Next came the wind instruments,--at first single reeds blown to mark rhythms, then pan-pipes, and much later single pipes provided with finger-holes like the unimproved flute. Last of all came the instruments from which the tones are drawn by passing a bow over the strings. The idea of adapting the vibrating length of strings to a desired pitch, through pressing them down upon a fingerboard, is comparatively modern. These general classes took on numerous forms and were made from various materials.
The existence of Jubal and his musical line of descendants bespeaks a wide-spread interest in and use of song, but Genesis yields no further enlightenment, no texts, nor any other allusions to the subject of music.
Exodus xv. furnishes the next mention. The treacherous quicksands of the Red Sea having swallowed up the Egyptians, Moses and the children of Israel join in a song of rejoicing and thanksgiving to God, to whose direct interposition they ascribe their deliverance. The song as recorded is too circumstantial to have been spontaneous. Moses, in writing his account of the occurrence, doubtless embodied the sentiments which burst forth from the hearts of his people in the presence of the event in a more orderly and more amplified form. The sentiments are lofty, and the effect produced by the singing of that vast chorus of just rescued was, beyond compare, the grandest focus of human enthusiasm that the world has witnessed; for Moses had six hundred thousand fighting men alone.
"Miriam the prophetess," after the song, or during lapses in the singing, to incite the throng to renewed efforts, "took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and dancing. And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea." The timbrels were drums, probably much like our tambourines in size and shape.
The trumpet is mentioned three times in the nineteenth and twentieth chapters of Exodus in connection with the delivery to Moses of the Commandments. The last occasion is after the consummation of this universe-shaping ceremony,--viz., "And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking."