(Part 2) Best music history & criticism books according to redditors
We found 2,194 Reddit comments discussing the best music history & criticism books. We ranked the 929 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
Simon Reynolds' "Generation Ecstasy" is the big one about 90's dance music. It was like required raver reading back in the day. Big focus on UK hardcore/early jungle.
http://www.amazon.com/Generation-Ecstasy-World-Techno-Culture/dp/0415923735/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Co-sign "Last Night a DJ saved my life" also a really good one.
http://www.amazon.com/Last-Night-DJ-Saved-Life/dp/0802146104/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421350101&sr=1-1&keywords=last+night+a+dj+saved+my+life
Dan Sicko's "Techno Rebels" is great one with a big focus on the early detroit techno scene
http://www.amazon.com/Techno-Rebels-Renegades-Electronic-Painted/dp/0814334385/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421350046&sr=1-1&keywords=techno+rebels
Kai Fikentscher "You better work" is a great one about the early NYC dance scene. The loft, the paradise garage etc.
http://www.amazon.com/Better-Work-Underground-Dance-Music/dp/0819564044/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421350247&sr=1-1&keywords=you+better+work
Mireille Silcott "Rave America" is an awesome one about the 90's US rave scene. Big focus on Midwest hardcore/hard techno. Also has a super early interview with Tommie Sunshine before he became a DJ.
http://www.amazon.com/Rave-America-New-School-Dancescapes/dp/1550223836/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421350330&sr=1-1&keywords=rave+america
Brian Belle-Fortune "All Crews" is a good one about the UK 90's D&B
scene.
http://www.amazon.com/All-Crews-Journeys-Through-Culture-ebook/dp/B00HJ6SPPU/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421350448&sr=1-1&keywords=all+crews
If you're into digging for old dance records. There's a series of books called "the rough guide" that was distributed by Penguin that are basically little mini-encyclopedias of 90's dance artists/releases. I found them REALLY helpful back in the day before the internet was a thing.
I've got the rough guides to house, techno & d&b. Here's a link to the house one. http://www.amazon.com/Rough-Guide-House-Music/dp/1858284325/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421350616&sr=1-1&keywords=the+rough+guide+to+house
EDIT. Forgot to add. THE MANUAL by the KLF is fucking hilarious read & kind of an amazing historical artifact. It's like a $100 on amazon (Ugh, a friend borrowed my copy back in the day and never gave it back) but there's text/pdf versions floating around the web
http://www.amazon.com/Manual-How-Have-Number-Easy/dp/1899858652/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421350795&sr=1-1&keywords=KLF+the+manual
Ill just make a list of some hip hop books ive read and enjoyed for those interested:
Tupac Shakur: The Life and Times of an American Icon
Ed Piskor's Hip Hop Family Tree Vol. 1, Vol 2 , and Vol 3
Jay Z's Decoded
2Pac Vs Biggie
Born To Use Mics: Reading Nas's Illmatic
Eminem's The Way I Am
The Legends of Hip Hop
Prodigy's My Infamous Life
There's a delightful book about the history of different tunings called Temperament, by Stuart Isacoff. I picked it up on a lark and found it surprisingly involving. Something about the idea of particular tunings being favored or disfavored by the church and therefore (in the church's opinion) pleasant or offensive to God amuses me to this day.
Even better - Noel and Mitch didn't even know the track! Jimi told them before the show to "follow his lead." Truly amazing.
Source - Room Full of Mirrors by Charlie Cross.
Octave equivalence is universal among humans, barring neural damage or problems. However, there are no universal preferences for any other intervals. For example, some scales in the folk music of places such as Java don't have a fifth in them... although they do have an interval that is (I believe) 17 cents sharper than a sharp. I'm not 100% sure if that's the exact value, but it's between a fifth and a quarter tone above a fifth.
The smallest interval that can be discriminated by the ear when the two pitches are not played at the same time is about 50 cents (a quarter tone). Because of this, the upward limit for number of scale tones per octave is 24.
If you want to read a good book that gives a lot more information than I can on the subject than I can, I highly recommend The Social Psychology of Music by Paul R. Farnsworth. Daniel Levitin's book This Is Your Brain on Music also discusses pitch, and I believe that's where I read that the limit is 24 tones.
And, more bonus information just because I feel like you might appreciate it. When we listen to two intervals at the same time, we can discern differences much smaller. Starting with two tones that are at the same pitch, if one of the tone rises, different things happen as the interval gets wider and wider.
While the tones are the same pitch, the sounds' amplitudes are added, which (in most situations) just makes it twice as loud. As the second tone rises to 15 Hz above the first tone, the average of the two tones is heard with a beating noise with a frequency of the difference in tone. Thus if one tone is at 440 and the other is at 450, the ear will hear 445 with a "beating" sound that happens 10 times per second. Above 15Hz, there is an unpleasant sound until the difference between the tones' pitches reaches a point called the Limit of Discrimination. This point is arbitrary and depends on things like the absolute values of the two pitches (for example, lower pitches are harder to discriminate between) and the listener theirself. Above the Limit of Discrimination, though, there is a sensation of hearing two pitches instead of just one. From there upwards, it reaches what's called the critical band, which is a continuum of decreasing dissonance. Above that point, most of the effects have more to do with culture than how the ear works.
Also, about scales. Traditionally, pentatonic scales come from Europe and West Asia, but heptatonic (7-note) scales were used primarily in the Middle East and India. You might also check out Temperament: How Music Became a Great Battlefield for the Great Minds of Western Civilization, because it points out how arbitrary our decisions of pitch in Western music are.
TL;DR: The octave is the only interval that's universal
You may be interested in the 33 1/3 title Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste. Really great read about the subjectivity of taste... I think it should be required reading for this sub.
sound reenforcement handbook for fundamentals
https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reinforcement-Handbook-Gary-Davis/dp/0881889008/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_3?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0881889008&pd_rd_r=CCG9CPVAPDH3ECTFGHMA&pd_rd_w=C5R8y&pd_rd_wg=5hRnU&psc=1&refRID=CCG9CPVAPDH3ECTFGHMA
system set up and optimization
https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Systems-Optimization-Techniques-Alignment/dp/0415731011/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496423594&sr=8-1&keywords=sound+system+design+and+optimization
deeper fundamentals and underlying theory behind systems,
https://www.amazon.com/Sound-System-Engineering-Don-Davis/dp/0240818466/ref=pd_sim_14_10?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0240818466&pd_rd_r=HSPA70XSS4QNR9DZF1P5&pd_rd_w=5ywPt&pd_rd_wg=X1Td5&psc=1&refRID=HSPA70XSS4QNR9DZF1P5
approachable fundamentals, but not too much deeper theory - kind of a up and running style of book
https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Operators-Handbook-Guides-online/dp/1617805599/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
When you've gotten through those, and have a handle on the material, I'd recommend Bob McCarthy's Sound System Design and Optimization, Davis' Sound System Engineering, and Ballou's Handbook for Sound Engineers.
Here's a couple that I've found useful:
And the one I'm reading at the moment, Jazz Composition and Arranging in the Digital Age by Richard Sussman and Michael Abene - http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Composition-Arranging-Digital-Age/dp/0195381009/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418209939&sr=1-1&keywords=jazz+composition+and+arranging
Hope that helps!
Great pictures!
To anyone interested in the history of recording technology, I would recommend the book Perfecting Sound Forever. I am close to finishing it and it delves into a lot of the history that you touched on in this post.
