- dawn of time to ~40,000 BCE
The Primordial Thump
the first drum solo, which ran on too long
Clapping, stomping, chanting, and hitting things with other things. The audience and the band were the same people, so nobody could complain about ticket prices.
- ~40,000 BCEto ~3000 BCE
The Bone Flute Breakthrough
the first roadie
The oldest known instruments, flutes carved from bird bone and mammoth ivory, appear. Music starts needing gear.
- -3000 BCEto 500 CE
Temple and Court
the first critic
Mesopotamian lyres, Egyptian harps, and Greek theater with its choruses. Music becomes a profession with patrons, and the Greeks start writing theory about it.
- ~500to ~1400
Chant and Notation
the first version control system
Monks sing Gregorian chant and invent staff notation so they can stop arguing about how the melody went. Troubadours and minstrels take secular music on the road.
- ~1400to ~1750
Polyphony and Patronage
the first management deal
Renaissance and Baroque. Multiple melodies at once, opera is invented, and composers work for churches and aristocrats.
- ~1750to 1900
The Concert Hall and the Virtuoso
the first groupie
Classical and Romantic. Public concerts sell tickets to the middle class, the orchestra grows to its full size, and performers like Liszt draw something close to rock-star crowds.
- 1877to 1950
Captured Sound
the first record deal
The phonograph and radio separate music from the room it was played in. Jazz and blues spread through records and broadcasts.
- 1950to 1990
Plugged In
the first music video
Electric guitars, amplification, stadium rock, synthesizers, and MTV. Performance becomes spectacle, and volume becomes part of the art.
- 1990to 2023
Everyone Is a Band
the first bedroom studio
Digital audio workstations, Auto-Tune, laptops on stage, streaming, livestreamed concerts, and holograms of artists who have died.
- 2023 to now
The Machines Start to Hum
the first proof of life required
AI tools can now produce a finished song, vocals included, from a one-line text prompt. Streaming services fill up with tracks by artists who don't exist, and some real artists hear convincing copies of their own voices singing things they never recorded. The pushback has come from many directions: musicians and songwriters, record labels filing lawsuits, lawmakers drafting labeling and likeness rules, and listeners who go looking for proof that a human was involved. As a result, live performance has become valuable again for a very old reason: you can see a person in the room making the sound. And you can buy merch.
The History of Music
By Brian Mars · · 3 min
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