Very old music

Subject: Very old music
From: Les Jones
Date: 08 Mar 02 - 01:35 PM

What are the earliest tunes or songs? Most early stuff seems to be 16C, I think.

Was no music passed on in written or symbolic form from Africa, Greece, Rome, Viking, Chinese, Indian, pre-columbian American people. What about the Inuit, did they have any stories, tunes or songs?

Surely good tunes must go back as far as speech, even if we can't retrieve them.

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: greg stephens
Date: 08 Mar 02 - 01:48 PM

People have attempted to deduce things from justwhere the holes were drilled in a very very early bone flute....caveman stuff.Gives some indication of the sort of scales they might have used, but not much more really. Spike Milligan had a very good "invention of music" sketch on TV a long time ago. There were a bunch of cavemen sitting morosely round a campfire.Then one of them starts wailing away, not very melodically. The other guys listen for a bit, then ceremoniously stand up, pick the singer up enthrone him on their shoulders and carry him off screen. There is a loud splash. The guys reappear (minus the singer) and sit morosely round the fire.

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: Gary T
Date: 08 Mar 02 - 01:48 PM

I imagine there's some church music that goes back further than the 16th century. I wouldn't be surprised if many of the cultures you mention maintain some music that's even older. Whether people who are a product of modern sensibilites and Western culture would consider them good tunes is perhaps questionable--by which I mean that most folks have a fondness for what they're familiar with. I could appreciate some of the art of say, American Indian chants or Chinese songs, but I don't think I'd prefer them to songs in English that I can understand, and tunes that don't sound odd to my ear.

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Mar 02 - 01:53 PM

The works of Hildegarde von Bingen from about 1000 AD and other religious composers are the earliest we have from Europe- mostly chant. The Inuit had no written records. Some Chinese works, or at least the traditions associated with them, go back to 2000 BC- I know little about their music.
The earliest recorded secular works also seem to be medieval (Spanish, German, Sephardic, Arabic).
We have older lyrical poetry, of course, but the tunes are lost.
A number of secular tunes from the British Isles are claimed to be ancient, but there is no factual evidence from before late 1400s for any of them that I have heard of.

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: little john cameron
Date: 08 Mar 02 - 03:16 PM

This is very interesting.I will surf around and see what i can come up with.Meanwhile here is some music from the 13th century.Not the original cast lol.ljchere

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: little john cameron
Date: 08 Mar 02 - 03:29 PM

Jings! Wid ye believe it,they Irish buggers were there playin there daft music in the Stone age.The Clancy Brithers mibbe? lol.This is gettin VERY interesin.ljcDiddly-diddly-da

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: little john cameron
Date: 08 Mar 02 - 03:48 PM

If the downloads don't work on the first page try here.H and I are great.ljcTOOT-TOOT

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Mar 02 - 04:28 PM

Take heed. Even most 16th and 17th century British Isles music doen't sound very melodic, and if you were brought up on American pop and European classical it's going to sound prety dull. It's a case of you really having to be into it a lot in order to appreciate it. The only 16th century to that's at all well known now is "Greensleeves", and there aren't any others that are at all close to it.

Incidently, two ancient bone flutes were found to be set to give a Lydian scale, so doing harmony with them would be very difficult.

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: little john cameron
Date: 08 Mar 02 - 04:36 PM

Chinese music.This is very soothing,honest.ljc Relax

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: sophocleese
Date: 08 Mar 02 - 04:45 PM

Well the Norton Anthology of Western Music has some stuff that is thought to be by Euripedes. The papyrus is from about 200 B.C.

Moving on about 1400-1500 years I sang a song for my son's class today written by the Comtessa de Dia in the 12 century. Fortunately there were no scholars in the audience to tell me that my 12th century Provencal accent was atrocious.

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 Mar 02 - 04:46 PM

Thanks for the link, ljc. I love the sounds of Chinese music. I've been trying to figure out a way to play some on my psalteries and dulcimer!

While visiting the Egyptian Museum in Santa Rose, CA, at Rosicrucian Park, I was fortunate enough to see some sistrums and other early instruments. Here's some more info on Music in Ancient Egypt.

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: sophocleese
Date: 08 Mar 02 - 04:50 PM

I think that trying harmony with a Lydian scale pipe would be tricky if you're used to harmonizing with our modern scale, but you might find it easier if that's what you were used to.

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Mar 02 - 04:57 PM

sophoclese, who's used to it now?

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: little john cameron
Date: 08 Mar 02 - 05:07 PM

Ah Kat me darlin,that was my next venture.Did i ever mention that i can write in Egyptian hiroglyphics????. ljc

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: CapriUni
Date: 08 Mar 02 - 05:41 PM

I once found a book at the local library that was about the psychology of music, and how some music can lead us to the state of exstacy.