Is trashing performance venues because you're in a bad mood not douchey? That was something he started doing long before Nirvana made it big, it wasn't any kind of protest against the music industry or whatever. He was whiney and self-indulgent, treated his band mates like crap, trash-talked other bands all the time, and was honestly just kind of a man-child who needed to grow the hell up. I'm a big fan of Nirvana, and I think Cobain was a good person, but he was no kind of perfect martyr.
Everybody Loves Our Town gives a more complete picture of Cobain than you usually get, IMO (and it's just a freakin sweet book). The way Dave Grohl talks about Cobain, especially. Grohl likes and respects Cobain a lot, but in other interviews he talks about how he never wants to make his bandmates feel the way Cobain made him feel all the time.
God, I love oral histories and early aughts guitar rock. I turned 18 in 2000 and these bands afforded me an aspirational level of coolness that; though I would never reach, I continued to strive for during most of my young adulthood. I always kind of imagined members of the Strokes, White Stripes, Yeah Yeah Yeah's, Interpol, Ryan Adams, etc... hanging out, getting high, and owning NYC. I don't know if everyone picked up on this but this article is an excerpt from an upcoming book Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011 . I can't wait to read the rest of this.
Books:
Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture
The Underground is Massive: How Electronic Dance Music Conquered America
Techno Rebels: The Renegades of Electronic Funk
Altered State: The Story of Ecstasy Culture and Acid House
All Crews: Journeys Through Jungle / Drum and Bass Culture
Keyboard Presents the Evolution of Electronic Dance Music
Future Days: Krautrock and the Building of Modern Germany
Last Night a DJ Saved my Life
Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco
The Last Party: Studio 54, Disco, and The Culture of the Night
You'd think someone in their late 30's would be beyond the point of jerking their ego off, but here we are.
So that something productive might come out of this, here: https://www.amazon.com/Musimathics-Mathematical-Foundations-Music-Press/dp/0262516551
Your local library might have it, your nearest University's library probably does. Some of the math is a little iffy, but he's an intelligent man and it's all really interesting. To answer what is basically your only question, yes, making music is a common hobby among those who are good with math (as well as being a common hobby among those who blink or breathe).
>One of his problems as a kid was the complete lack of explanation as to why he needs to do certain things and unless he understands he loses interest.
Well, something to keep in mind ahead of time is that music theory is not a set of rules someone wrote down and everyone has to follow. The music comes first and then music theory is how people go back after the fact and explain why it worked.
I understand wanting to know why you do something, but it's really difficult with music. You really can't follow it as a set of rules, but also there are so many concepts both in theory and in practical playing application that you simply can't explain or understand until you understand more of it.
It's like doing a 10,000 piece puzzle with no picture on the box. You can connect a few pieces here and there, but you literally have to make significant progress to ever see the big picture and in this case, nobody can just say, "It's a puppy in a box of flowers." Trying to explain denser concepts to someone without enough of the piece put together is like trying to explain the color green to a blind person.
>Why are the keys layed out the way the are? Why did the scales develop the way they did (western or any other).
Tell him to read this book. It's not a theory book, but it basically gives the history of tonality, temperament and specifically how we got the scales and keyboard layout we have.
As dry as it sounds, it's actually quite the page turner. That said, while it's aimed to be accessible to lay people, certain concepts are going to be harder to really wrap your head around depending on levels of musical understanding.
>What really is a chord?
Multiple notes played at the same time. You'll have to be more specific.
>Why do certain chord sequences "work"?
That's a bit complicated... I recently responded to someone else explaining why I, IV, and V are so prevalent. I'll paste it in here:
Honestly, it's a ton of math a bit of culture.
It's a ridiculous dense topic, but essentially, intervals are made of ratios or sound waves. Certain intervals are more consonant than others. I, IV, and V are the only diatonically major chords in a given key, so they are particularly good landing points, but for other reasons having a lot to do with math, the construction of the major scale, and centuries of cultural programming, things want to go back to I.
vi and ii are next up. They share common tones with I and IV respectively and can be used as weaker substitutes for them as well. They are diatonically minor. The only other diatonic minor is iii. It's the redheaded step child. The combination of notes it shares with both I and V just make it a very shitty version of either. It has the 7, so it doesn't work as I sub. It has a 3, so it's almost too stable to work as a good V sub (V has a ton of tension from 7 wanting to go to I, and a little from 2 wanting to go to either 1 or 3; Making it V7 adds the 4 which wants to go strongly to 3... so a V7 reeeally wants to go to I).
The last man our is the viio . Diminished chord are pretty weak in general, thought they can work as passing chords, or as V subs and deeper in jazz theory, they actually do some amazing stuff as dim7s. Diminished triads are just lamer. While it has all of the tension tones of V, it lacks 5... which really wants to create strong root motion to 1. You'll notice that a lot in strong cadences in the bass.
The TL;DR is that it's about tension and release. The I chord feels like home, everything else wants to try to get there. Common tones and adjacent tensions create the motion that makes some chords want to go to others.
>I have looked through the sub for book recommendations and Alfred's series seem to always come up. Do you know whether they include this kind of theory explanation or do you have any other recommendations?
They really don't. They cover a bit of basic theory, but no much of the why. I think a better resource for theory study is this series of books. It's honestly a bit more practical and useful than the common practice theory you'll find on musictheory.net or in college texts. Those honestly should be reserved for people interested in period niche music study.
That said, as method books, Alfred are great. Seriously, he should not try to learn all of the theory before actually practicing. Work from those kinds of books, just don't get hung up on the theory right now.
>To sum it up, he would like something that doesn't just list the basics in theory but provides with an insight as to why it works and how did it evolve.
The Stuart Isacoff book should at least whet his appetite, but I'd strongly caution against getting hung up on it. That way lies madness. It's like refusing to learn arithmetic unless someone can explain calculus to you first. He really just needs to get started, learn a lot of theory, learn a lot of playing, and then his understanding of the concepts will make him understand why it works the way it does. Also, make sure he explores theory with his ears and not exclusively on paper. That overly mathematical approach will never even teach a fraction of what can be made clear by listening. Too many people will literally practice theory exercise on paper and never actually play them and listen to them.
So much of the understanding comes from the hearing it in context and that's why it's nearly impossible to explain all of it or even much of it purely in text.
In one of our FAQ topics, the study of counterpoint is mentioned in the top post. There, two series of books are recommended, each with a 16th century and an 18th century component.
These are really the two standards of counterpoint teaching today. Fux is often read as well, but I personally don't really recommend reading historical treatises as a first introduction to a basic concept. I've been taught from the Gauldin 18th century book and am about to teach from the Schubert Renaissance book. I think I would have to say that I prefer Schubert as a classroom textbook, but I'm honestly not entirely sure which one I would prefer as a self-study text.
Sounds like a bad case of writer's block. There was a 2 year period where I wrote maybe 3 songs and they were pretty bad. Then one day I woke up and wrote a ton in a single session. No idea why.
Here's my advice on dealing with and beating songwriter's block:
This (paraphrased) quote always helps me when I'm feeling like I can't write anymore:
Songwriting is like fishing in a stream; you put in your line and hope you catch something… You’ve got to use some bait. Otherwise you sit around and expect songs to come to you. Forcing it is using bait.
Pretty good little book I read a couple of years ago on the topic: Temperament: How Music Became a Battleground for the Great Minds of Western Civilization by Stuart Isacoff.
An accessible read, not overly technical, which describes the progression of music "science" within social and scientific historical contexts.
