How Music Works

De: David Byrne

Narrado por: Andrew Garman, David Byrne

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • David Byrne’s incisive and enthusiastic look at the musical art form, from its very inceptions to the influences that shape it, whether acoustical, economic, social, or technological—now updated with a new chapter on digital curation.

“How Music Works is a buoyant hybrid of social history, anthropological survey, autobiography, personal philosophy, and business manual”—The Boston Globe

Utilizing his incomparable career and inspired collaborations with Talking Heads, Brian Eno, and many others, David Byrne taps deeply into his lifetime of knowledge to explore the panoptic elements of music, how it shapes the human experience, and reveals the impetus behind how we create, consume, distribute, and enjoy the songs, symphonies, and rhythms that provide the backbeat of life. Byrne’s magnum opus uncovers thrilling realizations about the redemptive liberation that music brings us all.

©2012, 2017 Todo Mundo, Ltd. (P)2022 Random House Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Brilliantly original.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Fascinating.”—Booklist

“Extraordinary.”—The Guardian

Brilliant from start to finish!

Besides being one of the greatest working artist alive (let alone musician/songwriter), David Byrnes curiosity and exploration is thorough and thoughtful. This, to me, is a MUST read/listen for anyone interested or simply instinctively drawn to making things.

Like a class I would have liked to take in college

Though I wish there was more from the last 10 years. It got me to think about music in ways I never had before. Definitely worth listening to.

Interesting concepts about music creation

Byrne brings up issues that I never thought about regarding the creation, performance, and listener's perspective of music. He discusses how certain constraints like the acoustics of the venue it will be played, or the length of a recording on a 78 record, or the compression of CDs, all influence how music is written. The ideas of whether music is written to be listened to live or on a recording were interesting. His work with music of multiple cultures and the responses (or maybe his perception of the responses) were also quite interesting.

He kind of lost me when he spent a lot of time on issues of money in music and some of his political views - but it's his book. He managed to do quite well in spite of the bleak way he describes the renumeration for creating music.

I found the book to be engaging and thought-provoking.

One of the best

Picked this up on sale, and was pleasantly surprised. This is such a great overview of the artistic approach to pop music from one of the greats. I have always been a Talking Heads fan, but many friends make Byrne out to be a pompous and arrogant A-hole. I went into the book with no expectations but was constantly amazed by the detail and color of the author’s observations and personal experiences. I learned at least 3 books worth of history and references from the first half of this book alone. It’s truly a gift to be able to get such a vivid peek behind the curtain of one of our generations most creative pop artists.

Lovely meditation on the nature of music

It’s cool to read David Byrne in his own voice. Great rundown on business and licensing models, useful outside music in entrepreneurial ventures.

Great content, bland delivery

Many insights here are wonderful, from one of the greatest pop musicians of our time. Some of the information about the music industry is outdated, but still somewhat relevant.

The narration is pretty bland and sounds monotone, akin to a customer service automated system.

Great Book and Narrator

This is a great book that combines stories about DB's origin and development, with practical info about the music industry over time, aspects of music theory not often explained, and predictions and preferences for where music is going.

The performance of the book was great as well. I can imagine that DB used his ear for sound to select someone who presents his thoughts as he would have.

Refreshing stance on music

Very convincing points about the role of classical music. Graceful writing starts autobiographical and then gets historical and theoretical.

Great book. Decent reading

This is not really a book on theory and not the story of David Byrne. This is a philosophical look at music from the perspective of one of the modern geniuses. David is so expressive it makes the monotonous reading a little hard to get through but worth while to have the book in the library.

99% Perfect, NEEDS to be narrated by David Byrne!

The content, thoughtfulness, organization and the prose of this book are excellent. I learned so much about the process of making music as well as the business side of the music industry. My favorite part was hearing the stories about how my favorite Talking Heads and David Byrne albums were made, then listening back to those recordings.

An incredible journey that I will certainly revisit again.

The narrator is very good, but I was very disappointed that this was not read by David Byrne and really could not get over my disappointment about that each time I listened. Again, nothing to complain about the narrator (except his pronunciation of Caetano Veloso’s name) but a book by a singer with the beautifully distinctive and iconic voice that fans know and love, will miss that it is not read by the author.

How about a 2nd Edition version read by David Byrne? I’ll buy another one.

Excellent book, though and I highly recommend it for anyone who loves Talking Heads, David Byrne, or music in general.