#100, "The Story of Music"

The Story of Music: From Babylon to the Beatles
by Howard Goodall

This book was not written for professionals, which made it surprisingly difficult to maintain focus as I read. He took what seemed to be a long time to explain such foundational things as the harmonic series, triads, and serialism, among other more or less technical aspects of music, that slowed down the continuation of the history. Even worse, these concepts seemed to be rather poorly or confusingly described. Maybe it just was that way to me because I came to the book with prior understanding, but I think it is equally possible that for Goodall, an accomplished composer himself, wiring about basic elements of music is more difficult than writing about the complicated ones. As a teacher, that is a problem I deal with regularly. When we know something because we have done it every day for years, it becomes particularly difficult to break it down effectively for those who don't know it already. In my opinion, he did not succeed in that breakdown. The historical parts of the book ranged from interesting to rather controversial. He spent a lot of time on Wagner, which I suppose is his call. I have two main and unforgivable complaints. One, he referred to Indiana Jones as a bounty hunter. Um, what? And two, he did not mention Rachmaninoff a single time. I did enjoy his analysis of the minimalism of the 1980's. I can't say I enjoyed the majority of the book very much.