "Black Speech" may have been inspired by Hurrian. I prefer the
original in this case, I think:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZatnTPhYWc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZatnTPhYWc)

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senekerim
Fascinating. I speak a language from the area that still uses some Hurrian
vocabulary, I always imagined these guys are my distant ancestors. Would be
cool to actually hear the songs...

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rmchugh
There's a link on the bottom of the Wikipedia article - A Hurrian Cult Song
from Ancient Ugarit:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZatnTPhYWc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZatnTPhYWc)

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senekerim
That is beyond cool :) Thanks

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octatoan
> The tablet is in the collection of the National Museum of Damascus.

Shit, I hope IS doesn't blow the museum up or something . . .

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hodwik
"Astonishingly, there are no known terms corresponding to a single note"

While perhaps counter-intuitive, that actually makes a lot of sense, tell the
person the interval to play not the note itself. I think people new to music
would pick up music much more quickly if we switched to a system like this. In
my limited experience, one of the biggest early hurdles in learning music is
making terms with intervals > notes.

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fsiefken
Does anybody know what instruments they used back then to accompany these
songs, or was it just singing? Perhaps a type of flute?

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jacquesm
Apparently a harp like instrument:

> The tablet h.6 contains the lyrics for a hymn to Nikkal, a Semitic goddess
> of orchards, and instructions for a singer accompanied by a nine-stringed
> sammûm, a type of harp or, much more likely, a lyre. One or more of the
> tablets also contains instructions for tuning the harp.

