KVR Audio

pekadan · Post by **pekadan** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 2:21 pm

Hey! Recommend me some really good books related to music making and production (e.g. about music theory, composing, song/lyrics-writing, sound synthesis, sound processing, mixing techniques, etc). The books that changed your life!

See, I have to do some travelling this fall and want to bring some interesting stuff to read. I'm hoping to return to my music studio with lots of newly gained knowledge and inspiration!

I guess I'm at some sort of intermediate amateur level as far as most music making related things go, so I won't get "home recording for dummies" or "advanced orchestration for geniuses" even if you recommend them, but anything else might well be of interest!

tetraplan · Post by **tetraplan** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 2:29 pm

Laozu - Dao Dejing

Groet, Erik

pekadan · Post by **pekadan** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 2:39 pm

tetraplan wrote:Laozu - Dao Dejing

Groet, Erik

"The most effective course of action is always...
to do nothing!"

"Wisdom is the understanding that knowledge is useless.
The failure to understand that knowledge is useless is sickness."

You're saying I should stick to reading comics?

Meffy · Post by **Meffy** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 2:43 pm

Genesis of a Music -- Harry Partch

Okay, it didn't revolutonize my life. But it systematically explained a lot of stuff that I'd laboriously been gathering from examples of just intonation and the like.

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 2:49 pm

I tend to read books about musicians, and music technology, rather than technique as such. Hence I'd suggest anything by David Toop, just for views on how musicians think and work and react to and use technology...

pekadan · Post by **pekadan** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 2:57 pm

Meffy, rabbyt, thanks! Very interesting suggestions!

I see David Toop has written quite a few books. What's a good one to start with would you say, as an introduction?

DWb · Post by **DWb** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 2:59 pm

whyterabbyt wrote:I tend to read books about musicians, and music technology, rather than technique as such. Hence I'd suggest anything by David Toop, just for views on how musicians think and work and react to and use technology...

Ocean of Sound is amazing!

I'd also recommend (as I just did in the techno thread) that everyone read Simon Reynolds' book, Energy Flash (called Generation Ecstacy in the US) which is a) fantastic and b) will (for most KvRians, I think) challenge the way that you understand music, especially with regard to stupid / functonalist dance music. It constantly amazes me that there are people who haven't read this book...

Beardedone · Post by **Beardedone** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 3:05 pm

Trout Bum - John Gierach

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 3:07 pm

DWb wrote: Ocean of Sound is amazing!

Yeah, that's where I'd start.

I'd also recommend (as I just did in the techno thread) that everyone read Simon Reynolds' book, Energy Flash (called Generation Ecstacy in the US) which is a) fantastic and b) will (for most KvRians, I think) challenge the way that you understand music, especially with regard to stupid / functonalist dance music. It constantly amazes me that there are people who haven't read this book...

Another book I'd suggest, but with a different genre focus is 'The Ambient Century' by Mark Prendergast.

geoffrey · Post by **geoffrey** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 3:23 pm

Nada Brahma: The World is Sound
Cheers,
Geoff

rp314 · Post by **rp314** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 7:00 pm

Yeah, the Partch book is very good but the point I would make is that most of the good books on music that I have come across over the years appear to be aimed at already trained composers or musicians. Furthermore, no single book even pretends to be complete so you probably want to check out as much as you can but with the intention of trying to piece everything together, as it were, rather than getting explicit instructions.

My recommendations: there was a small book of interviews with Karlheinz Stockhausen titled "Towards a cosmic music" which contained some interesting bits about how and why he used notation in his works. Also, once upon a time we all had to read Arnold Schoenberg's "Style and Idea" and the series that Robert Craft did with Stravinsky titled "Conversations with Igor Stravinsky" has some really good stuff at least for those of us who still consider him to be the best the 20th century produced and are looking to get some of his "mojo".

Barf · Post by **Barf** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 7:03 pm

'Ocean of Sound' +1

aallvor · Post by **aallvor** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 7:41 pm

Dance Music Manual by Rick Snoman is very good

Hovmod · Post by **Hovmod** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 7:48 pm

I really liked a Danish book called "Ind i musiken" by Peter Bastian.

Barf · Post by **Barf** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 7:50 pm

'Good Vibrations: A History of Record Production' by Mark Cunningham

Recommend me some books!