How Music Works

Like a lot of music I discover, I feel like I'm late to the party for this book. It came out ten years ago, but was updated some in 2017. I think It is still immediate and relevant, the only minor changes in music business the near death of the CD and the takeover of streaming. Overall I think it is well deserving of a classic, "must read" for music fans. This is one of the best books I have read in a while. There is entertaining history and numerous personal stories from Byrne, but before and after that he adds insightful and profound chapters on music history, how we think of music and how that keeps changing. Later there is terrific commentary on succeeding in music business, succeeding in creating a "scene" and how to better teach the next generation. The last chapter was partially over my head, but no less important. That's ok because I have a feeling this may be on my re-read list. I have to appreciate that David Byrne, despite his success and the fact that he must know this is an awesome book, uses this platform to promote music itself, and not so much David Byrne. Finally and oddly for me, I would say don't skip the chapter on the music business. I think I always kind of thought of musicians as somehow spoiled rich people who had more money than they knew what to do with. That also goes for actors and athletes in my small brain. But this book somehow conveys the reality that they are all "temp" workers, working gig to gig, choosing to pursue their art/heart over perhaps more rational/longer term professions. Ok a lot of them are still rich. But after reading this I think . . you guys deserve all the money you can get.

It would be difficult to praise this book too much. Clearly at age 60 David Byrne has had a lot of experience in the world of music and has had a lot of time to think about it and he has graciously decided to share his thoughts here. The book starts out as a sort of anthropological look at music in general, then continues as he explains how the actual space in which the music is created (a small tavern, a concert hall, or a forest, for example) influences what type of music is produced. Or how technology changes and influences music. There is quite a bit of musical autobiography here as he discusses his work with Talking Heads, and subsequent projects. Personally the first five Talking Heads albums (especially #1 and #2) were and are incredibly important and influential in my own personal history, and even in my development from a youth to an adult; but after the fifth album I moved in a different direction musically than Byrne did and honestly, unless I heard it on the radio, I have never even listened to his subsequent works - so it was interesting read about them here. As the book progresses Byrne explains much about the technical processes involved in recording music and the business side of music - that is to say different ways in which the music is marketed and sold. It's all fascinating, the writing is just right - I never actually thought "Oh, get over yourself!" even during the autobiographical sections, (this demonstrates the perfection of his writing style), the illustrations were interesting, and physically the hard cover McSweeney's edition is in itself a work of art. This is interesting - I recommended this book to my Dad, who is 76 years old. He knows who David Byrne and Talking Heads are and he never really liked them at all (but I know he got to hear a lot of their music, probably against his will, as I lived in his house during my five year infatuation with Talking Heads) but he loved the book stating he thought Byrne was a genius! Actually I will just go ahead and quote his email review - I don't think he will mind: "I've mentioned this book, recommended to me by Michael, to each of you whom I've seen in the past week or so. I found "How Music Works" by David Byrne to be fascinating and it's opened up to me new ways of looking at music in the world. I'll leave it to the Amazon description which I've included to give you a general overview. I have never been a 'Talking Heads' fan but that doesn't matter while reading this thing. This guy is a genius and his observations are very stimulating, thought provoking. He knows whereof he speaks and, though I didn't grasp some topics. I am really glad I tried."

