A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK Full of delightful nuggets Guardian online Entertaining informative and philosphical An essential read All About History Extraordinary range All the world and more is here Evening Standard 165 million years ago saw the birth of rhythm 66 million years ago came the first melody 40 thousand years ago Homo sapiens created the first musical instrument Today music fills our lives How we have created performed and listened to music throughout history has defined what our species is and how we understand who we are Yet it is an overlooked part of our origin story The Musical Human takes us on an exhilarating journey across the ages from Bach to BTS and back to explore the vibrant relationship between music and the human species With insights from a wealth of disciplines world leading musicologist Michael Spitzer renders a global history of music on the widest possible canvas from global history to our everyday lives from insects to apes humans to artificial intelligence Michael Spitzer has pulled off the impossible a Guns Germs and Steel for music Daniel Levitin A thrilling exploration of what music has meant and means to humankind Ian Bostridge
Sounds Ecologies Musics poses exciting challenges and provides fresh opportunities for scholars scientists environmental activists musicians and listeners to consider music and sound from ecological standpoints Authors in Part I examine the natural and built environment and how music and sound are woven into it how the environment enables music and sound and how the natural and cultural production of music and sound in turn impact the environment In Part II contributors consider music and sound in relation to ecological knowledges that appear to conflict with yet may be viewed as complementary to Western science traditional and Indigenous ecological and environmental knowledges Part III features multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches by scholars scientists and practitioners who probe the ecological imaginary regarding the complex ideas and contested keywords that characterize ecomusicology sound music culture society environment and nature A common theme across the book is the idea of diverse ecologies Once confined to the natural sciences the word ecology is common today in the social sciences humanities and arts yet its diverse uses have become imprecise and confusing Engaging the conflicting and complementary meanings of
Todas las palabras son engañosas, perdieron su significado. No sirven para mostrar sino para encubrir. Sirven en muchos casos para obligarte a algo. O para conducirte o para chantajearte. Espiritual no significa que tengas espiritu (aliento) sino que eres
Dividing the sum total of human musical achievement from Beethoven to The Beatles Busta Rhymes to Bach into just six fundamental forms Levitin illuminates through songs of friendship joy comfort knowledge religion and love how music has been instrumental in the evolution of language thought and culture And how far from being a bit of a song and dance music is at the core of what it means to be human A one time record producer now a leading neuroscientist Levitin has composed a catchy and startlingly ambitious narrative that weaves together Darwin and Dionne Warwick memoir and biology anthropology and a jukebox of anecdote to create nothing less than the soundtrack of civilisation
