The Story of Music: From Babylon to the Beatles

How Music Has Shaped Civilization

De: Howard Goodall

Narrado por: Simon Vance

Music is an intrinsic part of everyday life, and yet the history of its development from single notes to multilayered orchestration can seem bewilderingly complex.

In his dynamic tour through forty thousand years of music, from prehistoric instruments to modern-day pop, Howard Goodall leads us through the story of music as it happened, idea by idea, so that each musical innovation—harmony, notation, sung theater, the orchestra, dance music, recording—strikes us with its original force. Along the way, he also gives refreshingly clear descriptions of what music is and how it works: What scales are all about, why some chords sound discordant, and what all postwar pop songs have in common.

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 endeavor and a groundbreaking map of our musical journey.

Download the accompanying playlist text.©2014 Howard Goodall (P)2014 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Excellent

This was an excellent overview of the history of music. The performance was five star. Any music lover from classical connoisseurs to modern pop enthusiasts will enjoy this selection.

pdf Missing

Any additional comments?

The book comments on music and information provided in the pdf that is available with the audiobook. This was not provided bu audible as a reference.

Great book and performance, not full PDF

I really enjoyed the book and learned a lot. I wish that little clips from the songs he discusses were sampled with the narration, but there are Spotify playlists you can look up separately. That info *is* on the accompanying PDF, but there are other things they mention is on the PDF that wasn’t.

Bad book for Audible

Three main issues-- (1) the text discusses scales and other technical aspects of music.. These topics clearly need some form of graphic. For example, to show the difference between types of Medieval church modes and various features of musical notation mentioned in the text. (2) Also, there are many references to musical pieces but there are no musical examples included with the text. (3) The narrator has the distracting and ultimately unlistenable habit of dropping his voice at the end of sentences. What professional reader does that? Who talks that way? Although it is well written, I deleted it.

All you never knew you wanted to know about music

In “The Story of Music: From Babylon to the Beatles,” Howard Goodall takes on the task of tracing the evolution of Western music from its prehistoric origins to the modern era. Yes, that means presenting thousands of years of musical development in a relatively concise book but he does so without getting bogged down and while making it an engaging narrative. That’s an enormous historical sweep—from the rhythms of ancient civilizations to the anthems of the Beatles (actually he goes a couple of decades beyone that, but hey, it makes for good alliteration)—Goodall’s aim is not merely to recount history but to reframe how we think about classical music, its place in the world today, and its vibrant echoes in contemporary forms.
Goodall’s style is very witty and accessible to those with little formal background in music and to readers with years of training. His experience as a composer gives him a depth of understanding that many music appreciation books lack, allowing him to offer commentary that is both insightful and grounded in practice. While the book is packed with surprising historical detail, it remains approachable, often pausing to explain fundamentals such as harmony and key with clarity.
From the outset, Goodall narrows his focus to the core of Western classical tradition. Yet he constantly acknowledges the interconnectedness of global musical forms. One major thread throughout the book is how music has thrived by drawing from a wide array of influences—sometimes shared, sometimes appropriated—from marginalized cultures. For example, in his treatment of rock music’s roots, he explicitly addresses how white musicians frequently borrowed from Black musical traditions without giving due credit.
Though the book spans millennia, the pace is swift—Goodall covers what we can know of music from 40,000 BC to 1450 AD in the first 42 pages. He notes that one of the West’s greatest inventions in terms of music was the system of musical notation. By allowing music to be recorded onto paper and reproduced independently of the original performer or composer, this made it possible for compositions to be preserved over time.
It is that fact that allows him to begin to begin to go into more detail so that from 1450 he begins to cover approximately 200-year intervals per chapter. Still, that’s a lot of time to cover and yet the information never feels rushed. Instead, it reads like a conversation with a deeply knowledgeable friend who can weave the technical, historical, and human aspects of music into a coherent story.
One of the more sobering historical episodes Goodall tackles is a sort of “competition” produced by the reformation resulting in the institutionalized practice of castrating young boys in sixteenth-century Italy to preserve their soprano voices for Catholic church choirs. Forbidden from using female singers, the Catholic church resorted to this brutal measure to compete with the sound of Protestant choirs that employed young women. This kind of historical context—often absent from standard musical surveys—adds weight and complexity to the narrative.
A particularly compelling argument Goodall advances is that classical music hasn’t vanished, despite claims to the contrary. Instead, it has adapted to new formats—most notably film. Millions of cinema-goers experience symphonic scores built on the very techniques perfected by composers like Beethoven and Mozart. For many people today, orchestral music lives not in concert halls but in the soundtrack of their favorite films.
The problem with a book like this is that you will want to hear some of the music he describes to understand the progression as it develops. This book is available in regular text format and also as an audiobook. The good news is that Goodall has provided curated Spotify playlists for each of the ages he describes but he puts that at the end of the book so you don’t find it until you finish the book, which is very unfortunate. It would be nice to have it as you are going through the book.
Ultimately, The Story of Music is a rich overview of how music developed—and why it matters. Goodall’s passion is evident on every page, and his ability to connect ancient modes, modern genres, and cultural shifts into a single, lively narrative makes the book a rewarding read for anyone curious about how music became what it is today.

