The thoughts of David Byrne

Bob-Dubery

I am reading David Byrne's book How Music Works.

There's an interesting chapter ostensibly about the early stages of his career as a professional musician, but which he really uses to make all sorts of points about how music is constructed and "works".

So herewith some snippets for your edification and consideration. (any grammar or spelling mistakes are mine)

What does being tight mean? It's hard to define now, in an age where instrumental performances and even vocals can be digitally quantified and made to perfectly fit the beat. I realize now that it doesn't actually mean that everyone plays exactly to the beat; it means everyone plays together. Sometimes a band that has played together a lot will evolve to where they play some parts ahead of the beat and some slightly behind, and singers do the same thing. A good singer will often use the "grid" of the rhythm as something to play with - never landing exactly on a beat, but pushing and pulling around and against it in ways that we read, when it's well done, as being emotional.

(here Byrne has described some of the magic of great but diverse singers like Willy Nelson, Frank Sinatra and Sandy Denny).

The lurches and hesitations are internalised through performance, and after a while everyone knows when they'll happen. The performers don't have to think about them, and at some point that becomes part of the band's sound. Those agreed-upon imperfections are what give a performance character, and eventually the listener recognizes that it's the very thing that makes a band or singer distinctive.

The musician and neuroscientist Daniel Levitin once demonstrated an experiment... He had a classical pianist play a Chopin piece on a Diskclavier, a sort of electronic player piano. The piano memorised the keystrokes and could play them back. Levitin then dialled back the expressiveness incrementally until every note hit exactly on a beat. No surprise, this came across as drained of emotion, though it was technically more accurate. Alternatively, the expressiveness could be ramped up, and playing became even more florid and even less on the grid. This too was unemotional; it veered towards chaos.

Riaan-Combrink

X-rated Bob wrote: (here Byrne has described some of the magic of great but diverse singers like Willy Nelson, Frank Sinatra and Sandy Denny).

And himself IMO. Any number of tracks of the Jonathan Demme produced 'Stop Making Sense' live concert movie demonstrate Byrne doing exactly this - his voice at times percussive, playing with the phrasing in a manner that makes these live recordings in many cases far superior to the album tracks.

I received this book as a Christmas gift and put it down after a few scans, it appearing to be a 'heavy read' best reserved for when I can give it my full attention :-[. Reading the quotes, I'm looking forward to getting stuck in. Re the contents of the quotes, I fully get it. Folk, rock, jazz and some pop IMO doesn't lend itself to, or benefit by, perfection in execution as, eg, classical music (where the genius inherent in, and encapsulated in the meticulous scoring of, the composition requires perfect reproduction to convey both the musical and emotional message scored by the composer). One of the reasons I've particularly loved the Talking Heads (especially circa Remain in Light and Fear of Music) is probably exactly what he describes in the quotes. He has a way of not only playing with his vocal delivery before and after the beat, but also up and down (if that makes sense) and in terms of articulation that conveys ideas and emotion on the recordings. The result of the Levitan experiment just makes a lot of sense to me.

studmissile

Sounds like a great books, very interesting, an absolute original David Byrne.

domhatch

looks like everyone references daniel levitin these days. maybe i should just get a book on (or by) him.

always been fascinated by byrne/talking heads. they have/had a style, rhythm no-one could match. haven't managed to get my teeth into scar tissue yet, but this is one i might just be able to get into
dh|

Squonk

domhatch wrote:
always been fascinated by byrne/talking heads. they have/had a style, rhythm no-one could match. haven't managed to get my teeth into scar tissue yet, but this is one i might just be able to get into
dh|

It's good stuff. The Brian Eno produced albums Fear of Music and Remain in Light are brilliant

Bob-Dubery

domhatch wrote: looks like everyone references daniel levitin these days. maybe i should just get a book on (or by) him.

The classic is This Is Your Brain On Music. It's not a light read, but it is rewarding.

