We know it goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks, don't know its prior origins or if it developed in parallel in other places.

The use of microtones, or rather lack thereof, is what I'm referring to (from a comment by pythko):

>I believe the GGP meant to refer to “microtones,” which are frequencies that don’t fall into the Twelve Tone Equal Temperament tuning system. These are commonly used in non-western music (Indian music is a typical example), and occasionally in some western music styles (blues, some jazz, some sub-genres of rock, maybe), but you’re not going to find microtones in most western music.