Not-So-Complete History Of Music (very short)

3rd century BC: somebody invented the organ, unfortunately we don’t know who. And anyway it was called Hydraulos. Something like water-organ? Strange…
Around 1200: until then only one melody and one note was sung at once. Then suddenly polyphony came into use, in other words more than one note at the time was played. Could you imagine nowadays music without that?
Around 1600: out of nowhere first operas were written. Maybe someone was bored in the theatre and sung something.
1685: Johann Sebastian Bach was born and became an example for a lot of other composers.
1698 (or at the latest 1700): Bartolomeo Cristofori built the first piano. In the beginning the white keys were black and vice versa. However the piano is very important because they say that all the world’s symphonies are represented in a piano. (But unfortunately the only way to get them out of the piano at once is to throw it out of the window.)
1804-1808: Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his Symphony No. 5. You’ve heard the beginning of it in all possible places. (For example take the song “Roll Over Beethoven”.)
1877: Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, the first device that could record and reproduce human voice. It was also the progenitor of the gramophone but instead of discs phonograph used wax rolls.
1897: ragtime music became popular in the United States; the most famous part of it was written by Scott Joplin.
1920s-1960s: Jazz gained mainstream popularity.
1920: the first commercial radio station in the United States began broadcasting.
1925: big record labels began using electric microphones for recording.
1932: the first electric guitar was made. Today, only in the US alone about 700 000 electric guitars are sold every year.
1940s-1950s: rhythm ‘n’ blues enjoyed its popularity before rock ‘n’ roll.
1950s: Rock ‘n’ roll on every stage and in every dance hall. If you weren’t there, you probably know the „Grease“ with young John Travolta.
1956: Elvis performed the „Hound Dog“ bending his knees and took away the breath of thousands of girls.
1963: Philips made the first cassette tapes. These soon gained popular because the cassette player in a car is a lot more handy than a record player.
1965: the first stadium concert in history took place. The Beatles performed in front of 55 000 people at Shea Stadium in New York. Today it isn’t that much but then it was huge.
1967: Jimi Hendrix put his guitar on fire on the stage. Not by accident but on purpose. They say that Hendrix took the art of guitar playing to a whole new level and they’re right.
1969: Woodstock festival – in three days almost half of million hippies listened to a lot of music in mud and were very peaceful.
1970: Kraftwerk was founded, the band which works had heavy impact on the future electronic music and influenced nearly all genres of modern popular music.
1971: Led Zeppelin released their fourth album with „Stairway To Heaven“ and in some opinion the greatest guitar solo of all times on it.
1977: Sex Pistols sang „God Save The Queen“ and got arrested for that. As a counterweight to punk the “Saturday Night Fever” was released. Its soundtrack became the best selling soundtrack ever. For some reason, nobody got arrested for that.
Mid 1970s-1980s: disco fever all over the world. Even rock stars made disco.
1981: the MTV was launched. It was meant to show music videos but soon it changed the world.
1982: Michael Jackson released “Thriller” - the world’s all-time best selling album with over 104 million sold copies. If you could put all these albums (no matter records, cassettes or CD’s) on top of each other, the tower will be several hundred miles high.
1982: Revolution in recording industry – the first commercial compact disc aka CD was introduced. Over an hour of music on a single 120 mm disc was much more than anyone could imagine before.
1991: Nirvana recorded their “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. Nine years later it was the Most Played Video on MTV Europe.
1995: the first mp3 got to the first customers and after that it spread into the masses. The rest is history.

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