The Shortest History of Music: From Bone Flutes to Synthesizers, Hildegard of Bingen to Beyoncé—5,000 Years of Instrument and Song

Composer and writer Ford (coauthor of The Song Remains the Same: 800 Years of Love Songs, Laments and Lullabies) seeks to cover thousands of years and hundreds of performers, creators, and entire cultures in a little over 200 pages, as the “Shortest History” series demands. The brevity requires gaps and omissions, which leads to some leaps in coverage. For example, the summary history ensures that the book is an introductory text, yet Ford often seems to assume readers are familiar with music concepts such as sonata form, equal temperament, and chromaticism. Even with the page limit forced upon him, however, Ford does choose engaging topics, such as Bollywood, Chinese opera, and the massive influence of West African music on the rest of the world, which serve to broaden the discussion. Librarians considering this book might compare it to Robert Philip’s A Little History of Music, which is longer but more comprehensive.