Throughout the history of the British Isles, the land that is now the United Kingdom has been a major music producer, drawing inspiration from church music and traditional folk music, using instruments from England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales. Each of the four countries of the United Kingdom has its own diverse and distinctive folk music forms, which flourished until the era of industrialisation when they began to be replaced by new forms of popular music, including music hall and brass bands. Many British musicians have influenced modern music on a global scale, and the UK has one of the world's largest music industries. English, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh folk music as well as other British styles of music heavily influenced American music such as American folk music, American march music, old-time, ragtime, blues, country, and bluegrass. The UK has birthed many popular music genres such as beat music, psychedelic music, progressive rock/pop, heavy metal, new wave, industrial music, and drum and bass.

In the 20th century, influences from the music of the United States, including blues, jazz, and rock and roll, were adopted in the United Kingdom. The "British Invasion"—spearheaded by Liverpool band the Beatles, widely regarded as the most influential band of all time—saw British rock bands become highly influential around the world in the 1960s and 1970s. Pop music, a term which originated in Britain in the mid-1950s as a description for "rock and roll and the new youth music styles that it influenced",R. Middleton, et al., "Pop", Grove music online, retrieved 14 March 2010. was developed by British artists like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones,"Pop", The Oxford Dictionary of Music, retrieved 9 March 2010. whom among other British musicians led rock and roll's transition into rock music.

Background and classical music

Music in the British Isles, from the earliest recorded times until the Baroque and the rise of recognisably modern classical music, was a diverse and rich culture, including sacred and secular music and ranging from the popular to the elite.R. McKitterick, C. T. Allmand, T. Reuter, D. Abulafia, P. Fouracre, J. Simon, C. Riley-Smith, M. Jones, eds, The New Cambridge Medieval History: C. 1415- C. 1500 (Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 319. Each of the major nations of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales retained unique forms of music and instrumentation, but British music was highly influenced by continental developments, while British composers made an important contribution to many of the major movements in early music in Europe, including the polyphony of the ars nova and laid some of the foundations of later national and international classical music.W. Lovelock, A Concise History of Music (Frederick Ungar, 1953), p. 57. Musicians from the British Isles also developed some distinctive forms of music, including Celtic chant, the Contenance Angloise, the rota, polyphonic votive antiphons and the carol in the medieval era.

Church music and religious music were profoundly affected by the Protestant Reformation which affected Britain from the 16th century, which curtailed events associated with British music and forced the development of distinctive national music, worship and belief. English madrigals, lute ayres and masques in the Renaissance era led particularly to English-language opera developed in the early Baroque period of the later seventeenth century.R. H. Fritze and W. Baxter Robison, Historical dictionary of late medieval England, 1272–1485 (Greenwood, 2002), p. 363; G. H. Cowling, Music on the Shakespearian Stage (Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 6. In contrast, court music of the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, although having unique elements remained much more integrated into wider European culture.

The Baroque era in music, between the early music of the Medieval and Renaissance periods and the development of fully fledged and formalised orchestral classical music in the second half of the 18th century, was characterised by more elaborate musical ornamentation, changes in musical notation, new instrumental playing techniques and the rise of new genres such as opera. Although the term Baroque is conventionally used for European music from about 1600, its full effects were not felt in Britain until after 1660, delayed by native trends and developments in music, religious and cultural differences from many European countries and the disruption to court music caused by the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and Interregnum.J. P. Wainright, 'England ii, 1603–1642' in J. Haar, ed., European Music, 1520–1640 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006), pp. 509–21. Under the restored Stuart monarchy the court became once again a centre of musical patronage, but royal interest in music tended to be less significant as the 17th century progressed, to be revived again under the House of Hanover.T. Carter and J. Butt, The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 280, 300, 433 and 541.

British chamber and orchestral music drew inspiration from continental Europe as it developed into modern classical music. The Baroque era in British music can be seen as an interaction of national and international trends, sometimes absorbing continental fashions and practices and sometimes attempting, as in the creation of ballad opera, to produce an indigenous tradition.M. Lubbock, The Complete Book of Light Opera (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1962) pp. 467–8. However, arguably the most significant British composer of the era, George Frideric Handel, was a naturalised German, who helped integrate British and continental music and define the future of the classical music of the United Kingdom that would be officially formed in 1801.E. Arweck and W. J. F. Keenan, Materializing Religion: Expression, Performance and Ritual (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2006), p. 167.

