How Music Works
- 374
- Pages
- about 7 h
- Reading time
- NYT bestseller · 0 weeks on the list
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Our view
David Byrne’s “How Music Works” turns his own career into an approachable introduction to music and to the business around it. Some readers with no musical background find it rewarding, helped by his casual, easy prose. Part autobiography, part theory, it goes into technical and commercial detail, and the chapters where he turns personal are the ones some like most.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
How Music Works is a non-fiction book by David Byrne, an American musician, composer, and writer best known for his work with the group Talking Heads. He discusses the form and influence of music in a non-linear narrative fashion, using a variety of experiences from his career to create something part autobiography and part music theory. The book was published through McSweeney's on September 12, 2012, and was named as one of Amazon.com's "Best Books of the Month" in that same month. It has received mainly positive reviews.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.7 across 111 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 43% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Rankings average of 7.8. That is how 7.8 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.6 | 16 | 14% |
| Hardcover | 7.7 | 95 | 86% |