I found it a very interesting read until I got to a sentance in the first chapter that stated very definitively that, although human culture has existed for some 30,000 years, complex music has only been around for 3,000 years.

I put the book down in disgust, and never looked back. The truth is that we can not know how old music is, because unlike other aspects of human culture, it is possible to make music and leave absolutely no trace for future anthropologists to find.

Perhaps the first musical instrumments were only constructed 3,000 years ago, but people could have been clapping their hands and singing for millenia before that -- and we'd never know. A song doesn't leave any traces behind the way a firepit does.

And just because it's early doesn't necessarily mean it was simple -- for all we know, tribes Cro-magnon man could have been singing 7-part quodlibets...

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 08 Mar 02 - 05:43 PM

Sophocleese said:

"I think that trying harmony with a Lydian scale pipe would be tricky if you're used to harmonizing with our modern scale, but you might find it easier if that's what you were used to."

It's my understanding is that harmony is a modern development, so you'd not have a problem with the cavemen and their Lydian-drilled bone flutes.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: Kenny B (inactive)
Date: 08 Mar 02 - 05:45 PM

LJC
I too have often wondered why you have never mentioned that, *BG* ;>) TTFN

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: Kim C
Date: 08 Mar 02 - 05:46 PM

Mister bought us a CD by a German group called Wolgemut - early European stuff. Not at all dull. Some of it is very exciting and boisterous. :-)

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Mar 02 - 05:47 PM

though people have no doubt made 'music' for aeons, I once read that the oldest recorded song was an Egyptian water-hauling song from 1000 BC or so....

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: CapriUni
Date: 08 Mar 02 - 06:01 PM

So... if someone found it, do you think we could get someone to hunt it down and post it in the DT?

;-)

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: little john cameron
Date: 08 Mar 02 - 06:13 PM

Did somebody mention a Sistrum?? ljc Sistrum and Clapper

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Mar 02 - 06:13 PM

....naawwww...we'd just be arguing about alternate versions, and RUS would mess with it for their next book.

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: little john cameron
Date: 08 Mar 02 - 06:32 PM

Worlds oldest love song discovered. Ah think it wis Sheik Ben Vinton!!! ljc.Into the Past

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: rich-joy
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 12:41 AM

Just for interest, I have a World Record Club LP (Harmonia Mundi recording) entitled "Music of the Bible Revealed" where organist, scholar, and composer, Suzanne Haik Vantoura, claims to have now deciphered an age-old notation, as laid down in the Hebraic Bible (Old Testament). 14 pieces (psalms, lamenations, etc.) are played and sung on this record.

Re the English stuff, I'd always thought that piece "Summer Is Icumen In, Loudly Sing Cuckoo" was from the 1100s or somesuch (I think it holds some kind of early claim-to-fame anyway ...
Cheers! R-J

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: lady penelope
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 05:38 AM

"Summer is a -coming in" as I understand it, this is the earliest notated peice of music found in Britain, circa 1100's. There have been theories that this was a 'collected' piece, written down by an interested scholar, and that the age of the piece is far older. But that is total supposition, in my opinion, as I've never seen any supporting evidence.

Great links guys! My 'favourites' list get longer & longer................

TTFN M'Lady P.

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: masato sakurai
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 06:12 AM

Ealiest notated English songs are, I think, the three religious songs by Saint Godric (died 1170). They are on Sequentia's English Songs of the Middle Ages (EMI CDC 7 49192 2) and on Hilliard Ensemble's Sumer is icumen in (harmonia mundi). E.J. Dobson and F.Ll. Harrison, Medieval English Songs (Faber, 1979) is a great collection of such songs (with text & music, translations, annotations), which says of "Sumer is icumen in" that "The forms of the English text are those of a Southern dialect, doubtless that used in Reading Abbey, where the MS was written. The MS is thought to have been completed about or a little after 1240, and the song was probably composed in Reading Abbey about this date. The English linguistic forms can hardly be much later." (p. 144)

~Masato

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 10:14 AM

To get back to the original question, which was: "Was no music passed on in written or symbolic form from Africa, Greece, Rome, Viking, Chinese, Indian, pre-columbian American people. What about the Inuit?"

the answer seems to be no. I'm into early music, and I've never seen a word about anything like that.

As for non-notated music, I've read about a cave in Africa (occupied by hominids) which had funny smooth places on the cave formations. When struck with bone, these places emitted musical sounds. Too bad I can't remember the age of occupation. I guess we just have to say it was the music of cavemen.

