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David Byrne

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How Music Works Paperback – May 2, 2017

by David Byrne (Author)

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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.

Print length

384 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Crown
Publication date

May 2, 2017
Dimensions

6.51 x 1.21 x 8.34 inches
ISBN-10

0804188939
ISBN-13

978-0804188937
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From the Publisher

Kirkus Reviews says, “[a] superbly written dissection of music as an art form and way of life.”

Editorial Reviews

Review

“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

“From the former Talking Heads frontman, a supremely intelligent, superbly written dissection of music as an art form and way of life . . . Byrne touches on all kinds of music from all ages and every part of the world . . . Highly recommended—anyone at all interested in music will learn a lot from this book.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“In this fascinating meditation, Talking Heads frontman Byrne (Bicycle Diaries) explores how social and practical context, more than individual authorship, shaped music making in history and his own career . . . his chapters on Heads recording sessions are some of the most insightful accounts of musical creativity yet penned. The result is a surprising challenge to the romantic cliché of musical genius . . . 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)

“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 . . . It’s fascinating.”—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.”—Kathryn Schulz, New York Magazine

“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

“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

About the Author

DAVID BYRNE is an author, a musician, and a filmmaker known for his creative collaborations and work with the Talking Heads. He resides in New York.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One

Creation in Reverse

I had an extremely slow-dawning insight about creation. That insight is that context largely determines what is written, painted, sculpted, sung, or performed. That doesn’t sound like much of an insight, but it’s actually the opposite of conventional wisdom, which maintains that creation emerges out of some interior emotion, from an upwelling of passion or feeling, and that the creative urge will brook no accommodation, that it simply must find an outlet to be heard, read, or seen. The accepted narrative suggests that a classical composer gets a strange look in his or her eye and begins furiously scribbling a fully realized composition that couldn’t exist in any other form. Or that the rock and roll singer is driven by desire and demons, and out bursts this amazing, perfectly shaped song that had to be three minutes and twelve seconds—nothing more, nothing less. This is the romantic notion of how creative work comes to be, but I think the path of creation is almost 180 degrees from this model. I believe that we unconsciously and instinctively make work to fit preexisting formats.

Of course, passion can still be present. Just because the form that one’s work will take is predetermined and opportunistic (meaning one makes something because the opportunity is there), it doesn’t mean that creation must be cold, mechanical, and heartless. Dark and emotional materials usually find a way in, and the tailoring process—form being tailored to fit a given context—is largely unconscious, instinctive. We usually don’t even notice it. Opportunity and availability are often the mother of invention. The emotional story—“something to get off my chest”—still gets told, but its form is guided by prior contextual restrictions. I’m proposing that this is not entirely the bad thing one might expect it to be. Thank goodness, for example, that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time we make something.

In a sense, we work backward, either consciously or unconsciously, creating work that fits the venue available to us. That holds true for the other arts as well: pictures are created that fit and look good on white walls in galleries just as music is written that sounds good either in a dance club or a symphony hall (but probably not in both). In a sense, the space, the platform, and the software “makes” the art, the music, or whatever. After something succeeds, more venues of a similar size and shape are built to accommodate more production of the same. After a while the form of the work that predominates in these spaces is taken for granted—of course we mainly hear symphonies in symphony halls.

In the photo below you can see the room at CBGB where some of the music I wrote was first heard. Try to ignore the lovely decor and think of the size and shape of the space. Next to that is a band performing. The sound in that club was remarkably good—the amount of crap scattered everywhere, the furniture, the bar, the crooked uneven walls and looming ceiling made for both great sound absorption and uneven acoustic reflections—qualities one might spend a fortune to re-create in a recording studio. Well, these qualities were great for this particular music. Because of the lack of reverberation, one could be fairly certain, for example, that details of one’s music would be heard—and given the size of the place, intimate gestures and expressions would be seen and appreciated as well, at least from the waist up. Whatever went on below the waist was generally invisible, obscured by the half-standing, half-sitting audience. Most of the audience would have had no idea that the guy in that photo was rolling around on the stage—he would have simply disappeared from view.

