Customer Reviews

Electronic Music Pioneers

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

What is outstanding about Electronic Music Pioneers is the sheer breadth of the work. Kettlewell has an encyclopedic knowledge of musical genres and a refreshing willingness to look beyond traditional classifications. This allows him to find unexpected threads and connections, bringing together apparently unrelated figures such as Morton Feldman and Grandmaster Flash, Klaus Schulze and W.A. Mozart and Orson Welles, Leon Theremin and the Beach Boys. EMP is a big work, not one to be read in a single session. It is comprehensive and detailed, covering every genre of music from classical to rap, techno, anything and everything where electricity and music combine forces. For each of its sections there is an extensive list of recordings/book for the reader to explore further. It is a book to dip into, to read and return to. Inevitably, readers will agree with some of his judgements and disagree with others. Given the comprehensive nature of the work, that is hardly surprising. If your interested in seeing how music and electronic insturments grew up together and what their relationship was, this is a book you won't want to pass up.

This book has some nice pictures, some interesting interviews, but all in all, it is littered with inaccurate information and lies!

Regardless of what Kettlewell says: Karl Stockhausen is NOT considered the father of Dobly surround! Darius Milhaud is NOT considered the father of rap music!! Morton Subotnick NEVER wrote music on a Serge Synthesizer!!!

All of these are in here, plus many other obsurd conclusions and comments! If you are after accurate information about electronic music, I would highly recommend that you pass over this one.

Published by ArtistPro Press, this is unquestionably a scholarly and serious work... yet at times it reads almost like a novel. Kudos to Kettlewell for making this material educational, accessible and enjoyable in all the right ways.

As a "serious" collector of analog synthesizers, I found this book to be enlightening in a number of ways, clearing up many things I'd been wondering about. For anyone interested in "the invention and impact of the synthesizer," this book is a must. Highly recommended.

The book provides excellent descriptions of historic electronic instruments as well as some terrific interviews with pioneering giants like Bob Moog, Tom Oberheim, Serge Teraphin, Don Buchla and Klaus Schulze. Meticulous attention is given to important historic information and the book includes a wonderful timeline going back over a hundred years to Elisha Gray and his electric telegraph. This is as close as you can get to personally being there when the instruments were first invented. Likely the best of eight electronic music books on my shelf.

I'd have to say that this book is perhaps one of the definitive studies on the marriage of electricity and music, covering the aesthetics, concepts, influences, directions, etc., of this growing musical field in a very inclusive and insightful style. Electronic Music Pioneers is an incredibly rich and detailed book, written in an immediately accessible style. It's a beautifully designed book with excellent content.

Anyone interested in knowing more...either in scope, or deeper within the many paths of electronic music should purchase a copy of this book.

Poorly written and poorly researched. The book contains far too many factual errors to be taken seriously.

Some examples:

On page 224 the author refers to the Yamaha TG77 as an analog synthesizer, and incorrectly associates it as the sound generator for Akai analog wind controllers.

In the chapter, "Affordable Sampling Emerges", he seems to believe the Kawai K5, a pure additive synth, was a sampler hybrid.

He classifies the Korg Wavedrum, a physical modeling unit using an array of five microphones to turn the physical nuances of a performance directly into sound, as a MIDI drum controller.

...and so on...

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Some curious omissions: with a copyright date of 2002, why would he mention Opcode's long dead Vision several times, but never mention the contributions of Performer - or the multi-port MIDI interface ... or organizational discontinuities - why lump drum machines - a topic that could easily have its own chapter, under the header 'percussion controllers'? Very odd.

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Much of the time, the authors embellishment betrays certain prejudices, so the book comes off as more an opinion piece rather than a historical account of the subject. It is a good thing the interviews are there to break up the spotty writing.

You'd be much better served by 'Electric Sound' by Joel Chadabe, who, ironically, is interviewed at the end of the book.

"This book really goes into depth revealing the early explorations of electronic music and it's inventors. There are wonderful interviews and stories of those responsible for the initial innovations and creation of the instruments and music that have been the foundation for the electronic music of today. Electronic Music Pioneers is a must for anyone who wants an understanding of those roots."
Michael Stearns (http://www.....com/)