Features
- Cover Type: Paperback with 303 pages
- Published by: Wesleyan
- Edition: 1st Edition May 15, 1997
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0819563099
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0819563095
-
Book Dimensions:
9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
- Weighs: 1 pounds
Product Review
Andrew Goodwin : "A fine and timely study. There is no other text offering a sustained analysis of the social conditions of technological innovation in the design of music technologies. Astute and remarkably pleasurable to read."
Product Description
Recent innovations in musical instrument design are not simply a response to the requirements of musicians, writes Paul Theberge; they also have become "a driving force with which musicians must contend." He argues that digital synthesizers, samplers, and sequencers in studio production and in the home have caused musicians to rely increasingly on manufacturers for both the instruments themselves as well as the very sounds and musical patterns that they use to make music.
Musical practices have thus become allied with a new type of consumer practice that is altogether different from earlier relationships between musicians and their instruments as a means of production. Theberge places these developments within a broad social and historical perspective that looks at the development of the musical instrument industry, particularly the piano industry, the economic and cultural role of musicians' magazines and computer networks, and the fundamental relationships between musical concepts, styles, and technology.
Reader Reviews
An exceedingly well researched and elegantly written text explaining the social and cultural impact of electronic music and especially synthesizer technology on musicians of all levels. This is a most important piece of work, and while written at an almost "academic" and scholarly level, is a book every modern musician will find valuable.
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