"In some form, music is happening all around us all the time ..." pp 6

A brief, popular survey of an immense topic often turns out to be dull, as many an "Intro To …" college textbook has proven. But in the hands of a passionate author with a sense of curiosity it becomes compelling, encouraging the reader to ponder topics they've never considered before. Fortunately, Andrew Ford is that type of writer. Instead of a lifeless collection of facts, names and dates, he has given us a fascinating compendium of those names and dates, and then gone further. Ford asks us to think about what music is, why it developed, and why it changes, sometimes slowly, at other times quite quickly.

Chapters like Music for Sale or Recording Music don't simply trace how music has been paid for or recorded over time, but how those actions influenced the music itself. I found Music and Notation particularly interesting; it answered some questions I'd been asking but never before gotten answers to since I first picked up my oboe in Elementary School.

So many fascinating topics were covered in these pages. Who were the first music superstars? Why were there so few women composers in the 1880s? How did records – 78s at first – change music? Why did Rock and Roll arise when it did? What's the difference between Hollywood and Bollywood? What does streaming mean for musicians today? What is originality in music, anyway?

No matter where your interest in music starts you'll find something in here to relate to. Are you fascinated by percussion? Antique instruments? Ragtime? Opera, The Beatles, Techno... It's all in here, situated in the stream of sound which is music. Compelling enough to sit and read in large chunks, but so full of interesting ideas that it will be pulled off the shelf and referred to again and again, this is a book that belongs in public, school and personal libraries. My only complaint? Ironically, I wanted The Shortest History of Music to be a lot longer.

Thank you to The Experiment, the author and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book.

I kind of want to get a print copy of this so I can go back through it while sampling the music it talks about. Even though this is a fairly short book, it's packed with details about the history of music. Going all the way back to the beginning and up to the present, there are people and themes and particular works.
It never occurred to me that music evolved because people learned how to make different instruments and because we learned how to write musical notation, but of course that makes sense. Some works are lost to time for one reason or another, and I was genuinely distressed to find out the Brandenburg Concertos were almost lost. There's so much to talk about here.
Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this

The Shortest History of Music is an interesting book packed with information. The book looks extensively at the history of music from the earlies known music until the present. The book included relevant quotes and photos as well. While I was impressed by the book and the amount I was able to learn about music, it was so information dense that at times it become a little overwhelming. I feel like this is a book that you could read multiple times and learn more each time. I think that everyone could learn something about this book no matter what type of music you listen to. I enjoyed reading this book and learning more about a topic that interests me.