Cornell's death has come 25 years after the end of Grunge.
By late 93/early 94 with the release of In Utero, Vs., Jar of Flies, the bands involved in the scene of 90, 91,92, had all moved on musically.
Pick up a copy of this book, a great book about grunge from the people who were there at the time
It's an excerpt from a book:
https://www.amazon.com/Meet-Me-Bathroom-Rebirth-2001-2011/dp/0062233092/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495172037&sr=8-1&keywords=meet+me+in+the+bathroom
Here you go https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Beast-Complete-Headbanging-History/dp/0380811278 I own this one.
Please Kill Me is good. Then if you are into the 90's Seattle scene, check out Everybody Loves Our Town as well.
The Straight Life, the life of Art Pepper: http://www.amazon.com/Straight-Life-The-Story-Pepper/dp/0306805588
http://www.amazon.com/Long-Strange-Trip-History-Grateful/dp/0767911865
this book, period. For some reason my high school library had this, and I happened to find it in like the one time I went in there, and it was amazing. That was a while ago, so by noe it probably is not fully up to date, but it covers from background to beginning to whenever the book was written. It covers major bands and the smaller bands they influenced, how genres developed, etc. You could become a metal expert just by listening to all the albums listed in this book. I've listened to a lot, and it was great to find stuff I would never, ever have found without this book (like the punk band that wrote 7 second songs or something like that, look up the ballad of Jimi Hendrix).
5/5 for any metal fan, can't recommend enough, honestly. Also rip Lemmy since we're talking metal.
I have a few recommendations for you:
Straight Life by Art Pepper is the best I've read.
Space Is The Place and Bright Moments and Beneath The Underdog also interesting.
On the other hand, Ben Watson is an idiot.
If you guys like his style, I would highly recommend his 33 1/3 book on Celine Dion's "Let's Talk About Love". It more or less breaks down subjective taste in a really entertaining way. Best of the series, for sure.
Based on what you've got listed there, you might also like
Monolake
Rhythm & Sound
Borderland
If you're a reader, it's well worth finding a copy of Dan Sicko's Techno Rebels. That will give you loads of hints and cross references to help you find the techno you really love.
A Long Strange Trip... has a personal favorite story about Wiz Leonard dosing very hard during 5/26/72 and leaving the sound truck unattended during Morning Dew, which ended up making the E72 album anyway!
Recording Studio Design. Philip Newell
Acoustic Absorbers and Diffusers. Cox/D'Antonio
Room Acoustics. Heinrich Kuttruff
Sound System Engineering. Davis/Patronis.Jr/Brown
Home Recording Studio. Rod Gervais
Master Handbook of Acoustics. F.Alton Everest
Some are heavy on the acoustic theory some are more practical but all really good resources. I'd also second the John Sayers forum.
If you're specifically looking for grunge, and you havent explored the big 4, they are the place to start.
Soundgarden is my favourite, mainly because, in my opinion, they were the most experimental and rhythmically interesting out of the bunch (and effective odd time signature usage gets me excited). Also Cornell was a stone cold genius.
After the big 4, expand out into the others people have mentioned (plus Silverchair's first two albums, Frogstomp and Freak Show).
ALSO, if you're interested in the history and backstories, I hiiiiiighly recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Everybody-Loves-Our-Town-History/dp/030746444X
Blurb:
>"Drawn from more than 250 new interviews—with members of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Screaming Trees, Hole, Melvins, Mudhoney, Green River, Mother Love Bone, Temple of the Dog, Mad Season, L7, Babes in Toyland, 7 Year Bitch, TAD, the U-Men, Candlebox and many more—and featuring previously untold stories and never-before-published photographs, Everybody Loves Our Town is at once a moving, funny, lurid, and hugely insightful portrait of an extraordinary musical era."
The '80s snare drum sound was due to an effect called a "reverb gate". There was a book I read, Perfecting Sound Forever, that spent close to a full chapter discussing why the reverb gate was commonplace in the '80s.
The idea, if I remember, was that reverb gating on the snare drum was a backlash to the '70s recording ideal of dry and close-miked drums and other instruments. The idea was not to record the room, but to record the instrument in as sterile of an environment as possible. That way you supposedly would get the pure essence of the instrument, nothing else. Back in those days, studios would be deadened with all sorts of soundproofing, and the drums would be recorded in a separate room, the drum booth.
So in the '80s, engineers and producers reacted to this not by naturally recording the room (say, like Steve Albini or any of the Albini soundalike producers that littered the 1990s), but by adding the spatial dimension back to the sound artificially. I guess there was still the idea that sound was meant to be recorded "pure" in the studio, and the effects were supposed to be added in later artificially. Maybe, as I've heard many times, it was the cocaine.
Off topic -- I wonder what our generation's equivalent of gated reverb will be -- the effect that everyone had in the day, but sounds dated 30 years forward. Autotune? Quantization? Drum triggering? I guess time will tell.
A basic music theory textbook sounds like what you're looking for; I think I used an older edition of this when I was in school.
If you're really interested in classical music, a basic history book might help as well. I'm a big fan of The Vintage Guide to Classical Music, which is interesting, informative, and very readable. It features chapters on a number of different composers and provides just the right amount of depth for a newcomer on each, ~20 pages each.
If you haven't made much music in the past, I would recommend learning how to DJ while also studying the principles of audio synthesis and music theory.
DJing is a really good way of understanding what elements of a tune make it danceable and exciting - particularly as far as rhythm and harmony are concerned. Digital music production requires a pretty solid understanding of not just computer software but also a few fundamentals, including the physics of sound, the science behind audio synthesis, and then technique things such as editing, signal flow, etc.
A few books I would recommend for getting started are The Computer Music Tutorial and Musicmathics. As far as mixing and mastering is concerned, which are other essential aspects of the production process, I would recommend checking out Robert Katz's Mastering Audio.
Psychoacoustical considerations are probably what most blatantly separate the men from the boys. My recommended starter for this is Music, Cognition, and Computerized Sound by Perry Cook, who is a professor of Computer Music at Princeton.
EDIT: Also, if you don't already, start listening to and appreciating classical music - particularly stuff made after the Renaissance - in order to get an understanding of the emotional impact things such as dynamics and voicing have on the listening experience. Electronic music heavily borrows from the classical music tradition in this context. Digital music production essentially makes you a computerized Mozart, in that you can control dozens of musical voices, but with even more micromanagement potential than the typical classical music conductor can offer. You will not have a complete understanding of these musical concepts from pop/rock music alone, or even from more 'sophisticated' musical practices such as jazz.
Im guessing they're referring to the book since there's so vid for the song that i know of
Tune In is also really good, though it only goes to the end of 1962.
I think an important question you need to ask yourself (or at least clarify for us) is what kind of counterpoint would you like to write? Renaissance-style counterpoint or tonal counterpoint a la Bach? If the former, I would suggest something like Peter Schubert's Modal Counterpoint; if the latter, perhaps something like Kent Kennan's Counterpoint or Robert Gauldin's A Practical Guide to 18th Century Counterpoint
In either case, these books will present the basics of counterpoint, such as the consonances and proper voice leading, and then walk you through gradually more advanced techniques, elaborations, etc. to be able to write things in the style and give you a better understanding of what's going on in order to be able to analyze music.
Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky, Guide to the Practical Study of Harmony
Arnold Schoenberg, Fundamentals of Musical Composition
Music Composition For Dummies
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Composition
Music Composition 1: Learn how to compose well-written rhythms and melodies (Volume 1)
More at Amazon.com
https://www.reddit.com/r/Composition/
Check out
Techno Rebels
Last Night a DJ Saved My Life
A collection of thoughts
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As has been said
> Don’t be afraid to build up a giant stack of half formed ideas on top of your piano.
Beethoven is notorious for his sketch books, and for playing with and developing ideas for years and years and years after the initial thought.
The original ideas for the 5th symphony are junk, for example. but he kept playing with it
get this book for more on this
https://www.amazon.com/Beethovens-Sketches-Analysis-Style-Sketch-Books/dp/0486230422/
part of music is the actual musical architecture and structure of the music. This is covered in the subject of "musical form" but this goes deeper
see this short video by whitacre on the subject
"Discovering the Golden Brick"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwjqptQ5R-w
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for more general instruction on the basics and the bigger issues of music composition, see this YT channel by Alan Belkin
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUQ0TcIbY_VEk_KC406pRpg
for a more popular music perspective, see Rick Beato and related channels
https://www.youtube.com/user/pegzch
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One of the longest traditions in music education is the making of arrangements and transcriptions of other people's music. This seems to far more effective if you do it by hand, and copy out all the parts yourself (again by hand)
Bach arranged Vivaldi, Mozart arranged Bach, Beethoven arranged Handel, etc.
If these masters did this as part of their own musical studies, maybe you could so this for your own education, using the music you admire most.
Even if it is arranging the music to a new key or mode (major to minor, etc)
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As a general thing I recommend books by Charles Rosen for music of the Classical era
https://www.amazon.com/Sonata-Forms-Revised-Charles-Rosen/dp/0393302199
https://www.amazon.com/Classical-Style-Mozart-Beethoven-Expanded/dp/0393317129/
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Probably the best place to start is by writing "etudes" which basically means "Studies" You could also call them "Experiments".
These would be shortish pieces where you try out different things. Thus if you do not know which way to go with something, you try them all or most of them, and flesh them out into separate things. Each is an experiment.
one idea might give a dozen experiments (major vs minor, slow vs fast, 3/4 vs 4/4 vs 5/4 = 12 combinations)
As experiments, not everything has to work. (but you might come back to it later)
Nothing has to be perfect, They are experiments
Later own, you experiment with ways to make it better. (see the Beethoven sketches again)
---
part of the musical problem of form is to how to continue something in order to maintain interest, without it getting boring for a variety of factors. Traditional forms are solid solutions to the problem but you can come up with your own.
As an example, check out the old popular songs of John Denver (!) many of which do not follow a conventional common practice song format. What is he doing there?
If you're looking for a pretty in depth look at the math and physics of music, Musimathics is a pretty good book.
hmmm. i think the post-punk label, retroactively applied, did tend to be used for punk rock bands. but at the time a lot of the post-punk/new musick bands did not derive musically from punk rock. see for example the new york no wave scene and continental europe's coldwave. of course, as post-punk became established in the late 70s it took direct influence from punk rock, but not in 76-77.
they were all still part of the punk movement, but a lot of them didn't play conventional punk rock
edit: if you haven't read it yet i highly recommend reading simon reynolds' post-punk book
The Archive has everything
Click on "Shows on this Day in History" and scroll to the bottom/last page. Look for the keywords "Soundboard" (I don't recommend starting with Audience recordings, but I'm a sbd snob) and "Charlie Miller" (his remasters are the best).
Start off looking for the '68 and '69 shows, riding that psych rock groove you've built up. Dark Star, The Other One, and Caution will acclimate you well to the band's free-flowing musicality and train your ear for the spacier jams that come up there and later when Playing In The Band enters the rotation (and Drums and Space in the late 70s on).
From there, jump around between '70 and '77. Things become jazzier in '72 when Keith joins and Mickey temporarily departs, and the wave crests at the end of '77.
After all that, you should be ready for '78, '79, the '80s with Brent, and the '90s. Lots of ups and downs (imho) during these years, but still quality and fun listens.
This UCSC website has all the lyrics to help you sing along (which you will).
If you're hooked on the music and want to learn more about the band, buy A Long Strange Trip by Dennis McNally: a detailed, well-written account of the band's history.
Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal https://www.amazon.com/dp/0380811278/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_9STOub1A3KTY4
Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore https://www.amazon.com/dp/193259504X/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_pUTOub10T8719
Techno Rebels by Dan Sicko is excellent, especially if you're interested in techno's roots in Detroit.
http://www.amazon.com/Tune-In-Beatles-These-Years/dp/1400083052
Perfecting Sound Forever covers the technology part. It takes quite a while to get in to the modern era, but it's a pretty interesting read.
This book is well worth a read: http://www.amazon.com/Rip-Up-Start-Again-1978-1984/dp/0143036726/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1451938909&sr=1-1&keywords=rip+it+up+and+start+again
A really good read on the subject.Edit: Someone else already linked to this book.
There is actually a book - "songwriters on songwriting"
https://www.amazon.com/Songwriters-Songwriting-Expanded-Paul-Zollo/dp/0306812657
I have read through it a couple of times looking for secrets - but here is the wierd thing... they dont really seem to have a formula. I felt like reading these people talk was no different to hearing a bunch of redditors talk. They make great songs, but they are not sure how they do it. The only solid advice is "keep doing it"
Peter Schubert - Modal Counterpoint: Renaissance Style
Renaissance and medieval music is historically the domain of musicology, so a lot of sources are going to come from that side of scholarship. Leo Treitler, Willi Apel and so forth.
Some more modern sources:
Cristle Collins Judd - Reading Renaissance Music Theory: Hearing with the Eyes
Also this volume edited by Judd, Tonal Structures in Early Music
Anna Maria Busse Berger - Medieval Music and the Art of Memory
Towards Tonality: Aspects of Baroque Music Theory, ed. Thomas Christensen
Jessie Ann Owens - Composers at Work: The Craft of Musical Composition 1450-1600
/u/65TwinReverbRI already brought up Knud Jeppesen's counterpoint book.
The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory is indispensible. Also from the standpoint of history of theory (though with an 18th century focus) is Joel Lester - Compositional Theory in the Eighteenth Century.
This thesis might be of interest to you.
Susan McClary's work is fantastic: Conventional Wisdom: The Content of Musical Form, Feminine Endings.
>I'm particularly interested in the cadences, actually; there was one Early Music Sources video that talked about how different voices would do different types of melodic cadences.
Hardly comprehensive, but be sure to read Nicolas Meeùs' article on cadences. He takes a Schenkerian approach to cantizans/altizans/tenorizans/bassizans formulae. They're beautiful Schenker graphs too.
\> This composition was focused on the balance and elegance of the Classical era (like Mozart and Haydn).
It doesn't quite achieve that either, mind you. The following paragraphs sound harsh but aren't intended to be.
There are lot of what I would call mechanical mistakes. Take the second bar. You shift an E-major chord up a second to F#-major, all voices moving in parallel. And then you compound it by the F#-C# to B-F# parallel fifths in the cello, viola and second violin. You will not find anything like this in the body of works of Haydn or Mozart. It's just a simple violation of rules that cannot happen when you strive to write in the Classical style.
Aside from these types of formal issues, there is something that takes much longer to get right and it has to do with all these unwritten rules that you would find implemented in every Mozart and Haydn sonata movement. The second theme appears to be presented in bar 17 and it is according to the standard rules in the dominant. So far so good. The problem is that you are missing the transition from first to second theme. The first section is just a repeat and alternation of two-bar motives. The 16 bars entirely consist of three chords: B-major, E-major and F#-major. And then, after ending on the tonic B-major, you introduce the second theme in the dominant F# but you never established that key, and it needs to be.
