Big Bangs

A fascinating account of five turning points that shaped the course of musical history by the popular music broadcaster and composer, Howard Goodall.

Goodall has a prodigious gift for gathering information. People who know nothing about music will learn a lot here

Writing a breezy history of music is a tough nut to crack, but Goodall manages it

Howard Goodall is an Emmy, BRIT and BAFTA award-winning composer of choral music, stage musicals, film and TV scores - among them Red Dwarf, QI and Blackadder - as well as a distinguished broadcaster and the author of Big Bangs: The Story of Five Discoveries that Changed Musical History. In recent years he has been England's first ever National Ambassador for Singing, the Classical Brit Composer of the Year, and Classic FM's Composer-in-Residence. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to music education.

The dramatic story of five key turning points in a thousand years of Western music - discoveries that changed the course of history. 
 
Who first invented 'Doh Re Mi...'? 
 
What do we mean by "in tune"? 
 
Looking back down the corridor of a thousand years, Howard Goodall guides us through the stories of five seismic developments in the history of Western music. His "big bangs" may not be the ones we expect - some are surprising and some are so obvious we overlook them - but all have had an extraordinary impact. 
 
Goodall starts with the invention of notation by an 11th-century Italian monk, which removed the creation of music from the hands of the players to the pens of the composers; moves on to the first opera; then to the invention of the piano, and ends with the story of the first recording made in history. 
 
Howard Goodall has the gift of making these complicated musical advances both clear and utterly fascinating. Racy and vivid in a narrative full of colourful characters and graphic illustrations of technical processes, he also gives a wonderful sense of the culture of trial and error and competition, be it in 11th-century Italy or 19th-century America, in which all progress takes place. 
 
Big Bangs opens a window on the crucial moments in our musical culture - discoveries that made possible everything from Bach to the Beatles - and tells us a riveting story of a millennium of endeavour.

Howard Goodall

Goodall is an engaging and erudite guide and this work is both accessible and illuminating

Great length but still leavened with lively wit

[Goodall] knows his stuff, and tells it well

Highly knowledgeable, and a brilliant communicator, Goodall has an infectious enthusiasm and is genuinely respectful of all forms of music

Now comes Howard Goodall and all of everyone's prayers are answered ... He is sharply witty and entirely on the ball, but he never acts the smart ass and, most importantly, he obviously has deep knowledge of what he is talking about ... I prophesy that it will not only win prizes but change lives

An accessible guide to roughly 42,000 years of music in just over 300 pages that manages neither to sacfrifice precise detail nor pugnacious opinion ... Goodall is unfailingly acute ... a clever, engaging read

There is a Jumpin’ Jack Flash liveliness in Goodall’s approach

Who better to demystify the origins of music and trace the evolution of this most universal of artistic disciplines?

The Story of Music is a lively zip through some 45 millennia … jumping back and forth between classical, folk and pop

He starts right at the beginning, with 25,000-year-old bone flutes ... It's a huge brief, made huger by Goodall's alertness to new thinking in scholarly circles, and his fondness for interesting asides ... a racily written, learned and often shrewdly insightful book

A roller-coaster ride, which Goodall tells with verve... a racily written, learned and often shrewdly insightful book

An accessible guide to roughly 42,000 years of music in just over 300 pages … The Story of Music is a clever, engaging read

Howard Goodall’s beautifully clear and compelling account is both a hymn to human endeavour and a groundbreaking map of man’s musical journey

Goodall's distinguisihing gift is his ability to explain the mechanics of music instead of gliding hastily over them. He is fearless in unknotting those medieval mysteries of oranum and isorhythms, as well as chords, triads, fugues, keys, equal temperament, atonality, dodecaphony and blues

A clear and compelling account which is a hymn to human endeavor and a groundbreaking musical journey

Fascinating – as well as illuminating on how music works

At his best, Goodall has a facility for lively shorthand…

This ambitious and all embracing history of 40, 000 years of music will have you dancing in the aisles

*** Accompanies BBC2's major new TV series and The Story of Music in 50 Pieces on Radio 3 *** 
 
In his dynamic tour through 40,000 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 theatre, the orchestra, dance music, recording, broadcasting – strikes us with its original force. He focuses on what changed when and why, picking out the discoveries that revolutionised man-made sound and bringing to life musical visionaries from the little-known Pérotin to the colossus of Wagner. 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 post-war pop songs have in common.

Howard Goodall

Praise for The Story of Music

A lively zip through some 45 milennia

Goodall is an engaging and erudite guide and this work is both accessible and illuminating

Great length but still leavened with lively wit

A lively zip through some 45 milennia

Goodall is an engaging and erudite guide and this work is both accessible and illuminating

Great length but still leavened with lively wit

A lively zip through some 45 milennia

Goodall is an engaging and erudite guide and this work is both accessible and illuminating

Great length but still leavened with lively wit

Books by Howard Goodall

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