What makes a piece of music accessible? This is the fundamental question addressed by Jochen Eisentraut, who convincingly argues for the centrality of the concept of musical accessibility. Debates about accessibility pervade musical discourse, but issues of access are also pertinent to the multifarious ways in which we make contact with music in a media-saturated world. As such, this book deals with important and pressing questions, and it is a welcome contribution to the study of an under-theorised term. The ubiquitous nature of musical accessibility and the examination of the term's many facets call for an interdisciplinary approach. Indeed, Eisentraut draws on diverse analytical and methodological apparatuses from sociology, anthropology, psychology, cultural theory and aesthetics, in order to provide a kaleidoscopic and ultimately instructive account of musical accessibility.

The author states at the outset that the interface between music and accessibility should be scrutinised on three different Levels: the physical, the personal and the participatory (p. 2). The first Level encompasses the actual process through which music and listener come into contact. Level II is concerned with the subjective response of the listener and includes matters of reception, perception and the production of meaning. Finally, participation in relation to accessibility belongs to the third Level, which delineates the opportunities that different types of music afford for active engagement. Participation should not be conceived of exclusively as one's capacity to become a practising musician. Rather, dancing to the music or being part of the ‘scene’ are equally valid ways of participation (p. 23).

Although this classification may initially give the impression that the three Levels of musical accessibility can be examined separately, this is not the case. In fact, these three aspects are interrelated, as well as continuous: voluntary participation in music presupposes appreciation, while the latter is only possible if one can obtain and listen to the music in the first place. The interpenetration of the Levels of accessibility is reflected in the three case studies around which the book is structured.

In the first of these, the stylistic changes embedded in the shift from progressive rock to punk are examined through a textual and historical analysis of these musico-aesthetic forms. In terms of accessibility, whereas prog rock culminated into long and intricate compositions with cryptic lyrics released in luxurious and expensive editions, punk's DiY ethos and its fondness for short and simple songs delivered with striking simplicity encapsulated a more accessible option. This was amplified by an inclusive attitude, the encouragement to get involved and the proliferation of cheap gigs and music releases. Yet, according to Eisentraut, placing prog rock and punk on different sides of the Level II accessibility spectrum would obscure the fact that the latter's shock-tactic made it less appealing (and thus less accessible) to many listeners.

Besides, the elaboration of musical themes, for example, lengthy guitar solos, does not necessarily demonstrate more complexity than the dense, albeit direct and short performances associated with punk (pp. 110–11). The temporality of musical change similarly precludes an easy identification of specific music genres with perceptual accessibility or inaccessibility. Eisentraut employs the term ‘habituation’ in order to convey the fact that, over time, the same musical stimuli become less engaging for listeners who may seek new musical experiences. In other words, repeated listening renders music overaccessible. Cultural, economic and political factors cannot be disregarded, however, and they, too, play a crucial role in musical evolution and change.

If habituation is intrinsically related to accessibility, does it follow that less accessible musical vocabularies are markers of quality? Conversely, does musical inclusivity exclude quality? For Eisentraut, this distinction, prevalent in various discourses on the value of modernist music, cannot be retained. The writings of the English composer Vaughan Williams, who forms the second case study, attest to that. Whereas Western art music has been closely associated with difficulty, Williams argued for accessible art music. In his effort to develop a local idiom (a common objective among other nationalist composers) and to make music ‘for the people’, Williams drew on English folk song. However, he was not preoccupied with the commercial popular music of the period, despite it being similarly accessible. This underscores the idea that musical preference is an inherent modality of perceptual accessibility and, as Eisentraut notes, it also highlights the ‘accessibility paradox’: one may dislike accessible music while having a preference for more difficult or alien forms (p. 175).

Notably, the work of Vaughan Williams suggests that a productive relationship between art music and vernacular music, including pop and folk, is possible. The marginalisation of art music makes such an endeavour timely, as well as necessary. Instead of foregrounding the composer or the work itself, it is the valorisation of the community to which art music would provide access that holds the key to the revitalisation of the genre (pp. 200–1).

This is plausible, even though music becomes increasingly decontextualised and thus less connected to spatially bound communities. This recognition, along with the intention to explore musical accessibility beyond a Euro-American perspective, leads Eisentraut to a comparative ethnographic study of Brazilian musical styles in Salvador da Bahia and diasporic samba in Wales. In Bahia, we encounter a high degree of accessibility at all three Levels. This is the outcome of specific practices, which include, among others, performance in public spaces and the combination of complexity and simplicity in musical forms (p. 251).

Perhaps unsurprisingly, and despite the fact that most of the author's informants in Wales had little or no prior knowledge of samba, UK-based sambistas were able to establish an intimate link between their life-words and this ‘exotic’ music genre. Although in the UK the appropriation of samba has resulted in the exclusion of words and melody, which represent two important elements of Brazilian samba (p. 270), this has not deprived it from its accessibility. Music does not carry its ‘original’ meaning, however, but demands an approach that would account for people's capacity to inscribe their own meanings. Nevertheless, this fails to explain why in Bahia and Bangor specific musics exhibit similar degrees of accessibility. What emerges, then, is that music is not a tabula rasa. Eisentraut contends that, to some extent, musical accessibility is internal to particular sound patterns and to ‘the visceral appeal of pulsating music and the trans-cultural response to it in movement and dance’ (p. 272).

This immanence indicates that truly accessible music opens up a range of potentialities to listeners and participants (p. 299). In this sense, musical accessibility plays a significant role in self-formation. In light of this, it is a shame that the author does not pursue the idea of music practice as a Foucauldian ‘technology of the self’ further (pp. 297–8). According to Foucault's schema, technologies of the self always derive from models and ideas that one finds in his or her culture. Such an approach, therefore, would also considerably strengthen Eisentraut's conviction that musical accessibility can only be understood if music, the individual and society/culture are seen as intertwined (p. 300).

Eisentraut embraces the pluralistic relationship between these three factors, but there is an implicit tension between this pluralism and his reliance on several dualisms throughout. It seems that the study of musical accessibility has more to gain from an ethnographic approach rather than pre-conceived classifications, and the example of Brazilian musical forms is a case in point.

These minor critiques notwithstanding, The Accessibility of Music is a remarkable achievement that surveys a wealth of material in a very accessible way. It is only to be expected that the conceptual and methodological breadth of this study and the original and engaging material presented will spark further research.