Music is an intrinsic part of everyday life, and yet the history of its development from single notes to multilayered orchestration can seem bewilderingly complex.In his dynamic tour through forty thousand years of music, from prehistoric instruments to modern-day pop, Howard Goodall leads us through the story of music as it happened, idea by idea, so that each musical innovation-harmony, notation, sung theater, the orchestra, dance music, recording-strikes us with its original force. Along the way, he also gives refreshingly clear descriptions of what music is and how it works: what scales are all about, why some chords sound discordant, and what all postwar pop songs have in common.The story of music is the story of our urge to invent, connect, rebel-and entertain. Howard Goodall's beautifully clear and compelling account is both a hymn to human endeavor and a groundbreaking map of our musical journey.
"What really makes the book sing is the author's argumentative style, giving it narrative momentum from paragraph to paragraph. This really is the 'story' of music, not just a chronological laundry list of important people and events."
Boston Globe
"A lively zip through some forty-five millennia, jumping back and forth between classical, folk, and pop."
Sunday Times (London)
"Now comes Howard Goodall and everyone's prayers are answered. He starts right at the beginning, with 25,000-year-old bone flutes. A racily written, learned, and often shrewdly insightful book."
