A review of “Zene, mint a boldogság hangszere”

The following is a review by one of my readers, Krisztian Andeo. You can check him out on Instagram here

Review

Hi Sam, Would like to send some feedback to you if I may. I purchased your book and another one from Hungary half a year ago. The other book’s title is (in English): Music, as the Instrument of Happiness The subtitle is: Get from the bathroom to the stage!

I could read your book a bit slower because I had to think of and analyse what I read. This is because it is about generally applicable learning techniques tailored to music studies. In the meantime the other book was a quite easy release to me which has almost read itself. In a not so positive meaning.

I have recently finished the Hungarian book and I am a bit disappointed.

In my opinion this book is mostly marketing material. There is some useful information in it but the majority of the book looks to me like an advertisement. It could have been better with the title or subtitle from which the readers could know that the book is about the progress of founding a music school and its current status. If I put this book on my shelf and my son will take it in his hands 10 years later he won’t know the meaning of some contents of the book because it is so limited to only one education platform run by the book’s author. It’s possible that this music school will operate with another name or will not exist at all 10 years from now. I bought this book in order to help me or my children to start a career as a working musician. Although there are some guidelines about these in the book, I think these are not detailed very much and are not described long. Should the takeaway really be that neither the national, nor the private education are good and effective ways to learn music but the only one is his school? Mainly this way the message.

Both the book’s title and subtitle is really general, that’s why I thought as a reader that the book will describe music studies and the career making in general. By the time I finished the book I felt like the BM Music School could be the only one place from where a successful musician could come out, and all the other ways of music studying are typically useless.

What I really like about your book is that you shared very direct information with me. I can apply your learning models lifelong. Your book’s content is 100% future proof and it is really about what the cover and the description told me. You did not place any criticism against any other existing ways of learning but your only intention was to help and make everyone’s learning progress more effective. Focusing on the right thing made your book one of my favourites and I regularly open it for advice when I feel myself stuck at a point. I think you found a way to talk about something in an exact way, which is not even exact :) Very precise book. I love it!