How Music Works

The Science and Psychology of Beautiful Sounds, from Beethoven to the Beatles and Beyond

By: John Powell

Narrated by: Walter Dixon

Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

An enthralling investigation into the mysteries of music. Have you ever wondered how off-key you are while singing in the shower? Or if your Bob Dylan albums really sound better on vinyl? Or why certain songs make you cry?

Now, scientist and musician John Powell invites you on an entertaining journey through the world of music. Discover what distinguishes music from plain old noise, how scales help you memorize songs, what the humble recorder teaches you about timbre (assuming your suffering listeners don’t break it first), why anyone can learn to play a musical instrument, what the absurdly complicated names of classical music pieces actually mean, how musical notes came to be (hint: you can thank a group of stodgy men in 1939 London for that one), how to make an oboe from a drinking straw, and much more.

With wit and charm, and in the simplest terms, Powell explains the science and psychology of music. Clever, informative, and deeply engaging, How Music Works takes the secrets of music away from the world of badly dressed academics and gives every one of us—whether we love to sing or play air guitar—the means to enhance our listening pleasure.

©2010 John Powell (P)2010 Gildan Media Corp

Critic reviews

"Powell conveys the material with enough humor and cocktail party facts to keep the book light and fun." ( Publisher's Weekly)

Not as detailed as I'd like

Wish there was actually more music theory in here, as well as more actual music (there is a bit), given that this is an audiobook. As an amateur guitarist of several years, knowing the basics of chords and scales, I don't feel like I learnt very much about music, other than a few tidbits.

An informative book by an enthusiastic author.

The book does sound like a children's book sometimes. (Which is odd when the explanatory examples involve going to a bar for drinks.) But it is not, really, and I am very grateful to the author that he described all those things that I hear about a lot and kinda supposed to know, but did not really understand clearly.
The book covers a number of topics from the basics of "what is it" to the deep questions of "why is it like this". Totally worth listening if you are not a professional and interested in the topic.
I would say, it did not answer my question "how on earth all these pressure ripples create music?!". But it was an interesting listen anyway.
I cannot say anything against the narration here, the voice of the narrator is pleasant and the style is very professional. But I must say I would love to hear the book narrated by the author himself. John Powell recorded some comments for the main chapters, and they sound very engaging and more alive. I enjoyed the comments a lot. The demonstration of a drinking straw oboe is pure gold! )))

Great writing but so-so content

This author's sense of humor is right up my alley. I'm really in awe of his ability to find humor in the presentation of technical material. I'm a life-long musician and I definitely learned a few things, however, I'm afraid that much of the content is in a no-man's land between the knowledgeable musician and the novice. I don't regret listenting to it or purchasing it but this is not one of my favorite listens. I think this would be great material for someone who's been playing music a couple years and is ready to step up their understanding of musical history and, to some extent, theory.

Avuncular tour of all aspects of music

Simplified, yet detailed explanations of Music Theory, lightened with occasional British humor. The overall tone of the lecture is to encourage the listener to further exploration and a greater appreciation of all kinds of music.

Nearly everyone will get something out of this!

As a guitarist, choral director and musician of over 30 years, I have a pretty good understanding of the physics of music as well as music theory. However, I came away learning a number of new things from this book AND with a more solid understanding of things I already knew.

While I agree that a British reader may have made the listen a little more fun, the narrator was fine for me. The author's recordings at the end of chapters were good in most cases, but his demonstration of vibrato and rubato were generally not that obvious, even to someone who knew exactly what he was doing and trying to communicate.

His explanation of the overtone series and how they contribute to an instrument's sound was VERY good, as was his explanation of how the pentatonic scales were mathematically derived (something that I didn't know).

The author also did a good job near the end of the book explaining the weird "names" for classical compositions. His appendix explaining the intervals and songs that used them was also very good.

Only other criticism (and it is a small one) is that the use of terms tone and semi-tone is less common than whole step and half step, which may confuse some readers a bit.

All in all a really nice read and the author has a GREAT sense of humor!

Every musician should read this!

A easy and fun read about everything music. A complete explanation of how sound and music work, from origins to how and why we listen. I recommend this to every musician and every music lover. Rikki Swin

A good companion book for college music students..

Would you consider the audio edition of How Music Works to be better than the print version?

depends on the reader/listener. I am the kind of person who focuses best while driving, so audio books are great.

What did you like best about this story?

It covers a lot of basic information on sound and music in a straight-forward, easy-to-understand manner with enough humor to keep it from being dry.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

Film???? no

Any additional comments?

YES - the writer should have a music theorist edit the terminology. There is a difference between a note (what we see on paper) and a pitch (what we hear). the author confuses these. There are a few other discrepancies which might hinder other music theory teachers from adopting this book.

Great book - wrong narrator

The book was entertaining, enlightening, and educational, plus funny. The only problem was the book was written by a Brit, using many humorous British expression and slang. The reader was American and the contrast of British writing and American reader didn't work. At the end of each chapter the author, John Powell, comes in and demonstrates with guitar or other instrument what the chapter was about. The author is hilarious and I wish that he or another Brit had read it. I recommend it highly and I learned a lot!

Some good chapters, but no musical sound bites

A few chapters--like those on the development of the diatonic scale are really interesting. The author himself steps in at the end of some chapters to demonstrate principles on his guitar, and this really helps. Problems: there are spoken passages referring to notes and scales that could easily have been backed by musical audio. There are hundreds of places where this could have been done. In a description of a flute, there's no sound bite of a flute. Curious why they didn't bother to use more sounds. Some of content is poorly suited to the audio format.

That's how it works!

What did you love best about How Music Works?

Easly explained diference between ordinary music listener and those with perfect pitch, why some sounds match together and others not. How acients tuned their instruments and why it was standardized just in 1939. It's must have! for everyone who like to play or just learn to play an instrument.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes, it was.