by: Lazy & EntitledPosted on:

Friday Links: How Music Works Edition

“A host of factors contribute to making the experience of live music a far from objective phenomenon.” – David Byrne, ‘How Music Works’

Don’t usually title the whole column with the name of the book, but it felt appropriate. Gotta be honest, I’m a little nervous to tackle this one. There’s so much to discuss about the art form! Is this the music writing that most closely hews to my own experience of music? Maybe!

But first: a new Lazy & Entitled podcast! We’re debuting a new segment. It’s a book club segment, because we think you should read books every now and again, and also discuss them with your friends. The first book we read together? Lauren Bolger’s The Barre Incidents! Apple | Spotty | SoundCloud

What I’ve Been Reading This Week:

A book by a man who is self-diagnosed with Autism, which, while that doesn’t describe me, I’ve been wondering about myself lately. A book that is not memoir, but features plenty of cool stories about CBGB, Brian Eno, and Talking Heads. A book that isn’t a science book, but features plenty of science. A book that doesn’t demand you know what a “scale” is, but it’s helpful if you can at least picture a piano (maybe look up “what’s a major scale” and “how to build a chord” on YouTube before reading, or while reading). A book published in 2012 by McSweeney’s, and is top tier McSweeney’s, not kinda-twee-and-annoying McSweeney’s1. I’m talking, of course, about How Music Works by David Byrne.

a book, How Music Works by David Byrne, against a black background
How Music Works by David Byrne

How Music Works by David Byrne: what do I want out of music writing? It feels like a lot of music journalism is contextualizing an album/artist in a specific moment in time and culture, or talking about what the music means—but not on a technical level. Being someone who doesn’t super get the zeitgeist, that’s never quite been my thing. The way I hear music is different from other people, and I don’t say that to brag. I’m just a trained musician, fluent in multiple styles and conversational in many more. I don’t really listen for lyrics, I listen for chords and rhythms and textures and drum beats that surprise me. There’s a mild synesthesia to my listening: the keys of C and G are red, E-flat is sky blue, E and B are seafoam green, D is something like yellow. I sometimes get stuck in musical ruts because I crave vibe so much when putting on a record that it’s often easier to simply go with what I know. All of this onanism in the intro paragraph is leading to the question: does David Byrne, armed with a grandiose title, write about music in a way that hits my brain? Yes.

There’s a heavy emphasis on the science of acoustics—how a space like CBGB or an opera house or symphony hall contributes to music. That stuff affects how composers write, how musicians play, and how audience reacts. Recording technology—such a new thing! Barely more than a century old!—changes what we even perceive of as music. Did you know that opera singers and classical string players didn’t used to use so much vibrato? Did you know that the idea of “the recorded version is the settled version of the song” is a super new idea?

There’s a lot about how wide the world of music is. I had no idea David Byrne was such a fan of Brazilian music. Once you hear it, how can you not be, I guess. There’s so much music in the world. So much I haven’t engaged with. This book inspired me again to check out Chicago’s Ragamala—wonder when that’ll actually happen for me? One of these years.

Talking Heads is a band I think is cool, but one I’ve barely listened to. I don’t know any gossip or drama, and I wasn’t reading critically when reading David’s personal stories of collaborating with this person or that person. He mentions his kids a few times, but no wife, so I looked up how his marriage was going, and wish I hadn’t. It’s my desire to engage with this book as a piece about music, not worry about whether or not a dude who can’t read social cues has pissed off some other dudes in the past. For many reasons, selfish and unselfish, I am sympathetic to people who can’t read social cues. Point of all this is, I went into this book cold, and found it to be a rewarding experience.

LINKS!

Something to listen to while you browse? Should we listen to some Talking Heads? Really, my most salient memory of listening to them is someone putting on a vinyl at one of the poetry reading ragers we threw back in college. Always a band I’ve liked the idea of more than actually listened to. Something that’s changing after reading this book.

What’re you still doing here? Want more Talking Heads?

If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. In the spirit of David Byrne, get out there and listen to a style of music you’ve never listened to before. If you control the aux chord/bluetooth speaker/whatever at your job? Put on something, uh, howtoputthis, uh, difficult for normies. We all need our brains expanded.

Sorry you got an email,

Chris

  1. I’ve never really heard anyone complain about McSweeney’s, and I certainly have a generally overall positive view of it. With some distance from their heyday—or at least what I perceive as their heyday—I can see how some offerings and aesthetics are kinda Millennial Cringe. I’m not trying to disparage anyone, here. More like, there was a time when I would pick up anything from McSweeney’s blind. That’s not quite how I feel anymore. Still, it’s a wonderful, valuable institution. ↩︎

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