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: mack/misophist
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 10:17 AM

Quite a few years ago I saw an article about an archeologist who had done a study of Babylonian harps, collecting everything he could find about what size they were, how they were made, and of what. Recording every drawing that showed players hand positions. He concluded they played mostly in the key of C. A recording was offered but it was too expensive for me.
Paniagua of Academia Musica de Madrid(I think) did a cd some years back that tried to recreate the music of ancient Greece. My impression was that his ideas were interesting, but fanciful.

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: Alice
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 10:22 AM

There is more discussion on this subject, links, historical references, Egypt, Greece, China, etc., on this old Mudcat thread,

Oldest Folk.

Something I quoted in that thread from a website of the history of singing:

----

"It is a song, the Sumerian Hymn to Creation, dated before 800 B.C., which is the oldest notated music extant. Egyptian musical culture existed by the 4th millennium B.C., and music was prominent in the social and religious life of the Old Kingdom. Egyptian instruments changed significantly as the New Kingdom era (1700-1500 B.C.) began. The change, which may have reflected foreign influence, was from delicate timbre instruments to louder ones and was surely followed by similar changes in singing tone for, over time, a culture's instrumental timbres and vocal tone always tend to match. There are many drawings extant which confirm that large choruses and orchestras existed in the New Kingdom."

Alice

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: Alice
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 10:31 AM

The link to that site in the "Oldest Folk" thread wasn't correct, so here is the link to "A Brief History of Singing", by John Koopman, Conservatory of Music, Lawrence University.http://www.lawrence.edu/fac/koopmajo/brief.html

Alice

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: GUEST,Al
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 11:43 AM

This was emailed to me by a friend. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend:

Hildegard von Bingen's "Ordo Virtutum" (The Order of Virtues)

Saturday, March 9th, 2002 at 8pm St. Alban's Episcopal Church 1501 Washington Street Albany CA

Suggested Donation: $10

Ordo Virtutum is a powerful and transforming work revealing the story of the Soul's return to the celestial realms. In the story, the Soul is invited to choose the Devil's company and the personified Virtues show her that truth and beauty lie another way. This musical battle is a delicate balance of sweetness and resolve that will leave the listener with held breath.

The culmination of a nine-week workshop directed by Karen Clark, this powerful presentation is sung entirely in Hildegard's original and exulting chant, fully understandable through the musical gestures she created.

Karen Clark sings the role of the Soul, and the cast features Alison Altstatt, Joyce Todd McBride, and Margaret Valeriano, twelve dedicated workshop participants, Reid Shaw as the Devil, and a small collection of local "Patriarchs and Prophets."

Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), the legendary visionary, herbal healer, and composer was born to the noble family of Hildebert of Gut Bermersheim near Alzey in Rhinehessen, Germany. Tithed to the church at the age of eight (a common practice at the time), her spiritual training was assumed by the abbess of the cloister at Disibodenberg. In 1152, the Archbishop of Mainz dedicated a new cloister church at Rupertsberg (near Bingen), probably the occasion for which the Ordo Virtutum was created. Sixteen of the fifty women living in the cloister sang the roles of the Virtutes, and presumably the monk Volmer, the only male in the community, assumed the spoken role of the Devil.

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: CapriUni
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 11:49 AM

Leenia wrote: "I've read about a cave in Africa (occupied by hominids) which had funny smooth places on the cave formations. When struck with bone, these places emitted musical sounds. Too bad I can't remember the age of occupation. I guess we just have to say it was the music of cavemen."

:::Whistles::: The acoustics must have been fabulous!

My personal theory (or rather hunch, as I have absolutely no evidence for it) is that singing is a natural extention of speach. After all, spoken language has rhythm, and the tone and pith of our voices change with our emotions. All it takes to get a song from speach is to 'magnify' those qualities.

And then, there are forms like yodelling and hollaring -- comunicating over long distances when visual communication is impossible (such as in the jungle or the mountain). Wasn't there a bit in Mel Brooks' "Oldest Man" routine about the first songs being invented because of danger -- that a sung note carries further than a spoken word:

"Oh, Help! Oh, He-e-e-lp! A Saber Tooth tiger is a-a-after me!!!"

There may be some truth to that...

