Editor’s note: Arachnophonia (“Arachno” = spider / “-phonia” = sound) is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.
All links included in these posts will take you to either the library catalog record for the item in question or to additional relevant information from around the web.
Today’s installment of Arachnophonia is by student assistant Sophia (class of 2028) and features the book Theft!: A History of Music. Thanks, Sophia!
Theft!: A History of Music by Keith Aoki, James Boyle, and Jennifer Jenkins
I recommend this book called Theft!: A History of Music. If you are looking to learn about music and its creation + the development of various genres but don’t like to read articles, this is the perfect book for you. Since the book is comic-style, it is easy to read and has visuals to go with it.
I like how the beginning of this book starts on a random planet in the universe. A group of people then got into the car and traveled back in time to when people recorded their music on sheets of paper so they could play the music another time. The group of people then found an old sheet of music that showed the notes, lines, and rhythm. This is fascinating to me because thousands of years ago, people wrote sheets of music which is still used to this day. It shows how even though music has evolved, the concept of music writing still exists and has been improved through time. Through the book, you can also see the different perspectives and arguments that happened when the concept of music was first introduced.