How Music Works: The Science and Psychology of Beautiful Sounds, from Beethoven to the Beatles and Beyond

Disclaimer: I have not finished the book, I am taking my time to read it slowly to fully understand the great information provided. I also read parts aloud to my husband, who understands music theory quite a bit but is definitely learning from this book. I say this is a great book if you are new to music -- and I mean that you are new to playing music/instruments. Music is its own language, and this book is the beginning of how to understand the language. The author explains concepts using everyday language and both familiar and unique examples. I found his discussion on the harp and the glockenspiel very entertaining and enlightening. Plus the author has a "laugh out loud" sense of humor (yeah, I could have said LOL, but I like words...) Unless you have studied music theory for many years, I believe that anyone who is a musician or a wanna-be musician like myself, will find this book worth the price and the time.

As the title says, this is a book about how music works -- but about how it works in physical sense, not in an artistic or emotional sense. This took me aback, since I'd expected (having foolishly failed toread the write up or the reviews) something about sense and sensibility. But I am very glad I got the book, and read it. The author sets out to make the mechanics of music clear even to readers with no musical education. I am just such a one, and the book does indeed make a lot of things very clear, starting with what makes a sound musical. It proceeds through pitch and frequency, tonality, intervals and scales, keys, modes, and on and on. I learned a lot from the book, and enjoyed doing so. The style is very clear and simple, the organization is excellent, and the examples are well chosen. Only time will tell whether or not having read the book enhances my appreciation of music, Meanwhile, I've learned a lot of stuff that is fun to know. My only question about this book is whether it might be TOO clear and simple for readers who already know a lot about music. I can"t judge that, but such readers might want to read reviews by their peers.

This book was a godsend for me in my efforts to learn music theory as an older beginner. John Powell combines his credentials as a physicist with his deep understanding of music theory in a way perfect for me. I have several books that tell me the “what” about music theory, but this book goes on to explain the “why” music is the way it is, and how it evolved down through history. I believe it is essential for learning to understand the overall concepts holistically, and then work back to the details of how something works. Mr. Powell does an outstanding job of this, and with wit and humor all along the way. I first read this book in its entirety to learn the musical concepts presented, and then as a reference in going back over the chapters in closer reading (keyboard in hand), and my understanding growing by epiphany to epiphany. Mr. Powell took the mystery out of music theory and provided me with the knowledge to understand other authors’ music theory books. I’m still learning, and this book has taken me much farther down the road than I have ever been, and in a relatively short amount of time. I am eternally grateful to you Mr. Powell.

Like many kids growing up, I had piano lessons here and there, but my overall knowledge of music was still pretty basic. "How Music Works" takes a lot of musical concepts and makes it palatable even for people with limited knowledge of music theory but has an interest in better understanding why music works the way it does. From what is perfect pitch to the difference between notes and noise to how exactly instruments like organs and guitars work to scales and more, I learned a lot of fundamentals as well as interesting tidbits along the way. For instance, did you know that music notes weren't standardized until 1939? Meaning that a French flute once sounded different than a German one? Or that Mozart's compositions are now played a pitch or two higher than they were originally composed tuned to his tuning fork? I like too that Powell uses easy to understand examples about music accompanied by photos and diagrams using non-music every day reference points (explaining the concept of resonance with the idea of pushing a swing in a park -- pushing at the right time when the swing is just coming down from the top is simple and far less taxing than trying to push at any other point, or that you can visualize an oboe and its function by creating your own simplified version using a straw). Throughout the book there were plenty of music examples too so you can look up the songs on Youtube to understand references like arpeggio. Overall, I found the book to be a good comprehensive intro to music and well worth my time to read.

This book explains everything you might ever have wondered about music and what makes it music as opposed to mere sounds. The book requires no prior knowledge of music or music theory, or even how to read music, but it is probably only for those seriously interested in "how music works." Mr. Powell presents in a clear and humorous book an explanation of just about everything you could imagine concerning the topic of music and music perception. For example, he gives a brief history of the difficulty in designing musical instruments so that not only do they sound good but allow a transposition from key to key known as "well tempered." (think of Bach's "Well Tempered Clavier.") Powell also delves into the psychology of music and sound perception showing us for example, that humans don't perceive loudness linearly - the old Weber-Fechner Law from psycho-physics. Powell explains why some music sounds sad and some happy and always throughout the books he gives examples from popular to classical works. I loved this book and plan on using it as a supplement in one of my psychology courses on motivation but as I said at the beginning, I think you really should have a burning curiosity about the working of music to stick with the book even as well written as it is. But if you do love music and want to really learn more about it, this is a 5-star place to learn.

Pretty good.