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: Les Jones
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 02:08 PM

Thanks to you all. I have really enjoyed and been informed by you contributions. A couple of things came to mind:

Do any historical sources refer to songs, singers or musicians and what can we learn from the instruments that have survived?

thanks again

Les

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: M.Ted
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 03:21 PM

The thread seems to have veered, but neumes, which are an assortment of written marks, were used to notate western church music from the eight century on--however, what they actually meant is another thing entirely--and this is the problem with all but the most recent music notation--

The thing is that music notation is representational--it is a system for telling a player or singer which of a variety of sounds and time values to play--but notes, time values, and intervals have been learned either from a master or simply by listening to the music itself-- the father you get from the living tradition, the harder it is to determine what the notation means--even Beethoven and Mozart sounded differerent when they were originally played--though we know enough about the differences to be able to be able to reconstruct the sound fairly accurately--

To a great extent, recreating old music from texts is a process of inspired guessing--

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 03:44 PM

John Koopman's brief history is good, but one important consideration is left out. The change from polyphonic church music to the more familiar choral work of our times was largely mandated by Pope Marcellus II, who objected to the music on the grounds that it required professional singers and that the church-goers couldn't understand the message because it was too complicated.

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: little john cameron
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 04:16 PM

Did he object in Latin ah wonder? ljc

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 04:47 PM

It's worthwhile, I think to mention here the difference between musical notation such as we're all familiar with and tablature, which goes back further than at least our current system of musical notation.

The function of musical notation is to tell the trained individual what the music sounds like, and the musician must translate, as it were, to the means of making those sounds on his instrument. Whereas the function of tablature is to tell the trained individual how to play the music--what string to pluck, say, and where to fret that string.

My GUESS is that the very early "notation" referred to in several of the posts above is really a variety of tablature.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 05:02 PM

Little John, don't know if he ranted about polyphony in Latin or gutter Italian. (My Cookie reset). His threats were strong enough that the composers of masses, etc. quickly complied, or they would have been out on the street.

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: little john cameron
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 05:13 PM

What did he use to convince them to change it i wonder.I don't blame them by the way.Nae Martyr me. lol. ljc

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: Mickey191
Date: 09 Mar 02 - 06:28 PM

These three fellows were sitting around in a cave in Africa. One of them opened a book and read: Make a joyful noise unto the Lord." They were the original "Inkspots." Honest! Don't know when though.

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: Penny S.
Date: 10 Mar 02 - 11:53 AM

There's a story from Malmesbury in Wiltshire that St. Aldhelm used to sing to the people crossing into the town by the bridge, attracting them so much that htey followed him to the abbey for more religious instruction. I can't but believe that he must have been singing tunes to have that effect on his hearers. Would chant attract the masses?

Penny

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: Kenny B (inactive)
Date: 10 Mar 02 - 12:16 PM

Aother site about Chines Music
Chinese Music 2100 years old
Ah So :>)

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: CapriUni
Date: 10 Mar 02 - 01:51 PM

Interesting, Kenny B --

I think this is the first time in my life that I wish I could receive Chinese TV. :-)

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Mar 02 - 02:37 PM

An extremely large set (65) of bronze bells was excavated in China in 1978, buried in the tomb of Marquis Yi since 433 BC. The set of tuned bells, spanning a five octave range, called a bianzhong, requires several players. It hangs in three rows about ten feet in height overall. The largest bells are the size of an oil drum. It was brought to Hong Kong in 1997 to be used in Tan Dun's Symphony 1997, commissioned to commemorate the reunification of Hong Kong with China. The symphony featured cellist Yo-yo Ma and the bianzhong in a concerto section called Earth.
The cd, featuring the Yips Childrens Choir (they sing the ancient love song "Jasmine Flower," borrowed by Puccini for his opera Turandot), the Imperial Bells Ensemble of China, the Hong Kong PO and Yo-Yo Ma, was released by Jas Hennessy & Co., Sony SK63368. It is well-worth listening to.
A 25-string zither was one of the 125 other musical instruments found at the Yi tomb.
Chinese TV is available through Shaw cable in western Canada, but it is a pay channel. They opened their channel without charge to cable subscribers for the 1997 re-unification ceremony and the broadcast of the symphony. The broadcast included live shots of British officials and their families, many with tear-stained faces, boarding a British Navy vessel to leave Hong Kong. It is a TV presentation that should be released on video.

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: CapriUni
Date: 10 Apr 02 - 11:49 AM

Nature, a science series broadcast on the American network PBS, had an episode this last week on the origins of music and singing in human beings. The website for the episode can be found here:Song of the Earth.

Part of the episode included an interview with archeologist Graeme Lawson, who demonstrated a facsimile of an instrument dating back 30,000-40,000 thousand years. There's an online photo essay which includes Lawson's playing of the bone "flute" (though it's actually more like an oboe) as a streaming Real Audio file -- sounds pretty good, if you ask me. Maybe some folks here with more musical than I can figure out what sort of key and scale the instrument is tuned to.