According to classical rules it requires either a cadence on the dominant, often introduced via vi which in the case of B-major would be like a g#-minor chord with the third in the base but more correctly denoted as B^(6), or a half-cadence on the double-dominant C#-major. You have neither and you don't have a single reference to the new leading tone E#, and you kind of do need it to convincingly present the second theme in the new key.
Whole books have been written specifically about how Classical composers treated the sonata form. I recommend Charles Rosen's Sonata Form or The Classical Style by the same author. These are incredible books and eye-opening. I keep repeating this and a lot of people don't believe it but the Classical era was the height of formalism in music. Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven were the most comprehensively trained composers in history. They had to be. They knew everything that Bach did but in addition to that they had mastery of the far richer structural and harmonic principles and rules of the Classical era (which, actually, they created themselves). That's why a scholar such as Charles Rosen spend his whole life (well, apart from performing as a pianist) on studying what made Classical music Classical.
But not to worry. It seems this competition that you won is for young (as in teen) composers. I've taken part in various composition competitions myself decades ago (and never really won anything). You'll figure it out. But do get these Charles Rosen books. When I read them for the first time they elevated my appreciation and understanding of classical music to an entirely new level.
Taste is a huuge subject-- there are books devoted to it. It's not something easily covered in a Reddit thread.
But I'll say this-- taste is social, right? It's built from the things people value together, based on past experiences. The random notes you bash out on a keyboard might impress some contemporary classical community if they've truly never heard anything more compelling, or if they value the sorts of things that make random notes interesting to them.
The contemporary classical community, though, isn't made of just one set of values. You'll see fans of artists like Jennifer Walshe, who are more interested in spontaneity or creative expression than harmonic tricks. Or you'll have the New Amsterdam Records crowd, which values accessibility and naked emotion.
When you find yourself confronted with a piece that's unfamiliar to you, it helps to ask questions like this: what might fans of this piece value? And how successfully does this piece deliver those things relative to other pieces with a similar aesthetic ?
This one is great. Pretty comprehensive.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0767911865
If you decide to dig further than ELI5 after reading the answers here, I highly recommend Sound of the Beast: The History of Heavy Metal
If you're interested in what really happened to The Strokes during those much-maligned years, you definitely need to read this.
If he's that devoted and he hasn't already read Tune In, then it'll be a welcome Father's Day gift.
https://www.amazon.com/Tune-Beatles-These-Years-Vol/dp/1400083052
I was going to mention something about this. I've been reading Tune In by Mark Lewisohn (awesome book, btw), and he mentioned that after Paul heard Little Richard's records, he just tried it out one day and found he could emulate his screams and singing fairly well. I don't have the quote at hand, but when asked about technique, he said you just have to let loose and let every ounce of inhibition out of your mind and body.
Since he was practically just out of middle school when he realized he could do it, he would break it out randomly throughout the school day on unsuspecting teachers and friends. So really, he got good/better at it by being a bit of a spaz (i.e., just an energetic youngster) trying to startle people, which I'm sure helped it become something natural and effortless when having to hit those crazy screams later on in life.
As an aside, while trying to find a quote, I happened upon this medley of Beatles screams.
:) good.
I have been doing a lot of reading to aid my learning of composition, and one book I found very useful was this: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Idiots-Guide-Composition-Guides/dp/1592574033?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0
there are pdf versions running around on the web if you want to "try before you buy".
http://www.amazon.com/Holler-If-You-Hear-Me/dp/0465017282
http://www.amazon.com/Born-Use-Mics-Reading-Illmatic/dp/0465002110
http://www.amazon.com/Know-What-Mean-Reflections-Hip-Hop/dp/0465018076/ref=la_B001IGNVH4_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397827979&sr=1-4
http://www.amazon.com/Between-God-Gangsta-Rap-Bearing-ebook/dp/B000VDM612/ref=la_B001IGNVH4_1_16?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397827995&sr=1-16
You have independently arrived at the mathematical foundations of music theory.
You might enjoy Musimathics, an introduction to music theory through math.
http://www.amazon.com/Musimathics-Mathematical-Foundations-Music-Volume/dp/0262516551
the bible for his sound, http://www.amazon.com/Room-Full-Mirrors-Biography-Hendrix/dp/0786888415
Hendrix would say to find your own way to "your" sound not just to copy directly, that is after he gave you the shirt off his back ;)
I play through a Line 6 Spider IV (im just a weekend warrior) a nice clean sound with a bit of dirt is right, you dont need anything too big, just keep in mind that Hendrix used enough overdrive to get the dirt when guitar volume was at ten then his clean sounds would be guitar with volume rolled off a bit, you dont need alot to get his sounds just need to learn your guitars "voice"
Some newer counterpoint books that I think lends itself well to self-teaching are the 16th and 18th-century versions by Peter Schubert.
There's a market for this in the hip hop / pop scene. Basically, what you want to do is partner with a beat maker and create a song package. Then you start shopping this to different labels and management.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammy_Award_for_Best_Rap_Song
If you look at the left side, you'll see a list of songwriters who collaborated with major artists and won a Grammy. It's very normal that big artists will collaborate with writers all the time. But usually, they'll have their own message they want to get across and have their own branding characteristics to manage.
The song "Empire State of Mind" was written by a song writing team and pitched. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_State_of_Mind#Background_and_writing
And this is an excellent book on songwriting techniques, experiences, and etc: http://www.amazon.com/Songwriters-On-Songwriting-Revised-Expanded/dp/0306812657/ref=cm_lmf_tit_18
The Classical Style by Charles Rosen is, if you forgive the pun, a classic. The sections on Haydn and Beethoven will be interesting too, as a contrast.
On a piano? Nothing. They correspond to the same note and don't have a difference.
But, a piano is tweaked out of line with the pure physics of music, tempered the same way one would temper steel. Most instruments are tempered like this and can only play a finite number of notes. Singers, on the other hand, can sing whatever notes they want, and so it's possible for a singer to sing whatever they want.
For a singer? The difference is in context. C# in relation to A is slightly different from Db in relation to F.
There's a great book called Temperament that explains the difference and why it was such a big deal to so many of the great minds of the past 600 years.
Sound System Engineering (Don Davis (of Syn-Aud-Con/LEDE) and Eugene Patronis): https://www.amazon.com/Sound-System-Engineering-Don-Davis/dp/0240818466/
and the bible: Acoustic Absorbers and Diffusers (Peter D'Antonio of RPG Inc. and Trevor Cox): https://www.amazon.com/Acoustic-Absorbers-Diffusers-Theory-Application/dp/0415471745/
get all the presentations and publications here: http://www.rpginc.com/Technology.cfm
history lesson: http://www.rpginc.com/docs%5CTechnology%5CPresentations%5CMRS%20Online.pdf :)
and here's a zip for you of other misc docs you may enjoy: https://www.sendspace.com/file/guz4ij
Songwriters on Songwriting is an interesting read.
for audio lectures, the learning company has a bunch that are easy introductory level (but pricey (but maybe available for free if you are less than honest)).
if you can read music etc then the classical style is supposed to be very good - tbh i found it too hard going and didn't get very far.
