The Shortest History of Music : From Bone Flutes to Synthesizers, Hildegard of Bingen to Beyonce - 5,000 Years of Instrument and Song

From prehistoric songwriting traditions to early notation to the first symphonies, albums, and digital recordings a brief but millennia-crossing history of music, the world's most popular art form

No art form is as widely discussed—or as readily available—as music. With the click of just a few buttons, modern humans can decide what they think of the brand-new Beyoncé just as quickly as they can form opinions on Brahms or the Beatles or Bob Dylan. But things weren’t always this way. In this brisk, breakneck history, award-winning musician and broadcaster Andrew Ford dives into the constant evolutions and reinventions that have led to the popularity and accessibility of modern music—from early oral songs, to the invention of a notation, to the first recording technology and record companies—all paving the way for the multibillion-dollar industry we know today. In fewer than 300 pages, Ford explores:Why playing history’s earliest example of notated music—clay tablets from 1400 BCE Syria—doesn’t produce a consistent soundHow colonization and the slave trade led to one region in West Africa having an unparalleled influence on world musicHow clerical and royal support allowed early composers to invent the symphonyWhy the BBC hired a bird impersonator to sound like a nightingale in an early live broadcast of cello musicWhat leads humans to make music in the first place—and why music plays such a massive role in our culture.The Shortest History of Music