Electronic Music Pioneers [Paperback]

Ben Kettlewell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2001

Author Ben Kettlewell presents an exhaustive text on the illustrious history of electronic music, from its beginnings with Leon Theremin to interviews with Dr. Robert Moog and artist Klaus Shulze. From software synths to Kraftwerk, even gangster rap, the electronic music explosion has made an impact on almost every aspect of the music industry. This exciting new book tells the stories of the people and inventions that revolutionized the musical sound palette. "Electronic Music Pioneers" is an expansive title filled with research and useful knowledge about the history and methods of electronic music with an extensive timeline of this music technology.

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

In the twentieth century, new advancements in technology allowed a much more diverse musical palette for the musician or composer to choose from. The combination of traditional instruments and new breed of musical instruments have opened up exciting new possibilities for interaction between musical cultures.

As a result of these new forms of exploration, by the mid-1970s, music created with synthesizers and other electronic instruments quickly became the most influential development in the modern musical panorama.

Electronic Music Pioneers features interviews with artists and inventors. Together they give the reader a clear picture of the development and incorporation of these instruments in every form of music. It would take many volumes to cover every instrument, every genre, every musician involved in the many facets of electronic music. As in the analogy of many layers of an onion, every time we think we’re really getting a grasp on the history and evolution of music technology, we discover another "layer of reality," and realize we’re just scratching the surface.

Product Details

• Paperback: 286 pages
• Publisher: Artistpro; 1 edition (May 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931140170
• ISBN-13: 978-1931140171
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,219,329 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Dissapointing, for a $21 book........, March 12, 2003

By 

J. B. Durham "Joseph B Durham" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Electronic Music Pioneers (Paperback)

This book, although comprehensive to be sure, often paints in extremely broad or disconnected brush strokes, leaving me wishing there was more detailat times. This was especially evident in the first section, a seemingly endless series of brief bio's of various figures who are presented as key players in the development of electronic music, with very little indication of how they might actually fit into the historical continuum, or how they might relate to each other.

Also, I'm not an expert, but I noticed some factual errors (for example: 'Whiter Shade of Pale', is by Procol Harum, not the Moody Blues; Stanley Clark is a bassist, not a guitarist; LFO stands for Low Frequency Oscillator, not Low Filter Oscillator). These may seem like minor errors, but in a book intended to give technical or historical information, they throw doubt on the integrity of the rest of the facts presented. Also, the presence of typo's and grammatical errors made me wonder if this was hastily edited, to capitalize on the current craze for all things analog and electronic.

The interview with Klaus Shultz contains an opinion about music downloading that is woefully out of touch (the cost of phone service to download a CD is more than the cost of a CD?), which, granted, is his opinion, but in a book purported to educate those who are unexposed to the technology is also misleading, and also very surprising for a book published in 2002.

Finally, the format/layout is approximately 8.5x11, but the pages are half-empty. Although this may be considered innovative graphic design, it implies that the publisher wished the book to seem more substantial than its content would support, in a book of convential size and layout.

I also have read Frank Trocco's book on the Moog synthesizer (which also covers the Buchla, ARP, and others), and found it to be far superior. I'd recommend anyone just getting into this subject to start there instead.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent History!, April 24, 2003

By 

Prof. Edward Peale (Bloomington, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Electronic Music Pioneers (Paperback)

In this scholarly work , Kettlewell discusses the work of composers, inventors and performers who shifted the boundaries of music in regard to sound source, notation, time, space, and the roles of the composer, performer and audience. The author seeks to identify and explain a whole body of musical work that existed outside the classical tradition and the avant-garde orthodoxies that flowed from it. Many rare photographs enrich the text and the book concludes with a selected source bibliography, an exhaustive list of related websites, and a bibliography of publications since 1934. Dr. Joel Paradiso, the Director of the MIT MediaLab in Cambridge, Massachusetts has contributed an interesting foreword to this edition. The tome is a detailed account of a radical musical direction that has borne great fruit in the years since it was first analysed in this thorough and scholarly work.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wonderful book, June 6, 2008

By 

Mara O'Sullivan "Mara" (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Electronic Music Pioneers (Paperback)

I found this book very informative both historically and as a music technology reference. I've read it from cover to cover 3 times already.
One thing I find curious, is not the book, but some of the reviews of the book I've read on your website. For instance the one by J. B. Durham "djminiwheats" (Chicago, IL USA) is totally fabricated, most likely something cooked up by an author with a similar competing book. None of the inaccuracies this reviewer refer to are in the book, and I've gone through it with a fine tooth comb. It's a pity that false reviews like that creep into the Amazon website. Most libraries carry the book. I urge perspective readers to check it out before making a purchase. It will be time well spent.