While I enjoyed the program as a whole, I found that the emphesis was placed far too much on male-only singing -- tracing human song back to the songs of male whales, and birds (where males do all of the singing) and a bit less on the singing of gibbons, where males and females sing together. The conclusion drawn was that all human music derived from the instinctual need to defend territory and to attract a mate, drawing modern parralells with national anthems (territory) and how rock stars attract female groupies (sex).

I acknoledge that these two factors account for a lot of music's power, but not all of it. At the end of the hour, I found myself asking: "But what about our first exposure to music, as individuals -- the lullaby? Or what about using rhythmic chanting to do more than keep millitary armies marching in step -- what about Chanteys and Wauking songs?" Neither of these forms of music received a single mention...

In any case, I thought other Mudcatters would be interested.

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 11 Apr 02 - 03:07 AM

Singing as the easiest form of music is, I think, one of the oldest pleasures of mankind.
The oldest notated song in Europe was found on a Greek tombstone of the 1st c A.D.. It is a four-liner of the kind skolion, i. e. a drinking song: "Show yourself as you are, and dont be dreary too much; life is short, and time will bring an early end". (St. Paul refers to this attitude in one of his letters; can't give the place, don't have my NT not with me). In every good German schoolbook you can find the picure of the stone and the transformation of the tune into modern notation.
An early medieval tune of the "Crusaders' song" by the noble German poet and singer Walther von der Vogelweide (12th c. A.D.) is also preserved; I know it by heart.
A fine collection of short Mediterranean love songs you may find in the Old Testament in the Cantica canticorum, i. e. "Songs of songs = the best songs". The German orientalist Tischendorff states that he heard the same type of songs still sung in Palestine in the middle of the 19 c. A.D. In my songbooks I find some of these biblical songs with tunes, but I can't say how old they are, traditional or written by modern composers of the last century.

Wilfried

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: fat B****rd
Date: 11 Apr 02 - 06:46 AM

There's a porogramme on this very theme on UK BBC Radio 4 even as I type. Sorry about it being too late.

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: CapriUni
Date: 11 Apr 02 - 01:25 PM

Singing as the easiest form of music is, I think, one of the oldest pleasures of mankind.

Actually, Wilfried, one expert in the prgram I mentioned believes that singing evolved before speach -- that we communicated with others through musical phrases over long distances before we spoke verbal phrases at close range. If his theory is true, then singing isn't just one of the oldest pleasures, it is the oldest!

I like that Greek drinking song -- reminds me of a lot of the drinking songs currently in our own DT ;-).

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: CapriUni
Date: 11 Apr 02 - 01:27 PM

FB --

What was the name of that program, do you remember? Maybe it will be archived on the BBC Radio website...

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: Uncle Jaque
Date: 11 Apr 02 - 09:44 PM

That "Music of the bible Revealed" mentioned by Rich-Joy is really interesting; I bought the CD and the book in which the Author describes in great detail her work on several ancient types of Musical notation, from the Greeks, Egyptians, Babylonians, and others as well as her "deciphering" of the cryptical "jots and tittles" associated with the ancient Hebrew Scriptures as another form of ancient music notation. According to her, the entire Old Testament was originally a vast Cantata, meant to be sung rather than spoken.

Of course her work is quite controversial, but I find it fascinating nonetheless, and the music, which uses some reproduction "period" instruments, is hauntingly beautiful.

Here are a couple of URLs for her CD (sample sound clips) and Book on Amazon, and probable links to further information.:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/094103710X/qid=996800558/sr=1-3/ref=sc_b_3/102-9252633-8802513

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004TVH6/qid=996799905/sr=2-1/ref=aps_sr_bdgw_cm_1_1/102-9252633-8802513

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: fat B****rd
Date: 12 Apr 02 - 03:23 AM

Hello CapriUni, The programme went out at 11.30 a.m. Thursday April 11th and was called The First Song, BBC Radio 4. I've only half listened to it so far.Good luck from the fB

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: CapriUni
Date: 12 Apr 02 - 10:46 AM

Thanks for the info anyway, fB. Unfortunately, it wasn't one of the programs archived on the website. But maybe you could give us a gist, here, on the thread, after you're done listening to it?

I might also search through Amazon for books about or by the experts mentioned on the Nature program, anyway...

I don't know why this subject tickles my brain, so. But it does.

Sometimes, an idea can get stuck in your brain, just like a melody ;-).

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: fat B****rd
Date: 12 Apr 02 - 03:14 PM

I'll do my best to post a coherent and informative thread as soon as possible.

Subject: RE: Very old music
From: CapriUni
Date: 12 Apr 02 - 10:58 PM

No rush, fB... After all, for some of this stuff, we've been waiting millennia to hear it. ;-)