"Part rigorous history and part insightful commentary, Mad Skills tells the story behind MIDI, aka the Musical Instrument Digital Interface, through the twenthieth century's kaleidoscopic lens. Guiding us across one hundred years of musical instruments, and the music made with them, Mad Skills recounts the technical and creative innovations that led to the making of the most vital, long-standing, ubiquitous, and yet invisible music technology of our time"--Back cover.