Uncommon Measure: A Journey Through Music, Performance, and the Science of Time

Natalie Hodges is a musician with the soul of a poet, and a writer with the heart of an artist. This book is an extraordinary translation of music, devotion, and sorrow into the written word, recounting her relinquishment of a performance career and her continued love of music. In these pages, if no longer on the stage, she is brilliantly sharing her art with us all.

This book was such a joy to read. Part science, part deeply personal meditation about the nature of music and its meanings. It's a unique read for the way it combines both and in a way it's also what makes the book not quite as good as it could have been--if it had been all science, or all personal, then it would have been a truly great but utterly different kind of book. So: I loved it for its flaws. I loved it for its vulnerabilities. I'm looking forward to reading it again.

The author, a Harvard-educated classical violinist, writes about her struggles to master the violin. While writing about her performance anxiety, she notes that a musician must release her ego to lose herself in a composition's pace, but this is difficult to do when that very ego is what drives her to perform pieces as difficult as Paganini's La Campanella and Bach's Chaconne. She writes about the racial prejudice that she and other Asian musicians face, why Asian parents encourage their children to play classical music, and the trauma of having had an abusive father. Her writing is woven with parallels to seemingly disparate subjects such as space-time theory, quantum physics, and tango dancing. The navel-gazing doesn't always strike a show more chord with me. But the book made me nostalgic for my own youthful days of playing classical music and tango dancing. It's remarkable how, at a young age, the writer can convey such deep understanding and resonant comparisons, and I hope she continues to pursue her struggles and write about them. We all ought to. show less

Natalie Hodges writes a beautiful narrative that moves the readers through the landscape of her life. She is reflective in her pursuits of music as a violinist and the challenges of family and performance expectations. With all this, she mixes her story with a wonderful array of perspectives, involving the nature of time, psychology , quantum physics, neurology and biology. It was a pleasure to read and it has added much to my understanding of music and it's multifaceted connections. I highly recommend this fine work!

This is a memoir of a musician’s conflicted relationship with performing music. Hodges is a talented writer. Her prose is clear and expressive. In this volume she explores time from the perspectives of music and physics. Her approach is artistic rather than academic. Her narrative is personal. The book is an interesting blend of autobiography, music, and science.

Natalie Hodges is a musician who has performed as a classical violinist and is pursuing an MFA at Emerson College. Her book combines memoir with a fascinating combination of music theory, the practice of music performance, the study of neurology and evolution, all combined with her personal reflections on the life of a musician. Particularly informative and touching are her insights into the very personal difficulties of performing classical music.. These thoughts are interspersed among commentaries on subjects like the nature of musical improvisation and the relation between music and time. As someone who has performed and continues to play the piano myself I appreciated the insights into the nature of music and its performance. The show more author provides helpful details about both the creation of music and its relation to understanding and performing that music. show less

I greatly enjoyed reading Uncommon Measure. It combines the themes of music, physics, and family life in a unique and compelling manner as the author contemplates her life and choices. I would highly recommended it, particularly for music aficionados.