The Women's Room by Marylin French
The Chomsky Reader by Noam Chomsky
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
The Classical Style by Charles Rosen
Floating Worlds by Cecelia Holland
The Troika Incident by James Cooke Brown
Check out the first few chapters of this book, if you want to learn more about pre-vinyl music and recording: https://www.amazon.com/Perfecting-Sound-Forever-History-Recorded/dp/0865479380
Really interesting stuff.
I am sooooo obsessed with them. I'm reading "Meet Me in the Bathroom" and it's breaking my heart. But also making me fall in love all over again.
Ah cool, Amazon provides a sample content with purchase of the book that includes two chapters on JFE. Here are image grabs of those two chapters, if anyone's interested.
https://ibb.co/iC72fv (Chapter III, part 1)
https://ibb.co/gmH2fv (Chapter III, part 2)
https://ibb.co/nLZR7a (Chapter III, part 3)
https://ibb.co/keJVYF (Chapter III, part 4)
https://ibb.co/mqJm7a (Chapter III, part 5)
https://ibb.co/htdVYF (Chapter III, part 6)
https://ibb.co/ctFYna (Chapter IV, part 1)
https://ibb.co/iTPtna (Chapter IV, part 2)
https://ibb.co/dTFcDF (Chapter IV, part 3)
https://ibb.co/niqYna (Chapter IV, part 4)
Paul's diss on Sarah Lawrence gave me the chuckles. Didn't Ham go there? Oh god, I'm crying laughing at nearly everything Paul has to say, he's so god damn funny.
The holy trinity on my bookshelf:
The Black Book - Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook
The Green Book - Bob McCarthy's Sound System Design and Optimization
The Yellow Book - Don Davis's Sound System Engineering
And the apocrypha:
The Blue Book - Everest's Master Handbook of Acoustics
Edit: a link
https://www.amazon.com/High-Times-Hard-Anita-ODay/dp/0879101180
https://www.amazon.com/Straight-Life-Story-Art-Pepper/dp/0306805588
https://www.amazon.com/ART-Why-Stuck-Junkie-Jazzman/dp/1494297574
https://www.amazon.com/Sweet-Soul-Music-Southern-Freedom/dp/0316332739
And this essential book that almost no one has ever heard of, although it is the only book from its time, written by an actual jazz musician who was there . An absolute gem.
https://www.amazon.com/JAZZ-MASTERS-THIRTIES-Rex-Stewart/dp/B000W2S6DY
I learned from this book.
The FAQ has the basic rules for species, and some other resources listed. Just jump in and write a few first-species exercises.
https://www.amazon.com/Rip-Up-Start-Again-1978-1984/dp/0143036726/ref=sr_1_66?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1500167500&sr=1-66&refinements=p_27%3ASimon
Those Japanese reissues are normally very good - i think that time period is the King pressings , which are highly regarded. Art Pepper was a very interesting/tragic story. Not uncommon for jazz musicians, unfortunately.
Perfecting Sound Forever by Greg Milner
The book details a history of recorded music, and how changes in recording technology, from Edison cylinders to vinyl to tape, to computers, have changed how music is made. It is a really surprising and interesting look at how technology has changed our perception of music, and it's a really great read if you're into that sort of thing.
David Byrne's How Music Works is also an interesting read as he talks about his own process on various albums, and how he took different approaches to the albums, as well as a number of other aspects of music and the music industry in general. If you're a Talking Heads, or just a David Byrne fan, you'll definitely enjoy it, but even if you're not, it's a worthwhile read. Hope this helps!
Billy's Book, Deal
Phil's Book
Dennis McNally's book
David Brown's Book
Jerry on Jerry: Unpublished Interviews
Start with these
This book would fit exactly what you're looking for: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Celine-Dions-Lets-Talk-About/dp/082642788X
It basically asks fundamental questions about taste and sentimentality. Also how taste is linked with class.
Conversations with the Dead by David Gans is probably a good place to start. It is a compendium of interviews, a good read.
A Long, Strange Trip by Dennis McNally is a good book, might be another one to check out.
:)
I think you are confusing postpunk and posthardcore (which I've never heard of) Husker-du were definitely a hardcore band. Postpunk were people like Public Image ltd and Joy Division, who definately had VU influences. For a good bio on postpunk, check out "Rip it up and start again " https://www.amazon.com/Rip-Up-Start-Again-1978-1984/dp/0143036726
If you've studied some Theory, you may find this book to be helpful: Modal Counterpoint: Renaissance Style by Peter Schubert.
This book is a must have for fans of the Seattle music scene: https://www.amazon.com/Everybody-Loves-Our-Town-History/dp/030746444X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1478741641&sr=8-1&keywords=everybody+loves+our+town
This one as well: https://www.amazon.com/Screaming-Life-Chronicle-Seattle-Music/dp/0062586408/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1478741750&sr=8-1&keywords=screaming+life
A shirt from Easy Street Records: http://easystreetonline.com/Genre/694652
And maybe some regular old Seattle goodies: http://www.simplyseattle.com and also https://www.madeinwashington.com
If you play Guitar, any book from the Guitar Grimoire series will help a ton. I have the one on chord and voicings, and its approach is absolutely no-bullshit. It has sections for every type of chord configuration (major, minor, 7th, 9th, etc), and then lists every possible chord within it, a movable figure for it, and almost every scale that can be played within that particular chord alone. So for instance, I can play a Lydian Dominant or Hindu scale over an Asus2 chord. Never would've figured that out on my own. Also, if you play Keyboard, they have some Keyboard Grimoire books as well.
I also own The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Composition. Not a completely eye-opening book like Guitar Grimoire, but still surprisingly helpful.
Oh this is a fun one! The five finger death punch online merch store has non-clothing items. I’m kind of a fan of this neon light. Any neon light would be awesome for her bedroom, like this do what you love one. Or these guitars (ok, done with the neon now I promise! I love it though!). Continuing on the decor theme, wall art?
More ideas:
Adorable yet functional ffdp tote
Interesting book about the history of metal
A little pricey, but great for any music fan and budding creative
heavy metal coloring book...I couldn’t resist!
Ear plugs to protect your ears at shows but are still cool...ish
A really great read in regards to this is Carl Wilson's book about Celine Dion. He talks a lot about why Pierre Bordieu's notion of culture and media production can be related to tastes in music.
If you'd like to know more I can go into more detail.
Idk if it's common for parents to stick their children in creepy 'reflecting rooms', but this kind of torture was also done towards Jimi Hendrix, who was forced to sit in a similar room by his parents, which is detailed in a biography called Room Full of Mirrors.
*That particular biography is rather shoddy, I just linked to the name based on relevance. There are better biographies to read on Hendrix that were written by people who actually knew him in person. Legitimate or not, though, this particular biography may have played a role in the creative process behind Constance's little closet of horror.
Since this this still going, here are my two cents:
Tune In by Mark Lewisohn
https://www.amazon.com/Tune-Beatles-These-Years-Vol/dp/1400083052
Good for you for wanting to learn! Nothing wrong with iphone apps but, you know they'll only get you so far.
I have been reading this book off and on:
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Idiots-Guide-Music-Composition/dp/1592574033/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396580668&sr=8-1&keywords=music+composition
some good info!