Musical composition, performance and training in the United Kingdom inherited European classical traditions of the 18th century (above all, in Britain, from the example of Handel) and saw a great expansion during the 19th century.D. Gordon and P. Gordon, Musical Visitors to Britain (Abingdon: Routledge, 2005), , p. 62. Romantic nationalism encouraged clear national identities and sensibilities within the countries of the United Kingdom towards the end of the 19th century, producing many composers and musicians of note and drawing on the folk tradition.B. Sweers, Electric Folk: The Changing Face of English Traditional Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), , p. 47.

These traditions, including the cultural strands drawn from the United Kingdom's constituent nations and provinces, continued to evolve in distinctive ways through the work of such composers as Arthur Sullivan, Gustav Holst, Edward Elgar, Hubert Parry, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Britten,W. Apel, Harvard Dictionary of Music Series I: Diaries (Harvard University Press, 2nd edn., 1969), , p. 292. Michael Tippett, Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle. Notable living British classical composers include Michael Nyman, James MacMillan, Jeremy Peyton Jones, Gavin Bryars, Andrew Poppy, Judith Weir, Sally Beamish and Anna Meredith.

Timeline of British classical music, and its preceding forms

Folk music Each of the four countries of the United Kingdom has its own diverse and distinctive folk music forms. Folk music flourished until the era of industrialisation when it began to be replaced by new forms of popular music, including music hall and brass bands. Realisation of this led to three folk revivals, one in the late-19th century, one in the mid-20th century and one at the start of the 21st century which keeps folk music as an important sub-culture within society.G. Boyes, The Imagined Village: Culture, Ideology, and the English Folk Revival (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993), .

English folk music

England has a long and diverse history of folk music dating back at least to the medieval period and including many forms of music, song and dance. Through three periods of revival from the late nineteenth century much of the tradition has been preserved and continues to be practiced. It led to the creation of a number of fusions with other forms of music that produced subgenres such as British folk rock, folk punk and folk metal and continues to thrive nationally and in regional scenes, particularly in areas such as Northumbria and Cornwall.B. Sweers, Electric Folk: The Changing Face of English Traditional Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), .

Gaels folk music Northern Irish folk music

Ireland, including Northern Ireland, has vibrant folk traditions. The popularity of traditional instruments such as fiddles has remained throughout the centuries even as analogues in Great Britain died out. Perhaps the most famous modern musician from Northern Ireland influenced by folk tradition is Van Morrison.

Scottish folk music

Scottish folk music includes many kinds of songs, including ballads and laments, sung by a single singer with accompaniment by bagpipes, fiddles or harps. Traditional dances include waltzes, reels, strathspeys and jigs. Alongside the other areas of the United Kingdom, Scotland underwent a roots revival in the 1960s. Cathy-Ann McPhee and Jeannie Robertson were the heroes of this revival, which inspired some revolutions in band formats by groups like The Clutha, The Whistlebinkies, The Boys of the Lough and the Incredible String Band.

Welsh folk music

Wales is a Celtic country that features folk music played at twmpathau (communal dances) and gwyl werin (music festivals). Welsh music also includes male voice choirs and songs accompanied by a harp. Having long been subordinate to English culture, Welsh musicians in the late 20th century had to reconstruct traditional music when a roots revival began. This revival began in the late 1970s and achieved some mainstream success in the UK in the 1980s with performers like Robin Huw Bowen, Moniars and Gwerinos.

Early British popular music

In the sense of commercial music enjoyed by the people, British popular music can be seen to originate in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with the arrival of the broadside ballad, which were sold cheaply and in great numbers until the nineteenth century.B. Capp, 'Popular literature', in B. Reay, ed., Popular Culture in Seventeenth-Century England (Routledge, 1985), p. 199. Further technological, economic and social changes led to new forms of music in the 20th century, including the brass band, which produced a popular and communal form of classical music.T. Herbert, The British Brass Band: a Musical and Social History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 4-5. Similarly, the music hall sprang up to cater for the entertainment of new urban societies, adapting existing forms of music to produce popular songs and acts.Diana Howard London Theatres and Music Halls 1850-1950 (1970). In the 1930s, the influence of American Jazz led to the creation of British dance bands, who provided a social and popular music that began to dominate social occasions and the radio airwaves.C. Parsonage, The evolution of jazz in Britain, 1880-1935 (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2005), pp. 197-200.

Modern British popular music

Pioneering and developments