From the rhythm of my mother's heartbeat to the rebellious riffs of an electric guitar. From Mammoth bone flutes to Star Wars soundtracks. All this music is the code of humanity, encrypted in sounds. Outstanding musicologist Robert Philip invites you to an incredible journey through 40 thousand years of musical history. The pages of this book bring to life the forgotten melodies of ancient civilizations, revolutionary styles and genres born at the intersection of cultures, the stories of hundreds of geniuses who invented musical instruments, recorded sounds on paper and created real masterpieces. Why did Hildegard of Bingen's medieval visions influence the church's position on convents? How did the lute and other instruments from Central Asia conquer Europe? Who developed the blues, ragtime and jazz that rocked social life? What's so special about Jimi Hendrix performing the U.S. national anthem during Woodstock in 1969? This book is your ticket to the musical universe, where each page is like a new track in the playlist that changed the history of mankind. Robert Philip is a well-known British linguist, author of dozens of works on linguistics, cultural studies and Communication, who is able to present complex topics in an accessible and structured way. His book "A Brief History of Music", published in Ukrainian by the Nash format publishing house, is designed for those who want to see the development of music as a continuous process in which each era and culture has left its own distinct mark. This edition opens up a wide path for the reader from the oldest attempts to create rhythm and melody to the modern stage, where classical symphonies and the latest musical trends exist side by side. The author shows how the traditions of different peoples were formed, how they influenced each other, how colonial processes changed the musical landscape, and how trade or migration helped spread new genres. The reader is offered not only a chronology, but also a sense of how music accompanied a person at different times, what themes inspired him, what emotions he conveyed. The book touches on cultural heritage, the role of women in music, the contribution of different ethnic communities, and the importance of sound as the universal language of humanity. Thanks to this, "A Brief History of music" can become a starting point for those who want to systematize knowledge and see familiar works in a new context.