Capturing Sound
Subtitle: How Technology Has Changed Music (Roth Family Foundation Music in America Book)
Edition: 1 edition
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: November 1, 2004
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 276
ISBN-13: 9780520243804
Subjects: Music; Technology: General Issues; Music/Songbooks; Recording & Reproduction; Music / General; Music and technology; Genres & Styles - Pop Vocal; Sound recording industry
First sentence: Anytown, U.S.A., 1905: a family and several neighbors stand in the parlor of a modest home, staring with equal parts curiosity and skepticism at one of the technological marvels of the day.
Description: There is more to sound recording than just recording sound. Far from being simply a tool for the preservation of music, the technology is a catalyst. This is the clear message of Capturing Sound, a wide-ranging, deeply informative, consistently entertaining history of recording's profound impact on the musical life of the past century, from Edison to the Internet. In a series of case studies, Mark Katz explores how recording technology has encouraged new ways of listening to music, led performers to change their practices, and allowed entirely new musical genres to come into existence [Publisher description]

Katz (musicology, Peabody Conservatory of The Johns Hopkins U.) provides a history of the effects of recording technology on the ways that people listen to, perform, and compose music. Following an overview of the nature of sound recording and the qualities that make the phonographic experience unique, Katz presents seven case studies, progressing more or less chronologically from the early-20th century to the early-21st century, investigating specific phonographic effects. The accompanying CD contains 13 tracks, from Chopin to Public Enemy, to enable readers to hear the concepts covered in the text. Academic but accessible to the general reader.