AlanRatcliffe

I dunno, much as I love the Heads, I always found Byrne to be the least interesting/musical one of the lot (aside from maybe Weymouth - who really couldn't play). For me, the interesting stuff was all being done by the guys behind the scenes - Belew, Fripp, Eno, et. al.

Squonk

just love his suit

=

Bob-Dubery

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: I dunno, much as I love the Heads, I always found Byrne to be the least interesting/musical one of the lot (aside from maybe Weymouth - who really couldn't play). For me, the interesting stuff was all being done by the guys behind the scenes - Belew, Fripp, Eno, et. al.

It's the punk thing. Robert Fripp was once accused of having a large vocabulary but not much to say. Too many punk or punk era bands either had nothing much but attitude or had ideas but lacked the "vocabulary" to express them.

Eno is interesting because he's a non-musician with very little in the way of what one might call "chops" but he still manages to make interesting music. Maybe in his case the studio really is the instrument. Also he's not afraid to take chances. In the book I quoted from Byrne says that when he and Eno started on what would eventually be released as My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts they didn't know if what they wanted to do could be done.

I'd agree that the Heads got more interesting when they bought others on board - notably the three you mention. Though the next Eno-less album Talking in Tongues was pretty good (some might argue this was because Byrne had mastered the Eno way of working) and the extra players they roped in for the live album that followed gave Talking Heads more "vocabulary".

Byrne seems fond of the DIY ethos. He describes in that book how he got non-dancers for one of his tours. He wanted movement on stage, but not formal dance moves. So he got in a choreographer with experience with working with "dancers" who lacked formal training. And they got in some non-dancing folks for auditions.

The non-dancers were given four instructions...
1) Improvise moving to the music and come up with an eight count "phrase"
2) When you find a phrase you like then loop it
3) When you see somebody else with a better phrase then copy it
4) When you are all dancing the same phrase then the exercise is over.

Apparently it didn't take very long for the non-dancers to effectively create their own choreography in this way.

It's an interesting book. Available on Kindle and Google Play.

Squonk

X-rated Bob wrote: [

Byrne seems fond of the DIY ethos. He describes in that book how he got non-dancers for one of his tours. He wanted movement on stage, but not formal dance moves. So he got in a choreographer with experience with working with "dancers" who lacked formal training. And they got in some non-dancing folks for auditions.

The non-dancers were given four instructions...
1) Improvise moving to the music and come up with an eight count "phrase"
2) When you find a phrase you like then loop it
3) When you see somebody else with a better phrase then copy it
4) When you are all dancing the same phrase then the exercise is over.

Apparently it didn't take very long for the non-dancers to effectively create their own choreography in this way.

It's an interesting book. Available on Kindle and Google Play.

Now I understand why certain people were quite pissed off with Byrne for having the dancers

See clip below of Once in a Lifetime. Brilliant song I might just add

=

Bob-Dubery

So far I'm enjoying Byrne more as a writer about music than as a player of it (I have nothing against Talking Heads, though I was not a big fan). I'm with him totally on the vocals. This is one of the things that makes great singers great - they play games with the timing, but in a small window between "rigid" and "a mess". I mean what I said about Willy Nelson by the way. Sure, he's not rock 'n roll, but he's a distinct and very skilled singer as regards the timing of his delivery. John Martyn was, I think, under regarded as a singer, but he actually had great timing, great rhythm in his phrasing - again playing the sort of vocal games that Byrne so adeptly describes.

Bob-Dubery

Squonk wrote:
Now I understand why certain people were quite pissed off with Byrne for having the dancers

See clip below of Once in a Lifetime. Brilliant song I might just add

~~He wasn't talking about that tour. It was a post Heads solo tour.~~ Memo to self. You can't see the Youtube from work. Shaddupayouface!

