Straight to First 6 FREE Chapters (470 pages)
Welcome to How Music REALLY Works: The Essential Handbook for Songwriters, Performers, and Music Students (Second Edition)
Welcome to the first 6 FREE chapters of the acclaimed music reference classic, How Music REALLY Works: The Essential Handbook for Songwriters, Performers, and Music Students (Second Edition), by Wayne Chase. (The book is available in both digital and print editions at Roedy Black Music.)
How Music REALLY Works focuses on popular music, especially popular songs and songwriting, and especially the styles and forms of the Western world. This book is aimed at those who play in bands, write songs, take lessons, or teach music. Since most such players and songwriters don’t read or write music notation, this book has none. But it does have a lot of graphics and sidebars that illustrate and clarify the content.
This book addresses the all-important question for songwriters, “What exactly is it about the melody, chord progression, beat, and lyrics of a song that makes it irresistible—or, on the other hand...completely forgettable?”
If you’re curious about where music itself came from, the first couple of chapters delve into music’s evolutionary origins, followed by a brief historical overview of the popular music industry and the various musical genres we know today. After that, it gets into the details of what a popular song is actually made of.
Look Inside: A Sampling of Pages
To have a look at the structure and layout of the print and digital editions, here’s a sampling:
Look inside...
