Music History

New York Times bestselling Music Is History combines Questlove’s deep musical expertise with his curiosity about history, examining America over the past fifty years—now in paperback Focusing on the years 1971 to the present, Questlove finds the hidden connections in the American tapes, whether investigating how the blaxploitation era reshaped Black identity or considering the way disco took an assembly-line approach to Black genius. And these critical inquiries are complemented by his own memories as a music fan and the way his appetite for pop culture taught him about America. A history of the last half-century and an intimate conversation with one of music’s most influential and original voices, Music Is History is a singular look at contemporary America.

This is the fascinating story of music. How it started with a song and became one of our most beloved arts. Learn how early composers added modal rhythm to religious chants and turned them into something greater. Discover how the printing press standardized music and helped it spread across the globe. Witness the birth of musical theater, opera, and classical music and the explosion of popular freeform music such as rhapsodies and preludes. See how 20th- and 21st-century composers created a wealth of music and left their mark on music forever. Watch the birth of Jazz and Blues in the deep south of America. Experience the explosion of Rock n' Roll in America and Europe and its evolution into Punk, Electric, Metal, New Wave and more. Hear English, Scottish and Irish folk songs and ballads transform into Country and Western Music. Examine the beginnings of electronic music and watch it spread across the globe. Meet the international superstars that created Pop Music. History of Music: From Prehistoric Sounds to Classical Music, Jazz, Rock Music, POP Music and Electronic Music is a quick dip into our relationship with sound and movement through time. You'll learn how music and songs grew from humble beginnings into an art that enriches, entertains, and relaxes us.

A beautifully composed journey through music history! Music history is a required course for all music students. Unfortunately, the typical music history book is dry and academic, focusing on rote memorization of important composers and works. This leads many to think that the topic is boring, but bestselling author Michael Miller proves that isn’t so. This guide makes music history interesting and fun, for both music students and older music lovers. • Covers more than Western “classical” music—also includes non-Western music and uniquely American forms such as jazz • More than just names and dates—puts musical developments in context with key historical events

Births, deaths and marriages, No1 singles, drug busts and arrests, famous gigs and awards... all these and much more appear in this fascinating 50 year almanac.Using a page for every day of the calendar year, the author records a variety of rock and pop events that took place on a given day of the month across the years.This Day in Music is fully illustrated with hundreds of pictures, cuttings and album covers, making this the must-have book for any pop music fan.

This collection of essays is the first book-length study of music history and cosmopolitanism, and is informed by arguments that culture and identity do not have to be viewed as primarily located in the context of nationalist narratives. Rather than trying to distinguish between a true cosmopolitanism and a false cosmopolitanism, the book presents studies that deepen understanding of the heritage of this concept – the various ways in which the term has been used to describe a wide range of activity and social outlooks. It ranges over a two hundred-year period, and more than a dozen countries, revealing how musicians and audiences have responded to a common humanity by embracing culture beyond regional or national boundaries. Among the various topics investigated are: musical cosmopolitanism among composers in Latin America, the Ottoman Empire, and Austro-Hungarian Empire; cosmopolitan popular music historiography; cosmopolitan musical entrepreneurs; and musical cosmopolitanism in the metropolises of New York and Shanghai.

"Brings together the disciplines of art, music, and history to explore the importance of the past to conceptions of the present in the central Middle Ages"--Provided by publisher.

A study of the philosophy of music history.