The Cambridge Companion to Recorded Music

by Edited by Nicholas Cook , Eric Clarke , Daniel Leech-Wilkinson , John Rink

• ISBN13: 9780521684613
• ISBN10: 0521684617
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-12-21
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

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.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	p. viii
Notes on contributors	p. xi
Acknowledgements	p. xviii
Introduction
The editors	p. 1
Personal takes: Learning to live with recording	p. 10
A short take in praise of long takes	p. 13
Performing for (and against) the microphone	p. 16
Personal takes: Producing a credible vocal	p. 30
'It could have happened': The evolution of music construction	p. 32
Recording practices and the role of the producer	p. 36
Personal takes: Still small voices	p. 54
Broadening horizons: 'Performance' in the studio	p. 59
Getting sounds: The art of sound engineering	p. 63
Personal takes: Limitations and creativity in recording and performance	p. 77
Records and recordings in post-punk England, 1978-80	p. 80
The politics of the recording studio: A case study from South Africa	p. 84
Personal take: From Lanza to Lassus	p. 98
From wind-up to iPod: Techno-cultures of listening	p. 102
Personal take: A matter of circumstance: On experiencing recordings	p. 116
Selling sounds: Recordings and the record business	p. 120
Personal take: Revisiting concert life in the mid-century: The survival of acetate discs	p. 140
The development of recording technologies	p. 149
Personal takes: Raiders of the lost archive	p. 177
The original cast recording of West Side Story	p. 181
The recorded document: Interpretation and discography	p. 186
Personal takes: One man's approach to remastering	p. 210
Technology, the studio, music	p. 214
Reminder: A recording is not a performance	p. 217
Methods for analysing recordings	p. 221
Recordings and histories of performance style	p. 246
Personal take: Recreating history: A clarinettist's retrospective	p. 263
Going critical: Writing about recordings	p. 267
Personal take: Something in the air	p. 283
Afterword Recording: From reproduction to representation to remediation	p. 286
Notes	p. 305
Bibliography	p. 329
Discography	p. 345
Index	p. 349
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