NY Times Favorite Book Covers

"...voila, that’s all you need to get the message across."

David Byrne’s “How Music Works” updated and in paperback

"There were so many times in this book when I felt like Byrne's observations extended beyond music and dance and into other forms of digital creativity."

Christmas Books 2012: music books of the year

"...digressive and chatty, part memoir, part theoretical investigation, bursting with a sense of free-flowing curiosity."

100 Notable Books of 2012

"This guidebook also explores the eccentric rock star’s personal and professional experience."

“David Byrne’s arty, commonsense reflections intrigue Michel Faber”

"Anyone familiar with Byrne's song lyrics or spoken-word theatre projects will recognise his artfully artless narrative tone."

“A Talking Head’s musical insights impress Oliver Keens”

"Every form of music, from birdsong onwards, is considered and elegantly related to form, debunking romantic conceits about music and presenting a far more beautiful rationality. In the process, Byrne shows not just how music works, but how music publishing should work too."

Still Making Sense

"David Byrne’s entertaining, erudite memoir is a straightforward account of an art form that also manages to inspire."

“Byrne and his book make for good company.”

"This is a decidedly generous book — welcoming, informal, digressive, full of ideas and intelligence — and one has the pleasant sense that Byrne is speaking directly to the reader, sharing a few confidences he has picked up over the years."

This insider’s story of his art shuns pop glamour to reveal the secrets of the studio

"In his new book, the former Talking Heads singer David Byrne, dubbed rock's Renaissance man by Time magazine, looks at the roles played by time, place, technology, architecture, money and human relationships in shaping music."

“How Music Works is music-geek heaven.”

"When he’s not studying music’s patterns, communicating with other music makers (in myriad different ways), or jump-starting some new music genre into life, he’s also a fan of the simple bit – listening to it."

“[David Byrne] tells us about the hidden forces that lie behind everything we listen to.”

"In writing this book, I realised I'm very fond of rules. I was really interested in discovering the underlying conditions that generate a scene."

“Music is ‘kind of a gateway drug to other people,’ he says about new book”

"I would like to think it can, that music is kind of a gateway drug [laughs] to other people whose lives are different than yours."

David Byrne in all of his contexts

"There is, in other words, an interplay between performer and audience, a sense of the moment, that all music shares."

How Music Works by David Byrne – Review

"Even before you hear music, Byrne points out, it has been shaped by the environment it was designed to be heard in, and by the equipment employed to make or record it."

“Byrne’s erudite and entertaining prose reveals him to be a true musical intellectual…”

"Touching on everything from bird-song and mirror neurons to the scene at CBGB, his wide-ranging treatment analyzes the effect of music venues (he theorizes that terrible stadium acoustics bias arena-rock bands toward plodding anthems), technology (sound recording induced opera singers to add vibrato), finances (he proffers balance sheets for two of his albums), and much else on the music we hear."

A MCSWEENEY’S BOOKS Q&A WITH DAVID BYRNE, AUTHOR OF HOW MUSIC WORKS

"I realized that all these peripheral things affect the music we hear. And I realized that I was interested in them, and that maybe other folks would be, too." - David Byrne

David Byrne’s How Music Works

Former Talking Heads frontman and all-round happy mutant David Byrne has written several good books, but his latest, How Music Works, is unquestionably the best of the very good bunch, possibly the book he was born to write. I could made good case for calling this How Art Works or even How Everything Works.

EW Q&A: David Byrne

"I feel like the song or some other kind of piece of music, if it does its job well, it brings back or recreates or digs out these emotions that are latent in us. To me that’s what happens, whether its dance music or folk music or hip-hop or whatever, when it really moves people, it doesn’t mean that that person is having that feeling, it means that they’ve managed to make a device that recreates that feeling in the listener." - David Byrne

Q&A: David Byrne Explains ‘How Music Works’

"I feel like I have to remind myself and the reader that music is not something they hold in their hand. It's not a laser disc, or vinyl, or MP3. It's not any of those things. It's what you hear. And when it stops, it's gone. The experience is over. We tend to mistake music for the physical object." - David Byrne

David Byrne Breaks Down How Music Works in New Book

“I always thought those two sides could co-exist — that you could write an accessible pop song that explored, in some entertaining way, questions beyond ‘I need you’ or ‘I hate you,'” Byrne said. “Why not? Lots of folks proved that was possible before I did; I took the possibility as a given."

The Book I Read: David Byrne Explains ‘How Music Works’

As befitting its author, the book is wide-ranging, insightful, funny, and provocative.

David Byrne Is Hosting a How Music Works Variety Show

David Byrne is preparing a staged “variety show” inspired by a new chapter in the latest edition of his 2012 book How Music Works.

David Byrne Announces How Music Works Variety Show

To celebrate this new edition I will act as impresario at a music-related variety show to be staged at The Town Hall in NYC on June 1—human curation in action. I’ll introduce you to some amazing performers that inspire me! I did something similar related to bikes and urbanism some years ago.

David Byrne Curating a Staged Musical Variety Show

Rock music’s resident eccentric David Byrne is sticking to character and preparing for a staged so-called “variety show” made up of performers Byrne himself personally recommends.

David Byrne is Thinking About How Music Works

Listen to David's talk about his new chapter on curation for How Music Works with Doug Gordon.

Watch David Byrne Lead Whitney Houston Karaoke at Variety Show

David Byrne is a huge fan of Whitney Houston. Specifically, the late singer's 1987 mega hit "I Wanna Dance With Somebody." And on Thursday, June 1, the Talking Heads co-founder led a rousing karaoke rendition of the song at a variety show celebrating a new edition of his 2012 book How Music Works.

Watch David Byrne Lead a Massive Whitney Houston “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” Singalong

David Byrne hosted a variety show at New York City’s Town Hall last night to celebrate the release of a new edition of his 2012 book How Music Works.

Watch David Byrne Lead Whitney Houston Karaoke At His How Music Works Variety Show In NYC

Last night, David Byrne hosted a variety show at the Town Hall in NYC to celebrate a new edition of his How Music Works book, and at one point he led a karaoke rendition of Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.”

David Byrne announces How Music Works variety show

The one-night event is scheduled to take place at The Town Hall in NYC on June 1st.

David Byrne Announces ‘How Music Works’ Variety Hour Read more at http://www.artistdirect.com/entert

David Byrne may be best known for his work with The Talking Heads, but that has never stopped him from pursuing a variety of other creative endeavors.