This post responds to David Byrne’s recent TED talk.

True to TED’s mandate, Byrne has given us an idea worth sharing. His central thesis is that musicians adapt to the built environment of their performances. His claim is appealing on an intuitive level, and he introduces some evidence to help substantiate it: small clubs like CBGB, for example, are conducive to intimate music, while large arenas – where sound quality suffers – lead to mid-tempo ballads à la U2. For this reason, Byrne suggests that intricate, polyrhythmic drumming from west Africa “would be a mess” when performed in Gothic cathedrals, etc. So far so good, I thought.

But as Byrne continued, I kept hearing him use a phrase that gave me pause: “works perfectly.” As in, “[west African drumming] works perfectly in that setting.” Bach’s music worked perfectly in his churches, Mozart’s compositions worked perfectly in the Salzburg court.

By the time of his last example, that of music “written for automobile sound systems,” the seams of his argument really show. When he describes the music as “written for automobile sound systems” Byrne appears to have committed the post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy: Because that music “works great” in the venue of an automobile, the cause of its sound must have been the car. He’s ignoring relevant evidence and venues, such as night clubs, where the musical qualities he highlights in “automobile music” are also enjoyed. Moreover, the history of “automobile music” begins not with adapting the music to suit the venue, but the other way ’round: tweaking the technology to accommodate the music. An early example of this is DJ Kool Herc, who drove slowly around the dilapidated Bronx in the convertible he converted into a public address system (as in this doc).

I admire Byrne for publicly addressing the relationship between architecture and music, but these sweeping – we might say ahistorical – claims leave something do be desired. To be fair, it’s an overly large topic, and we don’t really expect Byrne to have examined all the evidence. But from where I’m seated, Byrne’s talk is perhaps most thought-provoking where the rigor of our own public lectures on music are concerned.