| Description |
405 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 23 cm |
| Summary |
All recordings document life, arising from a specific time and place, and if that place is artificial, the results will be as well. Culled from a lifetime of learning through failure and designed to provoke thought and inspiration for artists in every medium, How Music Dies (or Lives) is a virtual how-to manual for those on a quest for authenticity in an age of airbrushed and Auto-Tuned so-called zartists.y Author and Grammy-winning producer Ian Brennan chronicles his own journeys to find new and ancient sounds, textured voices, and nonmalleable songs, and he presents readers with an intricate look at our technological society. His concise prose covers topics such as: The damages of colonization in generalizing distinctive variations The need for imperfection The gaps between manufacturing and invention The saturation of music in everyday life |
| Contents |
Preface. Proximity bias and the irrationality of fear -- Introduction. Learning through failure -- The value of democratizing voices. We aren't the world : all music is "local music" ; The fixation to fixate ; Message monopolization ; Field recording chronicle: Malawi ; The real king(s) of rock 'n' roll ; Field recording chronicle: Malawi ; Unlabelling labels ; Field recording chronicle: Rwanda ; Regressive superlatives : the "g"-word ... and other demons ; Field recording chronicle: Zomba prison ; Winning hearts, not breaking backs : all we are saying is give art a chance -- A call for a return to naturalism : the need for randomness. Building an arc ; Everything, including the kitchen sink ; The primordial "social work" : why music heals ; Field recording chronicle: Vietnam ; Consumerism masquerading as creativity ; Field recording chronicle: Palestine ; Parallel rituals : the insularity of technological "advances" ; Sound before volume ; Field recording chronicle: South Sudan ; Recording as a leap of faith -- |
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How to get "there" : some possible roads home. Surrendering to sound ; Voices within the voice ; Using the microphone as a telescope ; Field recording chronicle: Juba orphanage ; Acoustic illumination ; What's "left"? ; Element(s) of surprise ; Field recording chronicle: Taranta ; Cooked by culture : ever beware the "experts" ; What can't be owned? -- Products of our environment. Making sense of the first sense ; S-urr-ounded : the inescapable symphonies of our everyday life ; Field recording chronicle: Cambodia ; Disposable music ; Inter-specific artistry : "I am not an animal!" ; Aural culture : music not as math, but individuation ; Moving targets : there is no "there" there ; Do you hear what I hear? ; Playing for keeps : there is no rehearsal ; Field recording chronicle: Acholi Machon ; The ricochet of influence -- Backin' up for some backstory. Transparency : letting your real "roots" show ; Drawing random inspiration from the inspired : liberating influence from the ghetto of sanctioned outlets ; Who's the boss? ; The road from No-name-ville ; Premature and promiscuous championing ; Pain dues, dude ; Amateur hour : "Real musicians have day jobs" ; Bittersweet dreams -- |
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Beware the traps. Living in the moment, but keeping an eye on the horizon ; Sonic prisons : Getting off the grid ; Personalities displacing spirituality ; Field recording chronicle: Transylvania ; Self-sabotage and the unconscious : subjectivity's quicksand ; The school of soft knocks ; Hearing lost ; "Free" samples? -- Welcoming magic : Heeding wanderlust's call. Following existing currents ; Put up, don't shut up ; Beneath the words ; Breaking patterns : Creating creativity ; it's all in the details ; Connectivity through sonics ; Say it loud, say it proud ; Castaway ; If you're not having fun, you're not fooling anyone ; Home base -- How not to memorialize music. A few "don't" champions from my past ; Some notes from the "do" files -- Enlisting limitations as expressive partners. Trained by fire, on the chopping block ; What do you know? ; Imperfect pitch : there are no mistakes ; Gauging the atmosphere -- |
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Racing racism. Free for all? ; Same old, same old : colonialism's leftovers ; You call that equality? Distracted by the decoys ; Stangered : disproportionate estimations (on the outside, looking out) ; Single origin fairy tales ; Disgraceful by association ; Outlaw camouflage : Slumming in the "underground" ; Are you seriously "serious"!? ; Music cannot be possessed, but it can possess ; False friends : raw does not always equal real ; Thinly veiled bigotry (the patrimony dies hard) -- The battle for democracy in the arts. How music dies ; Cheapshot ; A world of "superstars," Minus an audience ; The myth of purity ; In their owned words ; Wire-monkey music ; Organically grown : truth in advertising ; Every man for himself? ; Too much "like," not enough love ; The talking dead : rest in pieces ; Oversharing -- |
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How music dies : money and its wake. If you can't beat 'em, Get them to join you ; Now you don't see it (and now you still don't) ; Image cannibalism : The media as a gigantic mirror of infatuation ; Manufactured competition : don't believe the hype ; Sin-ergy ; Don't believe half of what you see ; Fabricated identity : bands as brands ; Sub-merged substitutions ; The superscar system ; Standardized forms, fear of the random : living in boxes, atop Grids -- Odds and endings : They couldn't keep doing it without all of the "little people." Souls sold for convenience ; Corruption and arrested growth ; Who are you calling crazy? : The romanticization of mental illness ; Records don't kill people, people kill people ; Open season ; Conditional love ; The collective jukebox is stuck : one world, one store ; "Forever" is a very, very long time ; Guilty as charged -- Conclusion. The earth is an echo -- Epilogue. Open ears, open mind -- Overview. |
| Subject |
Sound -- Recording and reproducing.
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| Added Author |
Delli, Merilena, photographer.
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Tucker, Corin, author of foreword.
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| ISBN |
9781621534877 (pbk.) |
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1621534871 (pbk.) |
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