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.

Reseñas de la Crítica

“A decidedly generous book—welcoming, informal, digressive, full of ideas and intelligence—and one has the pleasant sense that Byrne is speaking directly to the reader, sharing a few confidences he has picked up over the years.”—The Washington Post

“David Byrne is a brilliantly original, eccentric rock star, and he has written a book to match his protean talents . . . What’s best about [it] is that Byrne concentrates on his own experience, from a teenage geek splicing layers of guitar feedback on his father’s tape recorder (he had a mild self-diagnosed case of Asperger’s syndrome, he writes) to arty if neo-primitive rock star with the early Talking Heads at CBGB to increasingly sophisticated, globe-wandering art-rocker, happily collaborating with all manner of world musicians and pop-technological innovators.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Byrne explores a whole symphony of argument in this extraordinary book with the precise, technical enthusiasm you’d expect from the painfully bright art school–educated son—born in Scotland, raised in the States—of an electrical engineer, occasionally mopping his fevered brow in the crestfallen manner of a nineteenth-century poet.”—The Guardian

“How Music Works is as engaging as it is eclectic: a buoyant hybrid of social history, anthropological survey, autobiography, personal philosophy, and business manual, sometimes on the same page . . . Even for the most ardent explorers (and Byrne is one) this is some seriously unknowable territory.”—The Boston Globe

“By all accounts, Byrne’s style and energy are as apparent on the page as on the stage.”—New York Magazine

“Highly recommended—anyone at all interested in music will learn a lot from this book.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Byrne’s erudite and entertaining prose reveals him to be a true musical intellectual, with serious and revealing things to say about his art.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Endlessly fascinating, insightful, and intelligent.”—Booklist (starred review)

“Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, Jay-Z, even Daniel Lanois have all given us books in recent years. And they’ve all been interesting and worth reading. But none of them is as good as David Byrne’s book . . . He weaves his account of the evolution of music from animals to humans and the history of changes in the way music studios work into the most accessible and unpretentious narrative of such a story that I have yet come across.”—The Globe and Mail

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.

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.

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.