The Shortest History of Music
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
The Shortest History of Music
Buy Now for £8.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Jonathan Todd Ross
-
By:
-
Andrew Ford
About this listen
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. Ford explores:
- Why playing history's earliest example of notated music—clay tablets from 1400 BCE Syria—doesn't produce a consistent sound
- How colonization and the slave trade led to one region in West Africa having an unparalleled influence on world music
- How clerical and royal support allowed early composers to invent the symphony
- What 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 takes us on a lively tour through several thousands of years of music history, tracing our relationship with this essential art and allowing us to freshly appreciate and understand music today.
©2025 Andrew Ford (P)2025 Tantor Media