Xtremist Site
The Music Time Line -


« X » Ancient World

60,000 BC -
The first flutes were made out of bone.

3000 BC -
Early lyres and harps were played by the Sumerians in Mesopotamia (the Middle East).

800 BC -
Mesopotamians developed a system of musical notation.


« X » Middle Ages 476 - 1492

c.AD 500 -
Musical notes were given names.

700s -
Japanese court music (gagaku) was developed.

1100 -
Troubadours told of heroes and legends in song.


« X » Renaissance 1492 - 1600

1500s -
Major and minor scales were developed.

c. 1550 -
Four-stringed violin invented.


« X » 17th & 18th Centuries

1600s -
The first Stradivarius violins were made.

1607 -
Montiverdi composed the first major opera, Orfeo.

c. 1700 -
Piano invented.

1729 -
J.S. Bach's St Matthew Passion.

1741 -
Handel's Messiah.

1764 -
Mozart composed his first symphony.


« X » 19th Century

1808 -
Beethoven's 6th Symphony (Pastoral).

1830 -
Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique.

1871 -
Verdi's opera Aida.

1877 -
Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake.

1882 -
Wagner's opera Parsifal.

1894 -
Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune by Debussy.


« X » 20th Century

c. 1900 -
Beginning of jazz.

1924 -
Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

1936 -
Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf.

1945 -
Britten's opera Peter Grimes.

1954 -
Start of rock-'n'-roll.

1962 -
The Beatles' Love Me Do.

1970 -
Jimi Hendrix dies. He redefined the possibilities of the electric guitar. The effects he created at the time (late 1960s) were totally new.



Xtremist