Product Overview
Published to coincide with Howard Goodall's major new BBC TV series, this is an accessible history for all music lovers.
For many of us, music is an intrinsic part of everyday life, and yet the history of its development from single notes to multi-layered orchestration can seem bewilderingly complex and specialised.
In his energetic tour through 30,000 years of music, from prehistoric instruments to pop, Goodall does away with stuffy biographies, unhelpful labels and tired terminology and leads us through the story of music as it really happened, so that each musical innovation strikes us with its original force. He focuses on what changed when and why, picking out the discoveries that revolutionised man-made sound. Along the way, he also gives refreshingly clear descriptions of what music is and how it works: what scales are all about, what happens in harmony, why some chords sound discordant.
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 endeavour and a groundbreaking map of man's musical journey.