This New York club was initially meant to be a bluegrass and country venue—like Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge in Nashville. The singer George Jones knew the number of steps from the stage door of the Grand Ole Opry to the back door of Tootsie’s—thirty-seven. Charley Pride gave Tootsie Bess a hatpin to use on rowdy customers.Below is a photo of some performers at Tootsie’s. Physically, the two clubs are almost identical. The audience behavior was pretty much the same in both places, too.

The musical differences between the two venues are less significant than one might think—structurally, the music emanating from them was pretty much identical, even though once upon a time a country music audience at Tootsie’s would have hated punk rock, and vice versa. When Talking Heads first played in Nashville, the announcer declaimed, “Punk rock comes to Nashville! For the first, and probably the last time!”

Both of these places are bars. People drink, make new friends, shout, and fall down, so the performers had to play loud enough to be heard above that—and so it was, and is. (FYI: the volume in Tootsie’s is much louder than it usually was in CBGB.)

Looking at this scant evidence, I asked myself, to what extent was I writing music specifically, and maybe unconsciously, to fit these places? (I didn’t know about Tootsie’s when I began to write songs.) So I did a little digging to see if other types of music might have also been written to fit their acoustic contexts.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Crown; Reprint edition (May 2, 2017)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0804188939
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0804188937
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.85 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.51 x 1.21 x 8.34 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #30,996 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2 in Music Appreciation (Books)
- #8 in Music Reference (Books)
- #13 in Music History & Criticism (Books)

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David Byrne

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A cofounder of the musical group Talking Heads, David Byrne has also released several solo albums in addition to collaborating with such noted artists as Twyla Tharp, Robert Wilson, and Brian Eno. His art includes photography and installation works and has been published in five books. He lives in New York and he recently added some new bike racks of his own design around town, thanks to the Department of Transportation.

Photo © Catalina Kulczar-Marin

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Lizzy EH

David Byrne is brilliant and so is this book.

Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2023

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I loved this book!. As a long time admirer of David Byrne’s creative, thoughtful and brilliant musician and artist.
He is also a thoughtful human that transcends music into enlightened thoughts and brilliant ideas about life. So inspiring!

Many people may not be as interested as I am, understandably. That is a warning that it is not for most. It is for dedicated, earnest people who have a passion to learn more about David Byrne. It is definitely not a casual read. Listening to his music is a wonderful way to experience his life inspiration too.

It’s a longer read than I thought and complex. However, it was pleasurable and worth the time for me.. I’m thrilled to find this book. I may read it again in the near future. It’s a keeper!

There are a very few mentions of outdated technologies as it changes so quickly, but that is easy to disregard.

It is his biography up to the time that this was written. It is about the evolution of his career, influences, experiences and creative processes for him and others. There is a deep connection about how he was inspired to collaborate with other musicians and find meanings from different cultures. Later in the book he addresses the complexity of the music business. Throughout the book I was able to better understand him.

5 people found this helpful

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JC Davenport

Profound

Reviewed in the United States on September 19, 2022

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Like a lot of music I discover, I feel like I'm late to the party for this book. It came out ten years ago, but was updated some in 2017. I think It is still immediate and relevant, the only minor changes in music business the near death of the CD and the takeover of streaming. Overall I think it is well deserving of a classic, "must read" for music fans. This is one of the best books I have read in a while. There is entertaining history and numerous personal stories from Byrne, but before and after that he adds insightful and profound chapters on music history, how we think of music and how that keeps changing. Later there is terrific commentary on succeeding in music business, succeeding in creating a "scene" and how to better teach the next generation. The last chapter was partially over my head, but no less important. That's ok because I have a feeling this may be on my re-read list. I have to appreciate that David Byrne, despite his success and the fact that he must know this is an awesome book, uses this platform to promote music itself, and not so much David Byrne.

Finally and oddly for me, I would say don't skip the chapter on the music business. I think I always kind of thought of musicians as somehow spoiled rich people who had more money than they knew what to do with. That also goes for actors and athletes in my small brain. But this book somehow conveys the reality that they are all "temp" workers, working gig to gig, choosing to pursue their art/heart over perhaps more rational/longer term professions. Ok a lot of them are still rich. But after reading this I think . . you guys deserve all the money you can get.