This one is the best so far. Charles is a local Seattle writer, and his biography of Jimi has so far been praised as the most thoroughly researched and best written. He is also currently writing a Bruce Lee biography. I'm really looking forward to that.
basically anything written about the GD that mentions the roadies will comment on how awfully brutal they were to everyone.
http://www.amazon.com/Long-Strange-Trip-History-Grateful/dp/0767911865
You should read Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste by Carl Wilson. It explores this question, and, more specifically, why do so many people hate Celine Dion?
certain mentions such as tune-yards, the weeknd, james blake, bon iver, beach house are definitely of the "hipster" variety if you're one to look at pitchfork and such. but that they're still all incredibly talented especially with acts such as the weeknd and james blake expanding the idea of what soul can be.
the ones i definitely would've mentioned would be the pop group, this heat, pere ubu for examples of what post punk was. punk was more of an artistic philosophy than a music genre with particular musical attributes. as cliche as it sounds it truly was more about a DIY attitude than a theoretical music style. the bands really had very little to do with each other musically. the same happened to grunge. the only thing they really all had in common was a geographical area. the "seattle sound" became a brand and music suffered for it. after awhile bands that had the same feel came out of the woodwork and grunge pretty much died.
if you like reading about music I'd highly recommend Our Band Could Be Your Life for the American indie bands of the late 80s and early 90s and Rip it Up and Start Again for Post Punk from 1978-1984, mostly in the UK.
Another thing to consider is the creation of entire universes of music whether it be electronic music or metal. Or really hip hop for that matter, which is a lot more than thugs and gangsters. There was an alternate movement of conscious rappers, many of which were members of the Native Tongues Collective.
oh and on the sonic youth thing, i'd recommend Hey Joni.
Born to Use Mics: Reading Nas's Illmatic by Michael Eric Dyson and Sohail Daulatzai. This book takes each of Nas's 10 songs in Illmatic and dissects them based on content into distinct and diverse critiques of social and cultural issues. It's a really great read and has tons of different contributors, including Mark Anthony Neal and Common. I took Daulatzai's class at my school and it completely changed the way I see hip hop. Also, This Is the Life, a documentary that focuses on the The Good Life venue where many of Los Angeles's underground and alternative acts honed their skills through freestyle.
read http://www.amazon.co.uk/Straight-Life-Story-Art-Pepper/dp/0306805588
it's good persective to look at a life in drugs from outside - to see it's waste
A former CCRMA professor wrote this book on the mathematics of music, there is also a second volume that goes into more about composition. It has some pretty hardcore math, but you can also read around the math to get an idea of the physics of sound and some of the ways that we perceive sound.
https://www.amazon.com/Musimathics-Mathematical-Foundations-Music-Press/dp/0262516551
Simon Reynolds has done extensive research into the subject.
I would suggest reading "Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984", but make sure you get the UK version. The US version is missing most of the chapter on goth.
Not much time, but this would be of great assistance to you.
Listen to @mrdoom, a pro sound contractor is what you need. It is an old book but you might find it online. It was known as "The Big Yellow Book" written by Don & Carolyn Davis of Syn Aud Con many, many years ago. The title is "Sound System Engineering". https://www.amazon.com/Sound-System-Engineering-Don-Davis/dp/0240818466/ref=dp_ob_title_bk It details the math and physics needed to build a system that actually will work for the environment you been contracted to produce clean, intelligible sound in. Good luck, you might just learn something cool from it.
Fully endorse the homie Shea.
For future nominations my two favorite hip hop books I've read are:
Mo' Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove
and
Born To Use Mics
Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis is excellent, as is Room Full of Mirrors - Jimi Hendrix Biography. I read both of these on the way to Glasgow and the return flight. Both artists I truly enjoy and full of detail.
I dont know about the Beethoven one but this one sounds really, really cool https://www.amazon.com/Vintage-Guide-Classical-Music-Indispensable/dp/0679728058
The Vintage Guide to Classical Music: An Indispensable Guide for Understanding and Enjoying Classical Music
While I don't have a formal music education, I think a discussion of harmony should discuss a bit of history on:
> Polyphony: of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody
and
> Counterpoint: the relationship between voices that are harmonically interdependent (polyphony) yet independent in rhythm and contour
In the western world, the development of polyphony occured largely with religious music of the medieval eras, such as choir chants. The composition of this music was basically to work a set of simultaneous melodies (horizontally) while maintaining an harmonious chord (vertically) at most times. The melodies themselves often came from sung folklore, but the set of conventions built into formal (eg. church) polyphonic music form a strong bedrock of what is considered harmonious today.
Polyphony sort of merged into counterpoint in the renaissance, becoming the study and research of a fairly complex model not only the melodies and chords, but also of "motifs" or relationships between the simultaneous parts. Here's a video with what these rules look like.
It's important to realize that in the renaissance, music was more like a science. Music was godly, and therefore had to follow the rules. But there was also the maths. When commenter -Rewind talks about chromatic scale and intervals, we have to understand that these things were settled in that same era from a strong desire to have a "perfect" musical model. The more golden ratio, the better, and composition was closely tied to that. Basically, one could/would not simply sit on a harpsichord and improvise free jazz. A fascinating subject and here's one accessible book about it.
So the job of the composer was to realize his "inspiration" through established conventions, evolution was rather slow and it explains why music from that era tend to all sound similar. Despite this, composers managed to make music greater than sum of their parts, probably culminating with Bach who mastered the ability to make something arguably beautiful out of strict conventions through sheer greatness.
Later, each consecutive classical era (Mozart->Beethoven->Chopin->Debussy) progressively eliminated the rigidity of counterpoint in favor of artistic expression. However, much of the basic harmonies and motifs that form western music can be traced back to polyphony and counterpoint.
Cool. I think your kid will really like it. The language is simple and it starts out really basic, but gets more involved as you go along. If your kid gets through it and you guys are looking for more, I also recommend The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Composition as a follow-up. This gets into putting the theory into practice a lot more. Chord structure, melody, song structure, etc... It's an excellent follow-up.
Root For The Villain: Rap, Bull$hit, and a Celebration of Failure by J-Zone (who, if you're familiar with his music, is equally funny in his book)
Hip Hop Family Tree by Ed Piskor (it's a graphic novel focusing on the early days of hip hop done in the style of 90s Image comics)
How to Rap: The Art and Science of the Hip-Hop MC by Paul Edwards (this is full of interviews with some of the greatest of all time discussing every single aspect of rapping)
There's also The Wu-Tang Manual and The Tao of Wu, both by RZA and both very good for Wu-Tang fans.
If you think she may be interested in books on specific albums, the 33 1/3 series has quite a few on some of the genres greatest albums: Illmatic, Paul's Boutique, Donuts, People's Instinctive Travels And the Paths of Rhythm, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. She may enjoy Born to Use Mics: Reading Nas's Illmatic, which is a more scholarly approach to Illmatic, although admittedly not for everyone (if critical theory isn't her thing probably pass on this one).
Dear Scruffy,
http://www.amazon.com/Tune-In-Beatles-These-Years/dp/1400083052
It's a bit expensive but this book is brilliant! Really enlightening. I bought it for my brother back in the 90s.
https://www.amazon.com/Songwriters-Songwriting-Expanded-Paul-Zollo/dp/0306812657
One of the most influential Berlin night clubs of the past 2 decades, which holds similar ideals today much like most of the well known clubs that were born around techno music in Germany:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berghain
The birthplace of House music in Chicago "The Warehouse was patronized primarily by gay black and Latino men":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warehouse_(nightclub)
Recommended books you can read to learn about the history of music:
https://www.amazon.com/Klang-Familie-Felix-Denk/dp/3738604294
https://www.amazon.com/Techno-Rebels-Renegades-Electronic-Painted/dp/0814334385
https://www.amazon.com/Last-Night-DJ-Saved-Life/dp/0802146104/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
https://www.amazon.com/Energy-Flash-Journey-Through-Culture/dp/1593764073/ref=pd_sim_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1593764073&pd_rd_r=S1TWN7HDAJJY3Z2QN4BG&pd_rd_w=Zk210&pd_rd_wg=Dqe5r&psc=1&refRID=S1TWN7HDAJJY3Z2QN4BG
https://www.amazon.com/Electrochoc-Laurent-Garnier/dp/1906615918
A snippet from the above book by Laurent Garnier regarding Detroit, the birthplace of Techno music:
"Like Manchester in the early 1800s, during the golden age of the British Industrial Revolution, Detroit also became the great American city of industry. Several thousand blue-collar workers came from all over the US to work at the Ford automobile plant, while the black workers were confined to the foundries.
