before recording, music or even sheet music was a thing songs were passed down orally through the generations. since the way things are passed down through memories of the song, it is guaranteed that we will never hear music from those ancient times exactly how they sounded back then. the only way for us to even get remotely close to the ancient songs is if it was passed down long enough that some variation of the song was transcribed through cuneiform. cuneiform is a method of writing on clay which is now things were written down before paper was invented.