10 people found this helpful

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Acorn

Music & more!

Reviewed in the United States on October 23, 2012

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David Byrne is best known for his work with Talking Heads, his collaborations with various other artists and the diversity of the musical styles that he embraces. He is an enthusiastic amateur in the original sense of that word: a man in love with music. In recent years he has also taken to writing and it is hard not to be impressed by the keen interest he takes in the world around him. This is the first book in which he turns his attention to music: what it is, why it moves us, how it has been shaped by technology and its physical surroundings, and the way that modern capitalism turned it into a lucrative business. Well, lucrative for some.

He hypothesizes that music is made to fit the physical locations in which it is performed, and later looks at how technology has both shaped music and how music can be played and heard. There are plenty of examples, but there are also some things that contradict his argument. Mozart might have written music to suit the parlours of his patrons, but brash and bossy Wagner demanded that bigger halls be built to accommodate his musical ego. The technology of recording limited what could be played as well as the duration of songs, but people (including Byrne) were always pushing new technology to do more, experimenting with ways to subvert existing limits. What he shows in fact is that the physical constraints of venues and technology are in constant tension with music makers and performers, and it is this which propels innovation. His deterministic argument is therefore too one-sided. He covers this field well, but another chapter on instruments themselves would have rounded out his theme.

The chapter `My Life in Performance' is largely autobiographical, but does look at how artistry and ritual have been incorporated into the way music is performed. Byrne stresses the ephemeral nature of live musical performance, something we tend to forget when we have recordings that we can access anytime. How a performance looks and feels, whether it moves us to get up and dance, or sing along, determines whether the memory remains with us. At its best, live musical performance is a social event, an opportunity for sharing joy.

Byrne is a firm believer that music making should be collaborative and social. He notes how modern recording technology has turned us from being music makers and singers into being passive consumers, most typically these days in a cocoon of our own headphones. Recording has made us believe that there is a single `ideal' version of a song or piece of music, meaning that we underappreciate the diversity that live performance allows. Technology appears to have made us richer by making music ubiquitous, but in fact we are poorer because it has robbed us of creativity. When was the last time you and your family or friends sat around and sang, or played a rollicking tune?

There is quite a bit of detail in this book about the music business and why some artists make money while many do not. Byrne tries to map out six models for making money out of recorded music, but I found this aspect of the book rather limited in its vision. It may be that the long twentieth century was the exception in turning recorded music into gold. Before recording, money was made from performance. Modern technology allowed fortunes to be made in producing and selling recordings, but now digital technology might be the undoing of this parasitic industry.

People can not only produce and distribute their own music via their laptops, they can also download and share other people's music without paying anyone. Some artists have already experimented with giving away music online, but most continue to charge. Companies like Apple are determined to reincarnate the old record industry in digital form, but it only takes one paid-for file to hit the web and then it can be everywhere. Recording company executives gag on their business lunches over this sort of thing, but it might be good for creativity if it means that digital versions of songs eventually become free advertisements and that money is again generated by live performance. The number of live shows would increase, as would the number of bands and singers, and artists unable to perform live would (mercifully) disappear. Creative control would revert to artists and small teams of tour managers rather than the big entrepreneurs. Byrne never quite gets to these consequences of technology, but the evidence he presents and the nature of the business models he lists underline how threatened the old recording industry now is.

There is some repetition in this book, and the odd weak chapter, such as the one on how to create a music `scene' (almost wholly based on Byrne's experiences at the CBGB club in New York). But there is much that will engross you and make you think about music more generally. Despite a life in recording, Byrne remains committed to live performance and encourages people to express their feelings through music and song. He is a firm believer in the inspirational value of music making, as well as stressing the discipline and patience it requires. Mastering an instrument, training your voice and crafting a good song are all skills that can make us better people, even if few of us will be geniuses at it. And when we create and perform together, there is a community and fellowship that allows emotion and pleasure to be shared.

