The Cambridge Companion to Recorded Music

From the cylinder to the download, the practice of music has been radically transformed by the development of recording and playback technologies. This Companion provides a detailed overview of the transformation, encompassing both classical and popular music. Topics covered include the history of recording technology and the businesses built on it; the impact of recording on performance styles; studio practices, viewed from the perspectives of performer, producer and engineer; and approaches to the study of recordings. The main chapters are interspersed by ?short takes? ? short contributions by different practitioners, ranging from classical or pop producers and performers to record collectors. Combining basic information with a variety of perspectives on records and recordings, this book will appeal not only to students in a range of subjects from music to the media, but also to general readers interested in a fundamental yet insufficiently understood dimension of musical culture.

- Contains a large number of ?personal takes? by practitioners and performers, which complement the main chapters and engage a wide variety of readers
- The definitive resource on this popular topic for students and other readers in areas ranging from musicology to popular culture and the media
- The contributors are internationally renowned experts acknowledged as leaders in their field

CONTENIDO:

Introduction (Eric Clarke, Nicholas Cook, Daniel Leech-Wilkinson and John Rink)
Personal takes: learning to live with recording (Susan Tomes)
A short take in praise of long takes (Peter Hill)
1. Performing for (and against) the microphone (Donald Greig)
Personal takes: producing a credible voice (Mike Howlett)
'It could have happened': the evolution of music construction (Steve Savage)
2. Recording practices and the role of the producer (Andrew Blake)
Personal takes: still small voices (Jonathan Freeman-Attwood)
Broadening horizons: 'performance' in the studio (Michael Haas)
3. Getting sounds: the art of sound engineering (Albin Zak)
Personal takes: limitations and creativity in recording and performance (Martyn Ware)
Records and recordings in post-punk England, 1978?80 (Richard Witts)
4. The politics of the recording studio (Louise Meintjes)
Personal take: from Lanza to Lassus (Tully Potter)
5. From wind-up to iPod: techno-cultures of listening (Arild Bergh and Tia DeNora)
Personal take: a matter of circumstance: on experiencing recordings (Martin Elste)
6. Selling sounds: recordings and the music business (David Patmore)
Personal take: revisiting concert life in mid-century: the survival of acetate discs (Lewis Foreman)
7. The development of recording technologies (George Brock-Nannestad)
Personal takes: raiders of the lost archive (Roger Beardsley)
The original cast recording of West Side Story (Nigel Simeone)
8. The recorded document: interpretation and discography (Simon Trezise)
Personal takes: one man's approach to remastering (Ted Kendall)
Technology, the studio, music (Nick Mason)
Reminder: a recording is not a performance (Roger Heaton)
9. Methods for analysing recordings (Nicholas Cook)
10. Recordings and histories of performance style (Daniel Leech-Wilkinson)
Personal take: recreating history: a clarinettist's perspective (Colin Lawson)
11. Going critical. Writing about recordings (Simon Frith)
Personal take: something in the air (Chris Watson)
12. Afterword. Recording: from reproduction to representation to remediation (Georgina Born)
Global bibliography
Global discography