Best described as a
part biographical, part educational and part historical text, How
Music Works is David Byrne's attempt to track the evolution of music
as it has been affected by history, social norms and technology.
Given the author, this is pieced together with a smattering of
stories and references to his career with Talking Heads, his solo
works and relationships with other artists including Brian Eno.
The book's rather large
undertaking splits its subject into several key areas per chapter,
covering different venues and the topic of reverberation in one
chapter and evolving recording technology in another. Other areas
include production methods, the relevance of recording studios past
and present, collaborations and analogue vs digital. What starts off
as a large topic is broken down into a somewhat free-flowing story of
anecdotes, research and examples, making for easy and humour-filled
reading. Byrne is happy to share his knowledge and experiences from
his career and melds them nicely into the narrative. Despite the
sense that Byrne routinely seems to demonstrate that he has "been
there, done that" at every step of the way, his recollections
rarely seem boorish and always have relevance to each point.
It might be easy for
critics to accuse him of being overly nostalgic when looking back on
how things developed and how they affected his band, however Byrne
carries an appreciation of the future and that things move on; none
more so than the music industry. It is in this area that Byrne
certainly makes up for any shortcomings with his no-nonsense
explanation of the music industry. Coming at the subject from the
angle of an amateur musician, I really enjoyed the clear overview of
the industry and the pros and cons that all the options present. In
coming at the subject from a business perspective, the book really
does give some great insights into the industry and adds that the
traditional models are also being circumvented by modern distribution
methods. From a personal point of view I'm not sure whether it has
given me hope or not in terms of making music to make money, but it
has certainly been demystified for me.
Also of note is the
variety in his musical tastes, drawing on his extensive music library
so that when referring to genres or artists to apply to his theories,
these are not limited to the those that he is associated with during
his career. In doing so, you are forced to consider different styles
and the cultures that developed them, emphasising that the book is
about how all music works, not just some. For me, how Music Works is
not designed as the be all and end all of music history and industry
handbook, but a reasoned approach to charting the evolution of music,
its production and consumption and gives plenty of food for thought
for any music aficionados or aspiring artists.
I wasn't aware that Dave Smith of DSI was the man responsible for developing and convincing music makers to adopt Music Instrument Digital Interface for controlling synthesisers and drum machines, so this little article courtesy of Auntie Beeb makes for a good (if short) read. They even make comparisons with the open/free software movement as Smith was more interested in industry adoption of the technology than making money with it, although in hindsight I feel it was better to have a standardizing technology like MIDI rather than unreliable and variable voltage control technology.
