The Cambridge Companion to Recorded Music

Description

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.

Eric Clarke is Heather Professor of Music at the University of Oxford. Nicholas Cook is Professor of Music at Cambridge University. Daniel Leech-Wilkinson is Professor of Music at King's College London. John Rink is Professor of Music at Royal Holloway, University of London.

'... the contributors (some 35 of them, counting the editors) form a lively company of writers and have the agreeable art of expressing opinions without seeming opinionated.' Gramophone 'Effortlessly embracing the worlds of popular and classical music, what results is something really rather dazzling in its scope and scale.' Classical Music 'This collection of essays offers many useful insights for both musicologists studying Western art music and scholars working within popular music studies. The book covers a wide range of topics within the remit of an exploration of recorded music, an area of study that has seen some noteworthy publications in the last decade.' The Journal of Popular Music