Repeated Takes: A Short History of Recording and Its Effects on Music (Hardcover)

by Michael Chanan (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"Repeated Takes is an informed journey through the parts that other books rarely reach. It tells a story of technology, industrial change and corporate warfare. It is a fascinating book rich in reference." - Stuart Cosgrove, Channel Four Television --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Description
This work on the recording industry covers the ground from Edison's talking tin foil of 1887 to the age of the compact disk. It charts the evolution of recorded sound and asks: what goes on in the recording industry; how does it affect the music; and do we listen to music differently from our forebears because of reproduction? Michael Chanan is the author of "The Dream that Kicks", "The Cuban Image" and "Musica Practica".

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Verso (June 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1859849172
• ISBN-13: 978-1859849170
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #7,550,010 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars When music began to be recorded, everything changed, July 7, 1998

By	Cap'n Pete (Boston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Repeated Takes: A Short History of Recording and Its Effects on Music (Paperback)

This is a book about what audio recording has done to our minds, our culture, our economy, and most of all to our relationship with music. Along the way, Chanan gives an excellent short history of "phonography --" the art of recording sound, from 1902 when Caruso's voice was found to perfectly suited to drowning out surface noise, up to the '90s, when Chuck D of Public Enemy explains that the sound of New York City rap is "more of a headphone thing" because people in the Big Apple don't drive much. Songs from places where you need wheels, like Philadelphia or L.A. are made to be heard on car stereos instead.

The advent of the Edison cylinder, and later the 78 rpm disc, forever changed the fundamental relationship of musician, music, and listener. Prior to recordings, music was etherial, gone forever when the performance was over, and known only to those who were there. When music became a commodity, the performance was separated from a time and place. Moreover, it provided a way to "notate" musical forms (like the blues) that had been transmitted only in person.

Early on, it became apparent that there was big money to be made if one had a hit record -- Caruso personally made over $2 million between 1902 and 1921, when he died -- and corporations were quick to start what we now know as the Record Business. Chanan describes the confluence of technology, copyright law, and popular culture that has made the music scene what it is today: a massive multinational machine, that requires a steady stream of fresh, disposable product.

We are musically different creatures then our ancestors of a century ago. A hundred years ago, no one could have imagined music being used as aural furniture, as it is in an elevator, airport, or dentist's office. Not a single one of our great-great-grandparents ever had the experience of intimately *knowing* a performance as we do -- of having the first note of an overheard Motown song germinate inside your head with 20 years worth of memo! ries, and "hearing" every nuance of horn, snare, and reverb before they occur.

This isn't a book that one blows through in a hurry. I had to keep stopping to reread sentences and let them sink in, and adjust to some new perspective on a topic I thought I knew all about. My modest recording studio seems different now; somehow more powerful and more miraculous. I don't know if I'm a better phonographer for having read _Repeated Takes_, but I do know a lot more about the implications of pressing "Record."