--- title: Music History description: Music History is the study of musical traditions, genres, and composers across different eras. You will understand how historical events shaped musical styles, and learn to identify key characteristics of classical, jazz, popular, and global music traditions. category: music-audio subcategory: music-theory difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced url: /subject/music-history --- # Music History Music History is the study of musical traditions, genres, and composers across different eras. You will understand how historical events shaped musical styles, and learn to identify key characteristics of classical, jazz, popular, and global music traditions. ## Where to start Start with A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs, Andrew Hickey's free podcast that works chronologically from 1938 to 1999 and uses each recording to explain the people and social conditions behind it. If you only use one resource, make it Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press's scholarly reference on composers, genres, instruments and traditions across periods. For twentieth-century classical music, read Alex Ross's The Rest Is Noise. ## Available Resources 2 Books • 1 Courses • 3 Websites ## Websites ### 1. IMSLP The Petrucci Music Library, a volunteer-run archive of public-domain scores and recordings covering most of the classical canon. Lets you locate historical editions of a work and compare engravings before deciding which edition to practise from. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://imslp.org/ **Tags:** sheet-music, public-domain, classical-repertoire, scores, score-archive ### 2. Grove Music Online An Oxford University Press reference work covering composers, genres, instruments, theory, and regional traditions in signed scholarly articles with bibliographies. Readers can trace a term or figure across periods and follow citations into primary musicological literature. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic **Tags:** musicology, music-reference, encyclopedia, music-history, composers ### 3. allmusic.com AllMusic is a comprehensive music database offering artist bios, complete discographies, and album reviews, along with genre guides and historical context. It helps you explore the evolution of music across styles and eras and discover recommended listening. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://allmusic.com **Tags:** websites, arts-design, creative-arts ## Podcasts ### 1. A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs **Author:** Andrew Hickey Podcast working chronologically from 1938 to 1999, devoting an episode to each of five hundred recordings and using it to explain the performers, producers, labels, and social conditions that shaped rock's development. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** en-US | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://500songs.com/series/a-history-of-rock-music-in-500-songs/ **Tags:** rock music, popular music history, music podcast, 20th-century music, cultural history ## Courses ### 1. Listening to Music — MUSI 112 (Yale / Open Yale Courses) **Author:** Craig Wright Open Yale Courses introductory course of 23 recorded lectures by Craig Wright on how Western classical music is built: rhythm, melody, harmony, texture and form, then genres such as fugue, sonata, symphony and opera. Learners can follow and describe what they hear. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://oyc.yale.edu/music/musi-112/lecture-1 **Tags:** music-appreciation, classical-music, musical-form, active-listening, music-history ## Books ### 1. Music: A Very Short Introduction **Author:** Nicholas Cook Nicholas Cook argues that music is a cultural practice rather than a fixed set of works, examining performance, notation, criticism and canon formation. Readers come away questioning how Western assumptions shape what counts as music. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0192853821?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** musicology, music aesthetics, western classical music, cultural criticism, short introduction ### 2. The Rest Is Noise **Author:** Alex Ross Alex Ross traces twentieth-century classical music from Strauss and Mahler through Schoenberg, Shostakovich, Britten and postwar experimentalism, tying each to its political moment. Readers gain a narrative map of why modern concert music sounds as it does. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/1841154768?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** 20th-century music, classical music, modernism, cultural history, composers --- *This content is part of Dantes.io - Your Treasure Map to Knowledge* *Curated by humans at Dantes.io. Personal study use welcome; republishing this curation requires permission (team@dantes.io).* View this page online: https://dantes.io/subject/music-history