Byrne begins his wide-ranging historical, technological, psychological and sociological examination of music with a novel insight: architecture of musical venues shape composition and instrumental arrangements. Regarding huge gothic cathedrals, intimate nightclubs, and jungle camp sites, room reverberation, volume of space, and audience vocal ambience dictate modal versus scale works, instrument development, and performance dynamics. The great revolutionary divide was recording technology, and musicians discovered that what works live does not necesarily achieve the same result on vinyl, tape, CD, or .mp3, and vice versa. Expectations often lead to disappointment and the performance and performer suffers. With such an interesting introduction, the book offers much promise. It almost fulfills expectations with both personal and general tidbits and theses that reward the reader, though for myself his personal examples are somewhat weaker. The second chapter is an musical autobiographical section describing the evolution of his music and stage attire over the succeeding eras of rock. In his world travels, his encounter with Japanese and Balinese traditional music and theatre art had a profound influence on the development of his stage craft. One of his suits clearly had classic Japanese origins. Chapters 3 and 4 return to musicology with an expansion of the role of technology, recording and playback. The historical account is amusing when considering the delusions of reality instilled by each new device on the unconditioned and uneducated ear. The ideal of recordings was and remains an actual live performance, particularly among classical music fans; but the alternative worthy philosophy is the electronic creation of uniquely shaped sound itself, as with tape editing, synthesizers and digital programming, and electric instrument design. Oddly, computerized editing of recordings to achieve perfection in tempo, pitch, and so forth proved imperfect to the ear and lacking in warmth and positive emotional value. Byrne does not elaborate in later chapters, but recordings (and its transmission over radio) changed society by uniting peoples, speeding musical development, and (for instance, in Brazil) of overturning governmental policy of approved musical forms. I do not share Bryne's lament about the calculus-like wave sectioning of digital CDs over analogue LPs because of psychoacoutics, an aging ear, and the fact that speakers are yet analogue in their cone movement and shaping. Of interest is Byrne's belief that we are now so awash in music, indeed private music on personal .mp3 players and smart phones, that live performances are becoming more important, as that increasingly rare commodity, silence. I enjoyed Bryne's relating, in brief James Burke fashion, the connection of the Chinese mouth organ, the shen, to digital computers. Chapter 5 is again more personal with Bryne's experiences in a recording studio and the art, engineering, and strategy of creating an album. Entire books have been written and documentary films have focused on this subject, but the use of computers on mixing boards is a new phenomenon. The following chapter discusses his collaborations. He had already mentioned his albums with Brian Eno, but now Byrne moves beyond Talking Heads by developing music with Caetano Veloso and choreographer Twyla Tharp and creating with Norman Cook [Fatboy Slim] a theatrical piece on the Philippine's Imelda Marcos. Chapter 7 is all about the business and financial side of the music industry. There are pie charts. He explains the very recent changes in industry, when musicians can edit and mix their music on their laptop computers and distribute it via digital download and cloud companies and promote themselves with YouTube videos and have kickstarter campaigns to get public underwriters. The giant brick & mortar record shops (Tower, Borders, Virgin Megastore) are no more and the power of music labels are severely diminished. This chapter should be read by anyone considering how to create and promote their own music; he describes various business models. The next chapter furthers practical advice on the choice of venues, song material, the courage to be different, responsibility to band members and fellow musicians, and so on. It is a peculiar chapter for such a book. Chapter 9 pulls back to a shotgun approach critical of musical elitism and lauding the amateur musician. In the days before mass-marketed recordings, there was a piano in the parlor. Even in the 1960s, every kid (yours truly included) had an acoustic guitar, singing folk songs. Until very recently, courses in music appreciation were dedicated only to classical music and rarely jazz. Governmental and corporate funding erected costly symphony halls and museums. Byrne seems to ignore the reality that these measures were to preserve and encourage endangered music styles and that the masses are doing fine in supporting pop and avant-garde culture, filling stadiums and arenas and small local music joints. Symphony halls are not restricted to dead European composers; I have heard contemporary American, Japanese, Argentinian, Iranian, and other world composers. Still, the point is taken when middle and high schools do not offer music and art classes and other nations support amateur musicians, music clubs, and youth bands and orchestras. Music and art should not be passive art forms. The final chapter covers music as a human, biological, and indeed metaphysical essence. This historical and anthropological section sketches prehistorical, ancient, and early modern musical instruments, musical sciences, and philosophies. Everything vibrates, from atoms to planets. He does not include it, but string theory of matter involves vibrating strands of energy. Bryne briefly mentions the differing scales of music across the planet, the relationship of language and speech to music, neurological imprinting of music and its performance, music in religious rituals [Taliban and similar zealots aside], the natural ambient music appreciated by John Cage and the composed ambient music of Satie, Eno, and Feldman, and various other aspects of music. Bryne can only touch upon these large subjects as he closes the book. While it may lead to further reading, I find the section too scattered to be truly effective. This grand book, with its padded cover, offers a little of everything to everyone. Fans of Bryne, as leader of the Talking Heads or as musicologist, will surely find much to appreciate here. I do think, however, that he could have prepared two smaller books, one dedicated to the practice of musicmaking today and one to music's historical and anthropological aspects.