You don't have to be a diehard music fan to like this book. It is a thoughtful look at the role of art and creativity in our lives, as well as the mechanics and economics of music. In our modern, lonely world of ear buds and doof-doof cars, Byrne sees a great deal of alienation from the rich role that music can play in our lives. When I was a child, a local street sweeper used to walk around our neighbourhood singing at the top of his voice while he worked. We all thought he was nuts, but perhaps he was the one enjoying the real world after all.

29 people found this helpful

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Cesar Cuellar

Is there something that David Byrne can not do?

Reviewed in Mexico on October 26, 2021

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My book was delivered in good conditions, so nothing relevant there. The book itself is great, amazing insight of all things involved in the music business. David Byrne shows amazing writing skills by sharing his experiences and illustrating his know-how.

One person found this helpful

Big Al

Great, thought provoking work

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 25, 2023

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An enjoyable and informative read, and lots of common ground if you’ve been in anyway involved in the music industry over the last 30+ years.

Will now revisit all the Talking Heads albums with renewed interest

One person found this helpful

ARM

Chegou depressa e se defeitos.

Reviewed in Spain on December 17, 2022

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Chegou depressa e se defeitos.

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Parsec

Hochinteressant!

Reviewed in Germany on May 2, 2022

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Das David Byrne nicht nur ein sehr innovativer Musiker, sondern auch ein kluger Kopf und ein guter Beobachter ist, hat dieser Ausnahmekünstler seit den späten 70ern immer und immer wieder bewiesen... sei es bei den unsterblichen Talking Heads oder auf Solopfaden.

Mit HOW MUSIC WORKS legt Byrne ein hochinteressantes, cleveres und schlichtweg enorm unterhaltsames Buch vor - mit autobiographischen Bezügen analysiert Byrne, wie Musik ihre Wirkung entfaltet. Es macht großen Spaß, Byrne bei seinen Ausführungen zu folgen, und in vielen Punkten liefert er sehr schlüssige und originelle Sichtweisen. Man merkt dem Autor den enormen Erfahrungsschatz seiner fast 50 Jahre lange Karriere an - hier legt ein Künstler seine Gedanken nieder, welcher sich in vielen Kunstformen aktiv war und ist, und der immer wieder bereit war, neue Ausdrucksformen zu verwenden und auch sich neu zu erfinden.

Der Schreibstil ist dabei sehr klar und strukturiert, und bei all dem auch noch sehr instruktiv, aber immer unterhaltsam... Längen hat dieses durchaus umfangreiche Buch nicht.

Ein Punkt, welcher bei der Lektüre dieses Buches etwas irritiert, ist der Umstand, dass David Byrne, wenn es um das Werk der Talking Heads geht, die Beiträge der anderen drei Bandmitglieder relativ wenig würdigt... Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz und Jerry Harrison werden eher am Rande erwähnt, und es entsteht bei der Lektüre unwillkürlich das Gefühl, das mindestens 95 % des Schaffens der Talking Heads von David Byrne stammt, was in dieser Form sicherlich nicht stimmt. Der Streit um den kreativen Input war es angeblich auch, welcher das Ende der Talking Heads besiegelt hat, und wenn ich das vorliegende Buch unter diesem Gesichtspunkt lese klingt dies irgendwie einleuchtend. Über seine sehr produktive Zusammenarbeit mit Brain Eno schreibt David Byrne beispielsweise wesentlich mehr als über die Zusammenarbeit mit den übrigen Mitgliedern der Band, die ihn so berühmt gemacht hat. Dieser Kritikpunkt ist allerdings eher sekundär und macht das vorliegende Buch und seine Ausführungen nicht weniger interessant und lesenswert.

Alles in allem: nicht nur für Talking Heads und / oder David Byrne Fans ein hochinteressantes Buch!

One person found this helpful

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Stefano Bianco

Opera fondamentale

Reviewed in Italy on January 19, 2021

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E' un saggio fondamentale se sei musicista o semplicemente appassionato, con cura tassonomica l' autore analizza i meccanismi del mercato. Talvolta un po' prolisso e superato (ad esempio quando parla del passaggio dal fonografo al digitale), ma negli ultimi capitoli le informazioni su come costruire un piano industriale per un prodotto discografico sono utili e affascinanti, sempre tenendo presente che Byrne si muove nel mercato internazionale/anglosassone.

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