How Music Grew, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day

Nearly a century old and still startling in its ambition, Marion Bauer's 1925 survey traces music from the first rhythmic impulses of prehistoric humans through to the modern age. What distinguishes this volume from drier music histories is its refusal to treat the story as a simple march toward Western classical music. Bauer pauses to examine the music of cultures often dismissed by contemporary histories: the drumming traditions of Africa, the modal systems of Asia, the ritual music of indigenous peoples. She understood that music did not evolve along a single line but branched in countless directions, each responding to the specific needs, beliefs, and climates of the people who made it. The book crackles with the energy of that original curiosity, the sense that every human society has always needed to sing, to drum, to make noise in organized ways that somehow mean more than mere sound. With sixty-four illustrations that bring ancient instruments and forgotten musicians back to vivid life, this remains a remarkable introduction for anyone who wants to understand not just what music became, but why humans could never stop making it.