In 1959 Motor Town gave birth to Motown, the cultural pride of the black community. Then the battle for civil rights broke out in the US, and in July 1967 Detroit experienced three days of bloody rioting. The white community fled to the suburbs and the ghetto grew bigger and bigger. And finally, in the 1980s, there was an explosion in drug abuse, especially of crack, in these same ghettos.
Detroit techno music tells the story of all of this hardship. And within this music one can feel the life force that refuses to be put down. Words are of no importance. Everything is expressed within a few notes, repeated ad infinitum. Detroit techno is made of metal, glass and steel. When you close your eyes you can hear, far off in the distance, then closer and closer, the echo of crying. Like in jazz and blues, Detroit techno transfigures suffering. This authenticity of spirit has no price.
'In 1981, a record – "Sharevari" – was released that would play a pivotal role in the history of Detroit techno. "Sharevari" is the very first techno record from Detroit, but as yet nobody had used the term "techno," it simply didn't exist.
Mike Banks, alias Mad Mike, is the true soul of Detroit techno. He is an urban guerrilla, a man haunted by the suffering of his city. Mike has chosen music to fight against the problems of daily life and takes his inspiration from the Afro-American struggle of the 1960s
Through his record label Underground Resistance, Mike Banks spreads a guerrilla philosophy whose targets are the major record labels, the American segregationist system, and despair in the ghetto.
Mad Mike pursues his causes – to get young people away from crime and drugs, to rally against the economic disaster that is Detroit – and music.
UR is the continuation of a long struggle and we chose existing technologies to make this struggle move forward. Through UR, we wanted to express everything through sound; no need for pictures. We were against everything you have to accept in order to be famous.
We were just coming out of the 80s, a time when many black artists had had their noses done or their skin whitened. Fuck that! If a guy doesn't know what you look like, he won't care, as long as he likes your music. It's Detroit and the whole black experience in America that gave birth to Underground Resistance.
We both had experience of deals with majors in which we had been swindled. That is where the name Underground Resistance came from. Literally, to create a resistance to the "overground."
What's really remarkable is that I have to go out of my way to explain and showcase all of this to you, when this is something that is known amongst most fanatics of electronic music.
Much like Germany had its own sub-culture tied to political movement, so did Chicago and Detroit.
It's like I'm talking to a person saying "The sky is blue" while said person refuses to look up and constantly spews things like "No! Wrong! Wrong! It's green! Prove it!"
Why do you think Punk Rock is named after a whole sub-culture, just out of pure coincidence? It's laughable that I have to explain such a simple concept to someone so ignorant. It's like you talk about things that are 100% obvious and make yourself the clown of the room while genuinely refusing to acknowledge it, it's very cringeworthy.
I'm going to block you now because you're a prime example of the kind of people /r/edm is filled with and why no electronic music fanatic actually wants to remotely even deal with people of your kind, you've demonstrated that point very well. It's laughable how you refuse to educate yourself in any way and then you come on these boards with a hostile attitude dismissing things that have been known for multiple decades because of how dense and ignorant you are, from people who have a much better understanding of what they are saying. Electronic music is 40 years old now, do you genuinely think that nobody has touched on these subjects beforehand? Have a look at the list I linked to you and do yourself a favor and stop being hostile with your replies as long as you remain ignorant, you're really embarrassing yourself and most other EDM listeners with your example.
I've only skimmed through this book, but it seems to do a pretty nice job explaining the mathematical and physical basis of music/sounds.
https://www.amazon.com/Musimathics-Mathematical-Foundations-Music-Press/dp/0262516551/ref=asc_df_0262516551/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312128059570&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5390734458225666237&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9001910&hvtargid=pla-457218252634&psc=1
Yes, it is from a collection of interviews that journalist Paul Zollo conducted over his career called Songwriters on Songwriting.
I initially found the book/quote through an article written about Cohen's interview on a site called 'Brain Pickings'. You can see the full thing here.
In UK Oasis made even bigger impact than Nirvana and you can still see Oasis' influences all over the country. Also Oasis seems to be the no.1 band amongst football supporters all over the Europe. Yeah, they were 90s band but because of their big tours in 2000s they kept attracting lots of new fans in 2000s too.
But since you asked specifically about the Millenial bands I'd say The Strokes and their debut album Is This It made really big impact on pretty much every indie rock band we got in 2000s. For example, you can clearly hear Strokes influences when you listen to Arctic Monkeys 1st album.
This is actually really great book about the subject: Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011
You are getting great recommendations in this thread and will probably get many more. If your interest is piqued, The Vintage Guide to Classical Music is a great overview of composers and styles.
I will second Dvorak's "New World" Symphony which someone else has already suggested.
I strongly recommend Art Pepper's autobiography Straight Life for its brutal honesty about his drug problems, and his life in general.
Miles Davis' autobiography Miles is really mind-blowing. He's extremely candid, but also a complete asshole, so it makes for a very interesting read. Also, Art Pepper's autobiography Straight Life is very interesting and heartbreaking. Really gets into his drug addiction, repeated trips to jail, his sexuality. One of the great musician bios in my opinion.
Can you find this one: https://www.amazon.com/Vintage-Guide-Classical-Music-Indispensable
I use this book all the time its great
I've recently begun reading this book on the history of Classical music and I am enjoying it.
https://www.amazon.es/gp/product/0679728058/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Well, I can only speak for myself. In reading the book, I often had trouble discerning what he was trying to say, or even finding a unifying thread of thought I could follow. Maybe this was not so much a result of his choice of words, but more of the way he presented his thoughts - in any case, that is the experience I had, and while I commend you for apparently not having had these troubles, I still stand by what I said.
Of course, everybody can form their own opinion: Amazon.com offers a "look inside" feature for the book, so this might be a good opportunity to check it out.
Being you're posting on the Critical Theory board, you're probably looking for something more philosophical/theoretical, but since you said you're open to all approaches, Perfecting Sound Forever by Greg Milner is one of my absolute favorite books.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0865479380/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i0
Read the book. Songwriters on song writing.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0306812657/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1377545636&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX110_SY165
This was a required read in my songwriting class in school.
Yes, that would be clipping in your program material. First rule of digital audio is to stay completely out of the red. Fixing that of course wouldn't help as much as reading this book-
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Idiots-Guide-Music-Composition/dp/1592574033/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260905133&sr=1-4
Good Luck
Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:
Amazon Smile Link: http://smile.amazon.com/Room-Full-Mirrors-Biography-Hendrix/dp/0786888415
|Country|Link|
|:-----------|:------------|
|UK|amazon.co.uk|
|Spain|amazon.es|
|France|amazon.fr|
|Germany|amazon.de|
|Japan|amazon.co.jp|
|Canada|amazon.ca|
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