At 250 pages, John Powell’s new book How Music Works first struck me as a bit slim. The music theory books I have glanced at (and passed over) have generally been thick, 800-word tomes—printed in the ...

Why does melody affect us so deeply, from the moment we are born? Tunes touch our deepest emotions, and are capable of inspiring love, sorrow, faith, and hope. But how does a melody actually work? In ...