Hear My Sad Song by Richard Polenberg

This book is about the history of various country songs, but it just made me feel very uneducated (song-wise), when I read it. Out of all the 27 songs, I only recognised one of them - Pearl Bryan, and that's because I heard about it on the podcast Criminal.

According to the prologue, Hear My Sad Story "traces the roots of many of these [folk songs] and describes the circumstances under which each was written and first recorded." So it's like a snapshot of history for each chapter.

The way each chaptered is structured is that each 'song' is told with the lyrics intermingled among the history lesson. It works for a few songs, but since a lot of songs undergo changes, I became confused as to whether the verses shown are the current ones, the original ones, or a mix. Plus, as someone who had no knowledge of most of the songs (which admittedly does not make me the book's ideal reader), I would have preferred to be able to read the lyrics first, at the front, than read the story. But I suspect that for someone with more knowledge than I, or for someone listening to a good audiobook version, this lyrics intermingling with the text would have a pretty good effect.

Most of the stories behind the songs were fascinating, and I managed to read about another side of America that I didn't know. Personally, I would have preferred each section to be much more detailed (it felt a bit rushed at times), but again, it's a personal preference of mine.

I'm digressing here, but I just thought of something. I'd love to read a similar book for Chinese/Japanese/ASEAN songs. Any scholars in that field working on that?

Overall, this was an interesting book. Even though I'm not a folk-music fan, I enjoyed reading about the tragic songs, and how they influenced American culture. I just wish the author had the space to go into more detail for some of the more complicated songs.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for a free and honest review.

You Are The Music by Victoria Williamson

Here's the thing, while I've been taking piano lessons since kindergarten (although I stopped for about 3 years from age 12-15), I'm a lousy piano player. Very very lousy. So, I've always wondered, did these music lessons even help? Well, the answer is, probably. But not that much.

You Are The Music is supposed to explain music to the layman. Or rather, "to read this book requires no expert knowledge of or training in music, psychology, brain science, or any other kind of academic discipline." And that's mostly true. There were some (brain science) parts that I didn't quite understand, but for the most part, the book was easy to understand.

The book is divided into three sections. The first looks at the impact of music on childhood development, the second looks at how music affects the brain, what it's like to struggle with music, and how it impacts working life. The third section looks at music memory and how music can be used to support health and well-being at all life-stages.

Without a doubt, my favourite section was the first section, followed by the second section. For some reason, I had some trouble understanding the third section.

One of the things that I took from this book was the discussion about music and work (in my case, studying). I've always found it difficult to study without music. The only thing is that the music should be (preferably) in a language different from the one that I'm studying in (i.e. it becomes background music).

If you're looking to study more about music, I think this is a good introduction book because the author helpfully summarises different research studies and explains what they mean. And it's interesting, so if you have an interest in music, you should consider reading this.

Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review.