Wonderfully engaging expansive and ambitious Sound Tracks tells the history of our
relationship with music in sixty detective stories each focusing on the discovery of a musical
instrument - or its fragments - in archaeological digs around the world. Taking us from the
present day - finding a 100-year-old wax cylinder recording on a flea market - all the way back
to the dawn of time - the thrilling discovery of a prehistoric flute - long-lost music is
itself reconstructed as we enter the worlds of those who created it. We feel the delight of a
child in Peru in 700 AD playing with a water-filled pot designed to chirp like a bird we
appreciate the difficult task of a soldier sending signals by trumpet to the next watchtower on
Hadrian's Wall we can almost hear the sounds of the sixty-four bells buried in a tomb in China
in the 5th century BC. Graeme Lawson takes us on a grand tour of the world's greatest musical
discoveries revealing that music is part of human DNA - not just in its role as pastime
entertainment or religious expression but also as a medium in which we commemorate our pasts
communicate with each other and shape our identities relationships and communities. Written
with verve and passion and brimming with astonishing insights Sound Tracks is an enthralling
alternative history of humanity in which the silences of the past are filled with a wonderful
treasure hoard of forgotten sounds and voices.
