A Secret Chord
When did we, as a species, first start to sing? Archaeologist Dr Brenna Hassett unearths the origins of human music, starting with the first ever instrument: the human voice.
When did we, as a species, first start to sing?
Archaeologist Dr Brenna Hassett takes us on a several-million-year-long journey to ask how we came to be the species that makes music. It is the story of noise. Purposeful, beautiful noise. And the unbelievable talent we have for adapting the material world we live in to make instruments that make noise. And from there, to make music.
But before reed whistles, wooden flutes, stone lithophones and clay drums, the first ever instrument was surely the human voice. When did we learn to sing with it?
Written and read by Dr Brenna Hassett
Produced and directed by Becky Ripley
On radio
Broadcast
- Mon 13 Jul 202621:45BBC Radio 3
Death in Trieste
A 1760s murder still informs ideas about aesthetics, a certain sort of sex, and death.
Watch: My Deaf World
Five compelling experiences of what it is like to be deaf in 21st-century Britain.
The Book that Changed Me
Five figures from the arts and science introduce books that changed their lives and work.
Podcast
![]()
The Essay
Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.