Great book, look for the BBC documentary

Howard Goodall is great in all of his BBC work and now he has written this book. Really enjoyable to learn the components of music composition and find out when in (western) history each musical component/idea/approach was invented.

I wish I could purchase a version of this audiobook with imbedded audio samples of the musical pieces that he references in each chapter. The BBC documentary does a great job of playing examples as he describes the parts of the music to listen for.

Very Entertaining! & Very Educational!

I really loved this audio book. I learned so much interesting things I never knew. It might just be because I am a musician and I love & am obsessed with music because sometimes my Mom will listen to audiobooks with me like when I'm listening in the car or when I have it on the house speakers but with this one she'd beg me to change it to something else she'd say it's uninteresting & she didn't understand what it was talking about. So if your a musician or interested in music I bet you'll love it, if not you might think it's boring I don't know. One thing I do know for a fact! Is That Simon Vance is my absolute favorite audiobook narrator ever hands down. I sometimes will try an audiobook out just because he's the narrator & if I'm unsure about getting an audiobook & see Simon Vance's name I'll get it no matter what. He's The Best!

I'm a classical musician and even I loved this!

Fantastic book, very thorough researched history and very well compiled. It's obvious the author was taught from well-known musicologists who could weave a coherent narrative about western classical music from a vantage of hegemony of European countries in a way you'd expect, but often refers to worldwide musical comparisons.

Educational, enjoyable, and stimulating

Would you listen to The Story of Music: From Babylon to the Beatles again? Why?

Yes, it is full of information and my memory leaves much to be desired.

Have you listened to any of Simon Vance’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Yes. He is very good here, as he usually is.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I immediately and spontaneously gave copies to friends.

Any additional comments?

An apparently informed negative review on amazon.com very nearly kept me from buying this book. Good thing I took a chance!

It is not that I disagree with all the criticism that reviewer and other commentators have put forth. However, these are minor when weighed against the remarkable quality of the book as a whole. (Incidentally, I do not think Goodall presents as negative a view of Wagner as some commentators pretend). Another reviewer cites Robert Greenberg's lectures (Great Courses series) as being all that Goodall's book is not: I have listened to 90% of Greenberg's numerous courses and recommend them highly. However, this in no way impinges on my enthusiasm for Goodall's book, which does something quite different.

I have learned a great deal from listening to this stimulating audiobook and recommend it to anyone with an interest in music or in cultural history. It is quite dense with information and references, so the better informed you are, the more you can make associations and are likely to enjoy it.

Great read aloud

Extremely informative and is a stellar book for a nice read or for educational purposes.