Musical Human

The Musical Human takes us on an exhilarating journey across the ages - from Eminem to Mozart and back through the millennia - to explore the vibrant relationship between music and the human species. World-leading musicologist Michael Spitzer brings together the three great realms of music to render a global history on the widest possible canvas: music in our everyday lives; music in world history; and music in evolution, from insects and birds through apes, hominins, people and AI.

This journey reveals how music is situated at the crux of distinctly human experiences of cognition, feeling and even biology, widening, and sometimes closing, the evolutionary gaps between ourselves and animals in surprising ways.

The Musical Human boldly puts the case that music is the most important thing we ever did; it is a fundamental part of what makes us human.