A review by ashleylm
Why You Love Music: From Mozart to Metallica--The Emotional Power of Beautiful Sounds by John Powell

4.0

Not quite the thrill of his earlier book (partly because there was some overlap/repetition), but still an enjoyable, educational read. I shall forever after remain confused about what I learned from How Music Works and what I learned here, but that's all right. In at least one of them I learned that there's nothing special about major or minor scales except that those are the two modes (out of the standard seven available in our typical Western-tuned instruments) that people kind of settled on as their favourites. Had we preferred the Lydian mode, say, our handy major scale might only be known as the obscure Ionian, and the minor as Aeolian. (I'm always delighted/surprised to learn that something which seems "natural" is actually the result of nurture/exposure).

And he's still funny, if not quite as funny as he was a few years earlier, which I appreciate. If you're funny, be funny, whether you're writing about birds, black holes, or baking.

(5* = amazing, terrific book, one of my all-time favourites, 4* = very good book, 3* = good book, but nothing to particularly rave about, 2* = disappointing book, and 1* = awful, just awful. As a statistician I know most books are 3s, but I am biased in my selection and end up mostly with 4s, thank goodness.)