Amanda Mark

“. . . an amazingly accurate biographical account of today’s music school life.”

Some people are smart. Like “Jeopardy” smart, right? All kidding aside, everyone knows someone who would be their go-to first-pick for Trivial Pursuit.

“. . . a new story in a canon that feels older than time itself.”

“. . . needed to be more about the who and why, but instead it got stuck in the how and what.”

“interesting story . . . more than delivers.”

“Changing Lives gives appropriate credit where credit is due; however, it would have been more engaging had the author given us a more balanced portrayal of the system that is trul

“As an academic study in 18th century music and use of castrati, Ms.

“. . . all these fun facts get lost in the choppiness of I Want My MTV as a whole, and very few people will be willing to read 600+ pages of sound bytes.

“. . . as the reader makes his/her way through the pages, it is hard not to think first, ‘How did I not know that?’ and then, ‘I want to watch it again!’”

Snap.

Écoutez et répétez. Listen and repeat.

Music has power. The kind of power that causes an individual to run up a flight of stairs and start victoriously shadow boxing.

Books should be an adventure. They should either tell stories that pull us in and keep us reading, or they should teach us unique and marvelous feats.

The world of music can be kind of clique-ish. It is a sad, but true, fact. Anybody who has any kind of name in music wants to be friends with everybody else who has any kind of a name in music.

Like, OMG, Tiffy. Did you, like, totally see what happened last night on “The Big Payback”?

Louis Armstrong was (and still is) a popular figure in 20th century American jazz.

Sometimes music writing feels like high school—all cliquish and exclusive.

So how does music work? In this age of instant gratification, most of us do not care how music works, so long as it does.

This is a cool book.

There are a few lucky souls who come into this world knowing exactly what they are supposed to do with their lives. Michael Jordan was always meant to be a basketball player.

Music, music everywhere. But is anyone making any money?

Some books are speedy reads. A few stolen hours here or there and then it is finished, more often than not to be forgotten before the end of one’s next read.