I think Burne is a genius. Burne is inquisitive ; he's a mover and shaker who explores the dynamics of music, he doesn't merely recan what he knows. The book is beautifully written in a warm, conversational tone. He can spin a phrase, his prose is pitch perfect. There's even pure poetry in his prose. I had to stop at times, mark a passage, and let myself absorb the completely beauty of some of his observations. You will love David Burne after this book if you don't already. He is likeable, fair, honest, funny, guileless and of a brilliant mind.

This is a masterwork - David Byrne has really outdone himself with this erudite, well-thought-out & insightful book that is part auto-biography, but is mostly him sharing the wisdom from his long eclectic music career. This is one of those books you'll read & find yourself nodding or saying "right!" out loud. Dave takes half-intuitions I've built over a lifetime of being creative sonically & with words/lyrics & brings them all out into the open & examines them in the kind of clear manner only an analytical & creative introvert could do. It really doesn't matter if you like the Talking Heads or not -- though it wouldn't hurt to like them or David Byrne to read this. But it's really band-agnostic & applies to all kinds of musics & anyone making music now or thinking of doing so. If you create music of any sort & are thinking of getting this book: GET IT! I read a lot of books, especially non-fiction, and this is one of the best books I've read in years. I began wanting to underline passages or turn down page corners to find the good parts & started off doing that (books I own aren't museum pieces to be treated like glass-covered art, but utilitarian objects for learning) -- but I found myself wanting to underline most of the text & bookmark almost every page. So instead of notes & bookmarking, I'm just going to read it at least one more time, all the way through - paying more attention to digesting the deeper info & ideas on musical approaches that spill from this incredible tome on every page. I can't say enough good things about this book & have already recommended it to all my musician friends & 2 of them that read parts of it bought it & can't stop calling me telling me how amped they are about it (I forsee many fruitful jam sessions coming very soon). So: great book - GREAT BOOK - 5 out of 5 stars It's the book I wish I read when I started making music. But better late than never! Buy a copy, you won't be sorry.

I liked this book overall. There was a little too much analysis and self promotion of his own work I like the Talking Heads but his explanations of his creative process was too much detail. What I found most fascinating and important were his discussions around the culture of music, social benefits of music to bring communities together, political and commercial implications, music education and finally the science and what is and can be music. I would recommend this to musicians professional and non-professional, educators and anyone else who is involved and deeply engaged with music as a performer, promoter and listener. His breadth of knowledge and research is impressive.

This is David Byrne week for me. On Sunday, I caught the sensational David Byrne and St. Vincent show at the Orpheum Theater in Boston. The last time I saw Byrne live was when I caught the Talking Heads on August 19, 1983 at the old Forrest Hills Tennis Stadium in New York City. So, clearly I was already a Byrne fan. How Music Works The other part of David Byrne week is his fabulous new book How Music Works. The book is Byrne's take on the industry he's succeeded in. He offers keen observations about the music industry, the art of making music, telling stories in the book using a combination of history, anthropology, and music theory. I love this book! In particular, Byrne has a fascinating take on the development of music, which is quite different from what other music historians say. In a chapter titled "Creation in Reverse" he argues that music evolves to fill the space where it is performed. For example, the Talking Heads evolved in the 1970s at New York punk club CBGB requiring volume to overcome the din. The sparse music that came out of the CBGB scene such as the Ramones and Television worked perfectly for that room. Music that evolved in gothic cathedrals (lots of reverberation) has long notes with no key changes. Carnegie Hall and other similar rooms require texture. With discos, people made music to exploit the fantastic sound systems and people's need to dance. Rock music played in hockey arenas (the worst acoustics on the planet) must be straightforward with medium tempos. You get the idea. The music that is successful works perfectly for each venue. With personal sound systems (starting with the Walkman in the 1970s then evolving into MP3 players such as the iPod), all of a sudden you can hear every single detail. This allowed pop music to evolve from its early radio form. Byrne has a 2010 TED Talk on this idea: "How architecture helped music evolve." How Content Works As I devoured How Music Works I was constantly thinking how Byrne's ideas apply to other forms of content. I think the ideas are valid when thinking about the written word, video content, and the Web. I used the ideas in How Music Works to formulate ideas about content in general. David Byrne's How Music Works is amazing. Read it. And as you do if you're not in the music business, feel free to substitute "content" for "music" and see where the ideas lead you.

