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 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
• Why the BBC hired a bird impersonator to sound like a nightingale in an early live broadcast of cello music
• What leads humans to make music in the first place--and why music plays such a massive role in our culture.

With photographs, illustrations, and notational diagrams throughout, The Shortest History of Music takes us on a lively, authoritative 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.