Book review: Guitar Zero
Marcus, Gary. Guitar Zero: the science of becoming musical at any age. (Penguin, 2012)
It is truth pretty generally acknowledged that there is a limited window of opportunity for learning things like language or music, and that if you haven't activated that mental ability by, say, 10 or so then you never really will; you may acquire a certain level of "book-learning," but you'll never become truly fluent. Gary Marcus always wanted to be musical - specifically, he wanted to play guitar - but he just couldn't get it. So he gave up on the guitar and went ahead with his life, and now he's all grown up and a respected and published psychologist specializing in language and cognitive development. But he still wanted to play, and from his study of neuroscience he found himself wondering, where does the idea of this limited window come from? This book recounts his exploration of music along two parallel dimensions: the theoretical, looking into and explaining different scientific facets of the question, and the practical, taking a year's sabbatical and forcing himself to learn the guitar. It is much more than the inspirational feel-good story it sounds like from the cover blurb.
This is a great book: Marcus does well on both sides. On the science side, he spends a chapter each on such topics as: where the idea of the developmental window comes from, the relationship between music and language, music theory, the relative importance of practice versus talent, cross-cultural theory and history of music, and the whole question of what makes good music anyway (that chapter is titled "The worst song in the world"). On the practical side, he studies with teachers, he learns he has congenital arrhythmia (probably part of why he couldn't learn music as a kid), he learns how to listen and how to play, he goes to band camp, and he interviews many many professional musicians and learns from them. He won't be a rock superstar, but he does get pretty good; certainly he busts the myth that you can't learn guitar as an adult.
Marcus writes in a conversational tone that is easy to read, with a lot of information at his fingertips that doesn't feel hauled up by the armload. He covers many different topics, and he does so at just about the perfect level: I learn something new and interesting on each subject but not everything, there's always something more I'll want to get back to sometime later. I learn how playing guitar is totally different from playing the piano (which I did in my day). Includes glossary, notes, bibliography, and index - again, never at too heavy a level for the typical lay reader.
If I have to find one fault with the book, and it's a pretty minor one, it's that the last few chapters become just too much a celebration of Marcus' love of Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, and most importantly, JIMI HENDRIX!!! Just because Hendrix's style wasn't to my individual taste I can still acknowledge the man's great talent; still, you could calm down just a little, man.
Four woofs; highly recommended. Full disclosure: I read this book based on kestrell's review here; you may want to compare and contrast interpretations. I note less than two months elapsed between reading her review and posting my own, which shows some energy on my part; I also note that we seem to have picked up different subtitles - but clearly the same book.
It is truth pretty generally acknowledged that there is a limited window of opportunity for learning things like language or music, and that if you haven't activated that mental ability by, say, 10 or so then you never really will; you may acquire a certain level of "book-learning," but you'll never become truly fluent. Gary Marcus always wanted to be musical - specifically, he wanted to play guitar - but he just couldn't get it. So he gave up on the guitar and went ahead with his life, and now he's all grown up and a respected and published psychologist specializing in language and cognitive development. But he still wanted to play, and from his study of neuroscience he found himself wondering, where does the idea of this limited window come from? This book recounts his exploration of music along two parallel dimensions: the theoretical, looking into and explaining different scientific facets of the question, and the practical, taking a year's sabbatical and forcing himself to learn the guitar. It is much more than the inspirational feel-good story it sounds like from the cover blurb.
This is a great book: Marcus does well on both sides. On the science side, he spends a chapter each on such topics as: where the idea of the developmental window comes from, the relationship between music and language, music theory, the relative importance of practice versus talent, cross-cultural theory and history of music, and the whole question of what makes good music anyway (that chapter is titled "The worst song in the world"). On the practical side, he studies with teachers, he learns he has congenital arrhythmia (probably part of why he couldn't learn music as a kid), he learns how to listen and how to play, he goes to band camp, and he interviews many many professional musicians and learns from them. He won't be a rock superstar, but he does get pretty good; certainly he busts the myth that you can't learn guitar as an adult.
Marcus writes in a conversational tone that is easy to read, with a lot of information at his fingertips that doesn't feel hauled up by the armload. He covers many different topics, and he does so at just about the perfect level: I learn something new and interesting on each subject but not everything, there's always something more I'll want to get back to sometime later. I learn how playing guitar is totally different from playing the piano (which I did in my day). Includes glossary, notes, bibliography, and index - again, never at too heavy a level for the typical lay reader.
If I have to find one fault with the book, and it's a pretty minor one, it's that the last few chapters become just too much a celebration of Marcus' love of Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, and most importantly, JIMI HENDRIX!!! Just because Hendrix's style wasn't to my individual taste I can still acknowledge the man's great talent; still, you could calm down just a little, man.
Four woofs; highly recommended. Full disclosure: I read this book based on kestrell's review here; you may want to compare and contrast interpretations. I note less than two months elapsed between reading her review and posting my own, which shows some energy on my part; I also note that we seem to have picked up different subtitles - but clearly the same book.