Review: Hit Me With Music by Uri Bram and Anu Pattabiraman

Hello everyone! After eight months of waiting, it is time to review a book that you have been waiting to hear about. Today I am going to review Hit Me with Music by Anupama (Anu) Pattabiraman and Uri Bram. Before I start the review, I would like to say thank you to Anu for donating a copy to review.

To begin this review, I feel like there was a few things that I do not think was in all the editions but was in mine. In the edition I read and reviewed there was several cases of double and triple spaces. I have heard of errors like this happening hence why I am assuming it was my computer. Also there was not any page numbers. The Kindle app set there was “locations” instead of page numbers. I could be wrong about it, but just in case this was something with my copy or how I added it to Kindle. If there are any other reports of this happening, then feel free to comment them to me.

With these slight slip ups aside, there was a lot to really like about this book. The first thing I really liked was the diagrams and the examples. They are very useful in explaining concepts as complex as these. Using Do Re Mi from “The Sound of Music” to explain solfege and Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi to explain rhythm had me laughing. They are rarely used together to explain something from a traditional standpoint, let alone in music all together. Along with that, the concept of explaining how intervals are derived and some scales were explained really well. There is a lot of information that is not commonly taught in school unless you are in graduate school or learn to compose. While these are wonderful points, I only have one real “complaint” about the book.

The main thing I did not really like about the book is it appears to be in a sort of “theory limbo”. I would like to view the book one of two ways: A.) from the perspective of a novice wanting an affordable substitution to get me started into music than trusting random people online or B.) A book that expands what I was taught in school by edging the bar forward more. The problem I felt with the book is it falls in that middle, with information a little too advanced for someone new to music or a little of the watered down side to someone whom has been through school. While this is not a bad thing overall I felt like there was not really a clear direction that the book was going in besides providing good information. Whenever I read the Amazon description, I felt like it did not help clarify my question either. Same thing goes for the Kickstarter (yea, I went into the archives and looked over it again). It did not really explain the book as well as it should, which I kind of feel like it missed the metaphorical “bar” by not completely answering the questions it imposed. Again, while this is not a bad thing against the book, it left my “let’s pretend I’m not a musician” side wondering why this did not really happen. In the case of my usual self why were they teaching the ratio of a tritone (augmented 4^th/ diminished 5^th) is 64:45 but not explaining modes, other chord progressions besides the couple that are in here or even 7^th chord construction?

After putting everything into retrospect, I feel like this opinion was swayed more as a bias of expectation than really reviewing. I was expecting one thing and it did not happen. While that counts into the overall score of the book, it will not be taken from the amount of uses that it does have. It is a good book for both groups of people mentioned before: People whom are new to music and want a solid crash course, and to those who are interested into the makeup of music. There is a lot of useful information for those in either party. At the price of $3.99 at the time of writing this, it is well worth the money should you choose to buy it. There are other options for whichever market you are into but very few if any are at this price. With everything considered, I rate the book Hit Me With Music a 4 out of 5 stars. While the information is great and the examples are really great, it shuffles the information that it presents into that “theory limbo”. If you are not concerned with that, then this book is great and is worth buying!

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Special post: "Hit Me With Music" on Scales

Hey guys, how's everyone doing? Sulli here with a special post for you. Today, Uri and Anu from "Hit Me With Music" are going to post an article about scales. If you like this article then feel free to subscribe to the right by inputting your email or following me on social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and SoundCloud). Let us know what you think in the comments below or emailing me at the address above. Thanks for reading!

Hi, Adam Sullivan Music Theory Blog readers! We're Uri and Anu, and we're writing a really unique introduction to music for you over the next few months. Music textbooks try to teach you how to read clefs, whole notes, and quarter rests without telling you why they're important, and other pop music books dive into the neuroscience behind music with a limited crash course on how music works. There's no simple primer on music that teaches music through questions that people really care about, like "What makes music sound happy vs. sad?" and "What makes rock sound like rock?" So, we're writing a book to give you an easy-to-read intro to the concepts you've always wanted to understand, like chords, rhythm, and harmony, through answering questions you actually care about! First, let's start with a sample from our book:

To understand music, we must understand scales.

Our everyday lives are generally full of units of measurement, and many of those units are essentially arbitrary. If you’re driving down a quiet street and a cop pulls you over for doing 90 miles per hour, the thing he’s measuring (your speed) may be real and meaningful but the units he’s using (miles, hours, miles per hour) are essentially arbitrary, the products of a quirky set of historical accidents. There is nothing fundamental about the length of an hour that makes it an especially meaningful unit of time: if our Babylonian forerunners had done things differently we could easily be using a basic unit that was some other length. Equally, there is nothing fundamental about the length of a mile that makes it an especially meaningful unit of distance; for that reason, a lot of countries have in fact chosen a different (equally arbitrary) unit called “a kilometre” to do the same work.

By contrast, some of our common units have a deeper logic to them. The length of a day was not decided for us by some ancient civilization  “a day” is the non-arbitrary length of time that it takes the earth to spin once around its axis. This gives days some very useful and meaningful properties.

How about music? In the same way that time (on earth) is organised around these things called “days,” music is organised around things called scales: sets of musical notes lined up in order. But is the length of a scale arbitrary (like the length of a metre) or fundamental (like the length of a day)? Let’s find out."

You can read the rest of the sample segment we wrote here. If you like Julie Andrews and Judy Garland, we promise it'll be a fun read :).

The Kickstarter for our book runs through this Thursday, July 4. We've already reached our initial $1,000 goal, and are now reaching for a stretch goal of $1,500! If we raise $1,500, we commit to adding an online multimedia supplement to our book within three months of publication. Keep in mind that with any contribution $5 or above, you'll get a copy of the Hit Me With Music e-book as a perk!

We also want to hear your ideas and suggestions for the book and multimedia supplement! Write to us at hitmewithmusicbook@gmail.com.