David Byrne is best known for his work with Talking Heads, his collaborations with various other artists and the diversity of the musical styles that he embraces. He is an enthusiastic amateur in the original sense of that word: a man in love with music. In recent years he has also taken to writing and it is hard not to be impressed by the keen interest he takes in the world around him. This is the first book in which he turns his attention to music: what it is, why it moves us, how it has been shaped by technology and its physical surroundings, and the way that modern capitalism turned it into a lucrative business. Well, lucrative for some. He hypothesizes that music is made to fit the physical locations in which it is performed, and later looks at how technology has both shaped music and how music can be played and heard. There are plenty of examples, but there are also some things that contradict his argument. Mozart might have written music to suit the parlours of his patrons, but brash and bossy Wagner demanded that bigger halls be built to accommodate his musical ego. The technology of recording limited what could be played as well as the duration of songs, but people (including Byrne) were always pushing new technology to do more, experimenting with ways to subvert existing limits. What he shows in fact is that the physical constraints of venues and technology are in constant tension with music makers and performers, and it is this which propels innovation. His deterministic argument is therefore too one-sided. He covers this field well, but another chapter on instruments themselves would have rounded out his theme. The chapter `My Life in Performance' is largely autobiographical, but does look at how artistry and ritual have been incorporated into the way music is performed. Byrne stresses the ephemeral nature of live musical performance, something we tend to forget when we have recordings that we can access anytime. How a performance looks and feels, whether it moves us to get up and dance, or sing along, determines whether the memory remains with us. At its best, live musical performance is a social event, an opportunity for sharing joy. Byrne is a firm believer that music making should be collaborative and social. He notes how modern recording technology has turned us from being music makers and singers into being passive consumers, most typically these days in a cocoon of our own headphones. Recording has made us believe that there is a single `ideal' version of a song or piece of music, meaning that we underappreciate the diversity that live performance allows. Technology appears to have made us richer by making music ubiquitous, but in fact we are poorer because it has robbed us of creativity. When was the last time you and your family or friends sat around and sang, or played a rollicking tune? There is quite a bit of detail in this book about the music business and why some artists make money while many do not. Byrne tries to map out six models for making money out of recorded music, but I found this aspect of the book rather limited in its vision. It may be that the long twentieth century was the exception in turning recorded music into gold. Before recording, money was made from performance. Modern technology allowed fortunes to be made in producing and selling recordings, but now digital technology might be the undoing of this parasitic industry. People can not only produce and distribute their own music via their laptops, they can also download and share other people's music without paying anyone. Some artists have already experimented with giving away music online, but most continue to charge. Companies like Apple are determined to reincarnate the old record industry in digital form, but it only takes one paid-for file to hit the web and then it can be everywhere. Recording company executives gag on their business lunches over this sort of thing, but it might be good for creativity if it means that digital versions of songs eventually become free advertisements and that money is again generated by live performance. The number of live shows would increase, as would the number of bands and singers, and artists unable to perform live would (mercifully) disappear. Creative control would revert to artists and small teams of tour managers rather than the big entrepreneurs. Byrne never quite gets to these consequences of technology, but the evidence he presents and the nature of the business models he lists underline how threatened the old recording industry now is. There is some repetition in this book, and the odd weak chapter, such as the one on how to create a music `scene' (almost wholly based on Byrne's experiences at the CBGB club in New York). But there is much that will engross you and make you think about music more generally. Despite a life in recording, Byrne remains committed to live performance and encourages people to express their feelings through music and song. He is a firm believer in the inspirational value of music making, as well as stressing the discipline and patience it requires. Mastering an instrument, training your voice and crafting a good song are all skills that can make us better people, even if few of us will be geniuses at it. And when we create and perform together, there is a community and fellowship that allows emotion and pleasure to be shared. You don't have to be a diehard music fan to like this book. It is a thoughtful look at the role of art and creativity in our lives, as well as the mechanics and economics of music. In our modern, lonely world of ear buds and doof-doof cars, Byrne sees a great deal of alienation from the rich role that music can play in our lives. When I was a child, a local street sweeper used to walk around our neighbourhood singing at the top of his voice while he worked. We all thought he was nuts, but perhaps he was the one enjoying the real world after all.

