Publisher's Weekly Review
The mystery of why music moves people gets a stimulating survey in this expansive treatise. Musicologist and composer Gasser, who headed Pandora Radio's Music Genome Project, investigates how music's objective properties underlie subjective preferences in a deep dredge that covers the physics of sonic vibrations; principles of melody, harmony, and rhythm; the science of how the brain processes music and connects it with emotions; sociological theories of musical preferences, class, and fan subcultures; and a disquisition on biology and "the conceptual link between pluripotent stem cells and [musical] theme and variation." Woven in are analyses of musical genres-pop, rock, jazz, hip-hop, electronica, world music, and classical-with exegeses of representative scored examples. (An ability to read music will help in understanding these sections.) Gasser's writing is passionate and generally accessible, though he sometimes stumbles over the inherent difficulty of conveying music through musicology. (A discussion of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary" notes the "unusually small ambitus (range)-only a 5th (B-F-sharp), with most of it limited to the top 3rd (D-F-sharp)" before suggesting "there may just be something about that simple, bayou groove that keeps its fans... coming back.") The book is a sprawl, but serious music lovers will find much fascinating science and lore to browse. (Apr. ) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A sprawling, packed-to-the-brim study of the art and science of music, as monumental and as busy as a Bach fugue.Why does one person like the Rolling Stones and another like Celine Dion? Why does anyone like the Eagles? Are there human universals at play in musical preferences? Gasser, the polymathic mind behind Pandora Radio's Music Genome Project, probes the "sources, nature, and implications of our own, personal musical taste," a taste that cannot always be easily reduced to buy- or listen-next algorithms. Music has features that are essentially invariant among human cultures: It is shaped by rhythm, "the overriding parameter wherein the listener gains an intuitive understanding of the music as a whole," and it comprises melody, harmony, and other sonic elements. But more individually, our musical taste is shaped by all sorts of factors, socio-economic and psychological, that sometimes anticipate and sometimes follow "our membership in intracultures," whether goth or mod or lite-classical. Gasser's overarching aim is not just descriptive. In his forays into all imaginable corners of the musical world, he seeks to soften prejudices and broaden horizons, posing exercises and suggestions such as identifying syncopation in hip-hop tunes and appreciating the power of pre-Islamic chants sung by Saharan women "aimed at bringing the listener into a state of ecstasy." The author's body of examplesbacked by a vast online siteis fittingly broad-ranging, featuring tunes from "Old MacDonald" to "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and Leonard Bernstein's Candide overture, all of which have something to say about why we like what we like. And while there's no disputing taste, as the old Latin tag has it, there is much to know about how our psyches play in our musicality, what recreational drugs can contribute to the enjoyment of a Grateful Dead song, and the many ways in which music can make us better and happier people.Like Nathan Myhrvold's like-minded explorations of cooking, Gasser's enterprise has a pleasingly mad-scientist feel to it, one that will attract music theory geeks as much as neuroscientists, anthropologists, psychologists, and Skynyrd fans. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Why did my Pandora radio station jump from "This Must Be the Place" by the Talking Heads to "All My Friends" by LCD Soundsystem? Gasser, musicologist and the chief architect of Pandora's Music Genome Project, knows why, and why you'll like it. In a sprawling tome, he explores how the ingredients of music-sound, melody, rhythm, harmony, and timbre-shape our musical tastes. Gasser suggests that musical taste isn't just a fleeting predilection but intrinsic to the music itself. The book's 16 chapters coil around one another, alternating between music and extramusical subjects (sociological, psychological, or cultural aspects of music) to form a double helix structure. Though the author admirably attempts to explicate musical theory, his depth of analysis can sometimes be a challenge for novice readers. Nevertheless, his study of Taylor Swift, Dizzy Gillespie, and Ludwig van Beethoven is so engaging that you will probably hear a "harmonic modulation to the dominant" the next time you listen to "Shake It Off." VERDICT A brilliant and passionate work about music's indelible aesthetic algorithm; for anyone curious about why their favorite songs strike a chord with them. [See Prepub Alert, 10/22/18.]-Joshua Finnell, Colgate Univ., Hamilton, NY © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
