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A review by amelia_lim
How Music Works: A listener's guide to harmony, keys, broken chords, perfect pitch and the secrets of a good tune by John Powell
3.0
I really enjoyed the first half of the book, definitely learned some interesting facts for example:
1. Plucking a guitar string produces not only one frequency, but a lot of frequencies (fundamental and harmonics). And it is because of this whole mixture of frequencies makes a guitar sounds like a guitar. The different proportion and lifetime of fundamental frequency and harmonics is the reason why different musical instrument has its own unique timbre (tone colour).
2. Why harp and flute sounds more "pure", clarinet and violin sounds more "rich".
3. Why 6 guitars playing together doesn't sound 6 times louder than 1 guitar playing alone.
4. The measuring system for "loudness", decibel, phon and sone.
I find the second half of the book a bit dry and basic, but maybe it's because most of the stuff are music theories and I already knew most of them: chord, harmonic, rhythm, major and minor scale, what is fugue, concerto, sonata etc...
What doesn't really meet my expectation is that it lacks a bit of explanation of the underlying physics. Take the 1st example I listed above, I would like to know more about: Standing wave. How does plucking a guitar string eventually produces standing wave? Why a mixture of frequencies, why not just one?
But to be fair, maybe adding those explanations would be too much and doesn't meet the goal of making this book as simple and as accessible as possible for people who doesn't have a basic knowledge of physics and music theory.
Overall, it's an interesting and easy to read yet informative book :)
1. Plucking a guitar string produces not only one frequency, but a lot of frequencies (fundamental and harmonics). And it is because of this whole mixture of frequencies makes a guitar sounds like a guitar. The different proportion and lifetime of fundamental frequency and harmonics is the reason why different musical instrument has its own unique timbre (tone colour).
2. Why harp and flute sounds more "pure", clarinet and violin sounds more "rich".
3. Why 6 guitars playing together doesn't sound 6 times louder than 1 guitar playing alone.
4. The measuring system for "loudness", decibel, phon and sone.
I find the second half of the book a bit dry and basic, but maybe it's because most of the stuff are music theories and I already knew most of them: chord, harmonic, rhythm, major and minor scale, what is fugue, concerto, sonata etc...
What doesn't really meet my expectation is that it lacks a bit of explanation of the underlying physics. Take the 1st example I listed above, I would like to know more about: Standing wave. How does plucking a guitar string eventually produces standing wave? Why a mixture of frequencies, why not just one?
But to be fair, maybe adding those explanations would be too much and doesn't meet the goal of making this book as simple and as accessible as possible for people who doesn't have a basic knowledge of physics and music theory.
Overall, it's an interesting and easy to read yet informative book :)