Oídos que no ven

This book gracefully and brilliantly demolishes an idea that often prevents us from openly enjoying certain genres and works: the idea of "intellectual music", which so often stands between the listener and the pleasure of listening. In addition, it offers some keys so that anyone can delve into certain supposedly more impenetrable music. With an approachable tone, through amusing and revealing anecdotes and using a completely non-academic approach, Peyrou makes a series of arguments against the notion that certain styles demand an intellectualized listening. The book, however, goes beyond that goal and becomes a lesson on how music works: how composers think and what desires guide them, what innovation consists of and why it meets so much resistance among the public, what they have in common the various genres and what differentiates them, what attitude is the most appropriate on the part of the listeners. Relating a wide variety of music (classical and contemporary, popular and folk, jazz, rock) but also ideas from art, literature, philosophy and anthropology, the author traces surprising connections and proposes a different way of listening.