Byrne got a lot of his visual ideas from Balinese and Japanese folk theatre.

el-guapo

X-rated Bob wrote: So far I'm enjoying Byrne more as a writer about music than as a player of it (I have nothing against Talking Heads, though I was not a big fan). I'm with him totally on the vocals. This is one of the things that makes great singers great - they play games with the timing, but in a small window between "rigid" and "a mess". I mean what I said about Willy Nelson by the way. Sure, he's not rock 'n roll, but he's a distinct and very skilled singer as regards the timing of his delivery. John Martyn was, I think, under regarded as a singer, but he actually had great timing, great rhythm in his phrasing - again playing the sort of vocal games that Byrne so adeptly describes.

I think this is true of all musicians to a greater or lesser extent (depending on the instrument and style).

But I'm afraid some people miss the "window" completely: my wife has a couple of CDs of the Counting Crows live, and I find them profoundly disappointing. Adam Duritz's phrasing on the first album is, I think, masterful, and just on the edge of chaotic. On stage (and I know he has had a boatload of other issues that have fed this) he seems to improvise to such an extent (on something that was already very loose) that the melody is frequently lost entirely, and any sense of this being the same song is almost lost.

Bob-Dubery

The other extreme, alluded to above, is having things too rigid.

You know that Neil Young "Only Love Can Break Your Heart"? Yes, that nice 3/4 song. I heard a pop cover of that years ago that was remarkable for two things
1) it was in 4/4
2) Nearly every syllable was sung exactly on the beat.

The word that comes to mind now is "robotic". It was so unhuman, so unemotional, so bloody awful and so insane making.

Bob-Dubery

Well I'm still ploughing through this book, and it's a good 'un. I might not go quite as far as this review, but it has a lot to recommend it.

Particularly interesting is the chapter on how record deals can be structured. Who pays for what, who gets what, what is better in the short and long terms etc etc. The book is much more than Byrne talking about how Talking Heads would come up with their rhythm tracks (though you get that too).

Now I'm reading the chapter on how a "music scene" emerges and, possibly, could be made to emerge.

Excellent read.

singemonkey

X-rated Bob wrote: Now I'm reading the chapter on how a "music scene" emerges and, possibly, could be made to emerge.

I'm particularly interested in this. I was looking into it a little bit after a forum post yesterday. Some countries and even local governments recognise music from the perspective of its economic potential. While many others - possibly ours, for example - view it more as cultural activity that should be promoted for more esoteric reasons.

It's not hard to see which approach will result in more government activity. The department responsible in the UK got the law changed to allow live music up til 11pm in any alcohol licensed venue with a capacity of under 200 people - without an additional license - crucially recognising that these small venues are needed to drive the excellence required for music to be profitable and exportable. They also conducted research to estimate that music tourism in the UK added about 2.2 billion pounds to the UK's economy.

Other govt. organisations like the government of Ontario Canada have done research into the number of people employed by the music business - both live and recorded.

On the flipside, an analysis of the live music situation in Sydney Australia found that, while people move to areas because of a perceived atmosphere of flourishing culture (a "funky" neighbourhood), that this results in gentrification in which live music is suppressed in those same places.

We tend to think of a successful, popular, profitable music scene as being a result of some serendipitous agency from talented people. But like almost everything in life, this is not the case. Their are structural constraints that can be manipulated to allow these "talented" people to emerge and thrive, or suppress them.

It's clear to me that South Africa, and our provincial governments, as well as organisation among musicians, could do much to change the rather sluggish and unprofitable nature of most SA music. But I think we're still a long way from our governments, or our musicians, seeing things as I outlined them in the previous paragraph.

Bob-Dubery

And I'll add this and then I'll try to shut up. It's a quote from Byrne on his aims for the book

I’ve made money, and I’ve been ripped off... I’ve had creative freedom, and I’ve been pressured to make hits. I have dealt with diva behavior from crazy musicians, and I have seen genius records by wonderful artists get completely ignored... If you think success in the world of music is determined by the number of records sold, or the size of your house or bank account, then I’m not the expert for you. I am more interested in how people can manage a whole lifetime in music.

lindsmuse

Found this just now while browsing - thought it was a beautiful and unusual pic. This site for more pics: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2014/02/american-cool-miles-davis-madonna_slideshow_item12_13