History of Music in Timeline

Music, a cultural universal found in all human societies, involves the arrangement of sound to create form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or expressive content. Definitions vary, but music is a versatile medium for expressing creativity. Its creation involves composition, improvisation, and performance, utilizing instruments, including the human voice. Music can be played directly or produced mechanically or electronically.

1900: Harmony in Classical Music

Around 1900, harmony in classical music written from 1600 to 1900 and most Western pop, rock, and traditional music, the key of a piece determines the "home note" or tonic to which the piece generally resolves, and the character of the scale in use.

1900: Romantic music era end

Around 1900, the Romantic music era, which began around 1820, concluded. This era was characterized by its emphasis on emotion, individualism, and the glorification of the past and nature, mirroring similar trends in literature and painting. Romantic music expanded beyond the rigid styles and forms of the Classical era, with composers aiming to evoke deeper emotional expression through their compositions.

1929: Musicians Protest "Canned Music"

In 1929, the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) protested the replacement of live musicians with mechanical playing devices through newspaper advertisements. One ad featured an image of a can labeled "Canned Music / Big Noise Brand / Guaranteed to Produce No Intellectual or Emotional Reaction Whatever".

1941: George Herzog Question on Animal Music

In 1941, George Herzog questioned, "do animals have music?", marking an early inquiry into the presence of musical elements in animal sounds.

1972: Nicolas Ruwet's Publication

In 1972, Nicolas Ruwet's "Language, musique, poésie" introduced paradigmatic segmentation analysis, a technique used in the study of ornitho-musicology.

1983: François-Bernard Mâche Study

In 1983, François-Bernard Mâche's "Musique, mythe, nature, ou les Dauphins d'Arion", studied ornitho-musicology, and showed that bird songs are organised according to a repetition-transformation principle.

Musique, mythe, nature ou Les dauphins d'Arion

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1990: Nattiez on Human Perception of Music

In 1990, Jean-Jacques Nattiez argued that the definition of music is determined by human perception, stating that "it is a human being who decides what is and is not musical, even when the sound is not of human origin."

November 2006: Music Therapy for Schizophrenia

In November 2006, Michael J. Crawford and his colleagues found that music therapy helped schizophrenic patients.

2010: Musicology Sub-Disciplines

Around 2010, musicology scholarship divided into music theory, music history, and ethnomusicology, often enriched by cross-disciplinary work such as in psychoacoustics. The study of music of non-Western cultures, and cultural study of music, is called ethnomusicology.

2012: Women in Vienna Philharmonic

In 2012, women made up just 6% of the top-ranked Vienna Philharmonic orchestra, highlighting the underrepresentation of women in leading musical organizations.

2013: UK Curriculum Changes

In 2013, the UK curriculum added the term "appropriate musical notations" to the list of elements, renaming the list from "elements of music" to "inter-related dimensions of music". The inter-related dimensions included pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure, and musical notations.

2015: Gender Disparity in Canadian Orchestras

In 2015, an article highlighted that 84% of concerto soloists with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra were men, indicating a gender disparity in leading Canadian orchestras.