Music has been a lifeline during Covid - even if we haven’t all dabbled in picking or playing a chosen instrument - there's always Spotify or iTunes.
As Michael Spitzer points out, this shift towards isolated listening is only the latest stage in a transition from active participation in music to our passive consumption of it that has been going on for thousands of years.
Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology - Chiapas, Mexico
Professor Michael Spitzer brings together archaeological, sociological and historical observations, along with theories from biologists and musicologists, to tell the story of what his subtitle boldly claims to be A History of Life on Earth.
Written by Michael Spitzer Read by Simon McBurney Abridged and Produced by Jill Waters A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4
Released On: 06 Apr 2021
Spitzer isn’t afraid of using a sweeping statement or a corny line, and his fractal compositional technique means he has to make do without the narrative thrust of a conventional, linear argument. But The Musical Human is full of delightful nuggets and sends the reader back to a world of musical examples time and time again.
After following the evolution of music over 165m years, he greets the contemporary split between professional performers and passive consumers with little more than a shrug: “We are where we are, and it is where it is.” If music is as central to human existence as he suggests, we can’t leave musicians dancing to the tune of Deliveroo. ~ Book of the Day, The Guardian
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