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1-Page Summary of How Music Works

Overview

Many rock stars have written books about their careers, but no one has ever explained How Music Works.

Music is a huge part of our lives. It can be found everywhere and it’s used in many different ways. The author gives you an inside look at the world of music from how songs are written to how they’re produced, as well as discussions on Neanderthals and the latest hits.

You will read about how the sounds of traffic influence birds’ singing and vice versa. You’ll also learn why some clubs become popular music scenes while others remain in obscurity. Finally, you will find out how music can affect society, including lowering crime rates and lifting people out of poverty.

Big Idea #1: It’s our surroundings, not just our emotions and skills, that determine the kind of music we make.

When you listen to a piece of music, do you believe it came from an emotion within the composer? Most people would say yes. It’s easy to imagine that the composer was inspired and then wrote down what he or she heard in their head. Western medieval music is usually considered harmonically simple because composers didn’t have as much skill back then.

People used to think that music was created to fit the environment, but it works the other way around. Music is created in a certain environment and then it’s played in similar environments. For example, musicians have always played their instruments in stone-walled Gothic cathedrals because they sound good there. That’s why medieval music had slow melodies with long notes that would resonate for a long time inside these cathedrals. They also had harmonic structures that wouldn’t clash or cause dissonance when two musical keys were being played at once (like shifting between C major and G minor).

Furthermore, the introduction of new technologies led to changes in singing. Microphones allowed singers to sing without needing great vocal projection. Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby were two people who changed their dynamics because of this, becoming pioneers in singing “to the microphone”.

Research shows that animals have evolved to adapt their songs to be heard above noise in the environment. For example, birds in San Francisco raised the pitch of their singing so they could be heard over increased traffic noise. Also, whales recently changed how they make sounds because of increased shipping noises.

Big Idea #2: The advent of recording technology has changed how we create and listen to music.

In 1878, the first music recording was made. This freed music from its live context and changed how we make and experience it. For example, when you play instruments or sing without the distraction of a performance’s visual element, you have to rely on your internal metronome to keep time more precisely.

Furthermore, the use of vibrato became more common. Vibrato is a pitch variation used by singers and string players alike; it obscures the exact pitch of a performance and was therefore initially considered cheating.

Vibrato was used as a way to cover up mistakes. This trend is no longer relevant, however, because we’re so accustomed to vibrato that it’s become normal. We would probably find classical string playing and opera strange without the use of vibrato.

Technology has also changed the way we hear music. American composer John Philip Sousa was afraid that technology would eliminate live performances and reduce the expression of music to a mathematical system revolving around megaphones, wheels, and discs. His fears were somewhat justified since when people think of a piece of music they now think about its sound on a recording. Similarly, live performances are sometimes seen as interpretations or reinterpretations of recordings.