John Powell has two notable features as a writer: he has a gift for explaining the science behind music, and he has an unfortunate weakness for undergraduate humour. If he had worked on the former a little more, at the expense of the latter, this would have been a much more serious and rewarding book. His constant digressions into would-be-funny stories eventually pall on the reader and make the book slow going. Nevertheless, I do recommend it to younger readers who are eager to know why, for example, dissonance jars on the ear, or why a clarinet sounds different to a violin. As far as I know, there is nothing else in the market quite like this book. The next edition will surely be better.

I learned the piano when I was a kid and started up again recently. Even though I did some music theory back then, this book is a much more enjoyable and understandable approach to the subject than those old exercise books. My favorite parts were learning about why scales are the way they are, key shifts, and explaining the jargon of classical music. Personally I was less interested in the earlier chapters about how musical sounds are physically generated - we've all seen those diagrams of vibrating strings already. The author's style is readable and friendly, and the accompanying CD is at times helpful. It also makes you feel that composing need not be a fantasy. If you've ever wanted an actual explanation of why we play the notes and keys we do, this is a terrific book.

It explains in simple concepts what music is without the obfuscation of jargon.

I was going to buy this book after I stumbled across it on Amazon, but after I'd read some of the reviews here, I hesitated. The one thing that seemed to come across in the reviews was that the author's jokes and attempts to be funny got in the way of the science and understanding of music. But eventually I went ahead and bought the book. I have to say, the jokes are actually funny. Some of them made me laugh out loud! OK, one or two are a bit lame, but the majority of them are genuinely witty, self-deprecating and very amusing. John Powell would make a good script-writer. His writing style keeps the book rolling along nicely, and makes it appear as if the author is talking to the reader on the reader's level, rather than from lofty heights of academia. So... does the writing style get in the way of the science? No. Not at all. If anything it helps. And it gave me some really good laughs along the way. Some of the stuff in this book I already knew, and some of it was new. But even for the stuff I already knew, it was great to get a new angle on it and cement or improve my understanding of it. As for the new things, they were explained clearly and in a very understandable way. And in certain circumstances, I was surprised at how easy the understanding of these things was! One thing I was fascinated about was how EASY the maths for equal-temperament tuning was - I'd always been led to believe that it was absolutely fearsome and took mathematicians and musicians YEARS to work out. Turns out that not only was it easy, someone else had done it decades before and simply been ignored! Well, as they say, "you learn something new every day"! This is a great book - real "people science" stuff. Easy to understand, effectively presented and a great read - with some very funny lines to make you laugh as you gather in the information. I'm really grateful to John Powell for writing this book, and I look forward to some more of John's writing on music in the future. Perhaps the next thing he'd like to tackle is the reading of music. I for one would be first in line to read that book if it ever got written! Highly recommended.

Um livro introdutório sobre o funcionamento da música e a psicologia envolvida nela. Talvez muito introdutório para músicos ou profissionais que já estão familiarizados com teoria musical, mas é uma leitura para iniciantes bem agradável.

es un buen libro para explicar la ciencia detras de la musica, pero no abarca la question musical desde el punto de vista de un musico, si lo que buscas es teoria musical, este libro no sera lo mas recomendable

Dieses Buch von John Powell hat mir außergewöhnlich gut gefallen. Es wird beispielsweise sehr interessant und lehrreich beschrieben, wie die Töne verschiedener Musikinstrumente entstehen und warum verschiedene Instrumente so verschieden klingen. Andere Kapitel beschreiben z.B. warum eine Geige zwar einigermaßen laut ist, man aber in einem Konzert mit z.B. 20 Geigen nicht taub wird. Alle Beispiele können sehr gut nachvollzogen werden, wobei der Autor aus meiner Sicht genau die richtige Balance zwischen Genauigkeit, Verständlichkeit und Humor gefunden hat. Ich habe bei der Lektüre mehr über Musik gelernt als in vielen Jahren in der Schule. Dieses hat vermutlich auch damit zu tun, dass der Autor sowohl über eine musikalische als auch physikalische Ausbildung verfügt. Nachdem ich das Buch gelesen habe, höre ich mit wesentlich größerem Interesse als vorher auch klassische Musik, da ich jetzt meinen Hör-Fokus auch auf die unterschiedlichen Klangbilder der Instrumente lege. Ich habe die englische Originalausgabe gelesen. Das Buch wäre auch für Schulklassen eine ausgezeichnete Wahl, da dort musikalisches und gleichzeitig physikalisches Wissen vermittelt wird. Weiterhin trainiert man beim Lesen die englische Sprache. Da der Autor genau meinen Humor getroffen hat, habe ich außerdem bei der Lektüre so viel gelacht wie schon lange nicht mehr. Kurzum: Ich kann das Buch wärmstens empfehlen!