About the book
Over forty thousand years ago, humans fashioned flutes from bone. The first book to offer a history of Western music through the lens of tools, Bone Flute to Auto-Tune explores the relationship between music and technology from the Paleolithic Age to the present day. By examining music-technological transitions from across history, including the violin, piano, cymbal, electric guitar and synthesizer, Bone Flute to Auto-Tune thinks through how and why certain changes have taken place and shows how earlier eras have been built into later technologies. The result is a music history attuned to the possibilities that new technologies open up or reveal and those they foreclose or conceal, and that considers what was gained and what lost in the transition from one technology to another. By identifying turning points and trade-offs, a long historical perspective helps us see alternate paths along which music technologies might have developed, and navigate our own moment in the ongoing interplay between technological change and the enduring human need for music.
Coming December 2026, available for pre-order now
Reviews
“Starting out with [a] broad historical tableau allows Loughridge to focus on the nature of change in the field of music going back to some of the earliest instruments, to reveal a number of interesting patterns. On the whole, Loughridge rejects the knee-jerk view that development of music technology is a linear evolution, following a survival of the fittest logic. Things are not quite that simple, and as in most human endeavours, there’s a substantial role played by what we might call politics.”
-Dave Mandl, The Wire (Issue 513, November 2026)“This accessible book offers undergraduates a historical perspective on music technology at a pivotal time when AI tools that produce music are shifting the music landscape once again. The great accomplishment of this book is to cover such a wide range of history, objects, and ideas, within concisely written chapters that use plain language and humor to engage the reader. Loughridge pays particular attention to keeping the users, products, and cultural influences of these technologies woven through the book, so the reader never feels too in the weeds.”
-Ravi Krishnaswami, composer, songwriter, and sound designer“A remarkable and unprecedented achievement that vividly and engagingly explores the story of music and technology across the centuries and around the world. Loughridge dives into the big questions of cultural and ethical values that shape our interactions with a wide range of technologies, including many that readers might expect―like the synthesizer, drum machine, and piano―and many more that may be surprising, such as music notation, tuning systems, the metronome, cymbals, brass instruments, and the banjo. Students, scholars, and readers from any background or area of interest will find exciting and surprising insights on every page.”
-Joseph Auner, Tufts University
Find Bone Flute to Auto-Tune
and accompanying audio/video
Teaching with Bone Flute to Auto-Tune
Sample syllabi
See how Bone Flute to Auto-Tune can be used in these example courses:
sample syllabus for a general education course in history of music technology (editable word doc)
sample syllabus for an undergraduate history of music technology course with major research project (editable word doc)
Additional sample teaching materials
See a sample museum exhibit assignment (editable word doc)
See a sample musical tool analysis assignment (editable word doc)
This music history class takes students way, way back
Read a feature story about the “40,000 Years of Music Technology” course at Northeastern University in NGN Magazine.
See how the course “40,000 Years of Music Technology” fits into Northeastern University’s BA in Music, BS in Music Industry, and BS in Music Technology.