Das David Byrne nicht nur ein sehr innovativer Musiker, sondern auch ein kluger Kopf und ein guter Beobachter ist, hat dieser Ausnahmekünstler seit den späten 70ern immer und immer wieder bewiesen... sei es bei den unsterblichen Talking Heads oder auf Solopfaden. Mit HOW MUSIC WORKS legt Byrne ein hochinteressantes, cleveres und schlichtweg enorm unterhaltsames Buch vor - mit autobiographischen Bezügen analysiert Byrne, wie Musik ihre Wirkung entfaltet. Es macht großen Spaß, Byrne bei seinen Ausführungen zu folgen, und in vielen Punkten liefert er sehr schlüssige und originelle Sichtweisen. Man merkt dem Autor den enormen Erfahrungsschatz seiner fast 50 Jahre lange Karriere an - hier legt ein Künstler seine Gedanken nieder, welcher sich in vielen Kunstformen aktiv war und ist, und der immer wieder bereit war, neue Ausdrucksformen zu verwenden und auch sich neu zu erfinden. Der Schreibstil ist dabei sehr klar und strukturiert, und bei all dem auch noch sehr instruktiv, aber immer unterhaltsam... Längen hat dieses durchaus umfangreiche Buch nicht. Ein Punkt, welcher bei der Lektüre dieses Buches etwas irritiert, ist der Umstand, dass David Byrne, wenn es um das Werk der Talking Heads geht, die Beiträge der anderen drei Bandmitglieder relativ wenig würdigt... Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz und Jerry Harrison werden eher am Rande erwähnt, und es entsteht bei der Lektüre unwillkürlich das Gefühl, das mindestens 95 % des Schaffens der Talking Heads von David Byrne stammt, was in dieser Form sicherlich nicht stimmt. Der Streit um den kreativen Input war es angeblich auch, welcher das Ende der Talking Heads besiegelt hat, und wenn ich das vorliegende Buch unter diesem Gesichtspunkt lese klingt dies irgendwie einleuchtend. Über seine sehr produktive Zusammenarbeit mit Brain Eno schreibt David Byrne beispielsweise wesentlich mehr als über die Zusammenarbeit mit den übrigen Mitgliedern der Band, die ihn so berühmt gemacht hat. Dieser Kritikpunkt ist allerdings eher sekundär und macht das vorliegende Buch und seine Ausführungen nicht weniger interessant und lesenswert. Alles in allem: nicht nur für Talking Heads und / oder David Byrne Fans ein hochinteressantes Buch!

Pour enfin tout comprendre au business de la musique. Si pour vous, le rôle du distributeur, de l'éditeur sont obscurs, si les parts du compositeur, de l'arrangeur, de l'interprète, les contrats de licence et autres deals à 360° c'est du chinois, ce livre a toutes les réponses, clairement exposées. Indispensable à tous les artistes qui veulent comprendre le cadre souvent flou et toujours très complexe dans lequel ils sont appelés à évoluer. Merci David Byrne.

Muy centrado en la música pop.

This is a great insight into the music industry and "the philosophy of music" from a well respected insider. Written in a nice chatty style it brings in all manner of other arty inspirations and melds them together into a neccessarily personal look at what music means, how it is practiced, what it can do and what it does. The behind-the-scenes glimpses into financing and bringing projects to fruition is really interesting to me (makes me glad I never tried to become a pro musician), and how different venues work to different ends was similarly enlightening. It's actually pretty hard to pin down this book in a review. It's read-able and dippable according to how much time you have, there's always something there to interest, and often to enlighten. It's been top of my stack since I bought it.

Does music come from somewhere in the soul, or from the room it's performed in? Is a Gregorian chant made up of long, languorous notes because the staccato notes of a group of singers (or violins, or rock'n'roll guitars) would bounce off the walls and create chaos? David Byrne's most readable book, How Music Works, looks at the medium of music from multiple angles and asks a whack of intriguing questions. In conversational style that makes you feel like you're sitting together over a coffee, he discusses the academic research -- medical, artistic, psychological -- and personal experience as a lover of music, a maker of music, an observer of music, and twists this object we know as music upside down, backwards and forwards again. From his first exposure to music as a listener, his first forays into playing in front of an audience, to his life with Talking Heads, this book could be called, "How to be a serious musician in a modern world." He tells of the various song writing methods he's used: writing lyrics first, writing music first, to jamming in the studio and writing lyrics to fit the notes. He goes through, from his own perspective, the various business models music runs on. But mostly, this book is about art, about who has the 'right' to create it. In his view, everyone. That music making or art making are useful to us all, as a release, as an exploration, as a means to making us all better people. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in music, art, or music making.