Ur Song?

[Sapo]

I once heard someone mention an “Ur Song”. It had to do with a flute fragment found somewhere (Ur?) and the notes it is supposed to play are the notes for the typical children’s taunt “nyer nyer nyer”.

She also mentioned something about those notes being in all scales (?) in all cultures or something to the effect of saying that they were common to all music independently popped everywhere.

This wasl all a long time ago and I don’t remember any more details. Googling for “Ur song”, of course, is pointless as it returns 26.5M results for “I love ur song” and similar crap.

Anyone know anything about this?

[panache45]

Sounds like BS. If a “flute fragment” was found, I’m skeptical about any extrapolation as to what notes the holes represented, let alone the order or key of those notes.

[3acresandatruck]

You might be thinking of the Divje Babe flute - whether or not it is a flute is a matter of contention. The article includes this:

that the bone’s holes were “consistent with four notes of the diatonic scale” (do, re, mi, fa) based on the spacing of those four holes. The spacing of the holes on a modern diatonic flute (minor scale) are unique, and not evenly spaced. In essence, Fink said, they are like a simple fingerprint. The Divje Babe bone’s holes matched those spacings very closely to a series of note-holes in a minor scale.

[Olentzero]

Best I’ve been able to find is that the first two notes of the taunt are called a falling minor third (in layman’s terms, think jumping from E-flat to C) and that element is what’s universal. Plenty of anecdotal evidence in discussing the song indicate the whole “nanny nanny boo boo” tune is not universal. There’s some speculation that it’s well-suited to getting people’s attention from a distance (like calling someone to dinner) but nothing I’ve found in a brief Googling could be viewed as even remotely scholarly so I’ll leave the question for more advanced musical theorists to take up.

[Derleth]

Now is this an Ur song, meaning a song from the city of Ur, or an ur-song, meaning one of the original or most primitive songs?

[Peter_Morris]

@Sapo

… Googling for “Ur song”, of course, is pointless …

Did you try it?

I did and thiswas the second hit. It names a book that discusses the tune in detail.

[Sapo]

@Peter_Morris

Did you try it?

I did and thiswas the second hit. It names a book that discusses the tune in detail.

!!!
They changed it while I wasn’t looking. I have searched for this several times in the last several months and nothing. Just today, a search for Ur Song returned 26.5M results and they are now 27.8 with that one as the second result. I don’t know whether to be pissed or happy.

Yes. That is exactly what I was looking for and what I was told then.

Is this theory held in any esteem? I find it fascinating, but that means nothing, of course. The rest of the articles in that series is not particularly confidence inducing.

[Sapo]

@3acresandatruck

You might be thinking of the Divje Babe flute - whether or not it is a flute is a matter of contention. The article includes this:

I don’t know about this flute. I had heard of it before I heard of the Ur song and it was the image I had in mind then, but I don’t know if that is the one mentioned in this conversation. Most likely it is.

[neutron_star]

And you can tell everybody that this is Ur song…
(What? Somebody was gonna do it, might as well be me.)

[Inigo_Montoya]

Dammit Neutron, you beat me by 10 minutes.