Music Technology

This Very Short Introduction takes an expansive and inclusive approach meant to broaden and challenge traditional views of music and technology. In its most common use, "music technology" tends to evoke images of twentieth and twenty-first century electronic devices: synthesizers, recording equipment, music notation software, and the like. This volume, however, treats all tools used to create, store, reproduce, and transmit music—new or old, electronic or not—as technologies worthy of investigation.

Thomas Dolby's hit songs "She Blinded Me with Science" and "Hyperactive!" catapulted him to international fame in the early '80s. A pioneer of New Wave and Electronica, Thomas combined a love for invention with a passion for music, and the result was a new sound that defined an era of revolutionary music. But as record company politics overshadow the joy of performing, Thomas finds a surprising second act.

Mick Jagger, Jimmy Cliff, Roger Waters, Jimmy Page, Stevie Wonder, Bonnie Raitt, and many other leading artists reveal for the first time the emotions, inspirations, and techniques behind their influential works. Covering the history of rock, R&B, country, disco, soul, reggae, and pop, Anatomy of a Song is a love letter to the songs that have defined generations of listeners.

This is the complete history of the synthesizer—from electromagnetic experiments in the 1870s to the software and hardware you use today. You'll discover how these instruments evolved from room-sized laboratory equipment to portable analog classics to digital dominance to the software revolution to the analog revival happening right now. Every major instrument, every breakthrough, every paradigm shift that shaped how electronic music gets made. You'll understand why the Minimoog became legendary, how the Prophet-5 changed everything with patch memory, why the DX7 killed analog synthesis ...

Industrial music sounds like the end of something—machines still humming after the workers have left, surveillance systems running on empty, the mechanical repetition of labor stripped of its human context. Cold, abrasive, and relentlessly unsentimental, it holds a mirror up to systems of control and asks: What if we made you listen to this? From the first electric instruments in 1748 to Skinny Puppy's torture at Guantanamo Bay, from Dada's confrontational performances to Death Grips' algorithmic chaos, industrial music has spent two and a half centuries refusing to sound human. It didn't...

In recent years, narratives about the music industry tend to hew to a common theme: it was humming along for decades until the Internet and Napster came along and disrupted it. Key Changes shows that this view is incorrect: the industry was actually shaken up not once in the 1990s, but ten times over more than 100 years.

Featuring original music by Kid Cudi. A raw, fearless memoir from the Grammy Award–winning artist, actor, and designer Kid Cudi about a kid from Cleveland who found purpose in the darkness and became a guiding light for a generation. Cudi: The Memoir is Scott Mescudi’s most personal work yet...

WINNER OF THE EDGAR AWARD “A gripping thriller that pulls back the curtain on the secret world of tech billionaires.”—Time (100 Must-Read Books of 2025) “A stone-cold banger of a novel—a twisty journey through Silicon Valley’s dark side, wrapped in a stunning mystery package with...

Discover the brilliant life of Hedy Lamarr. This talented film actress became an influential scientist with her invention of a secret radio system in the early 1940s, a building block of today’s wireless communications.

Sound therapy has been found effective in treating a surprising range of health challenges including heart disease, arthritis, stress, emphysema, and more. On Self-Healing with Sound and Music, bestselling author and physician Dr. Andrew Weil teams up with sound therapist Kimba Arem to offer...

Million Dollar Sound is the ultimate step-by-step guide for entrepreneurs, creators, and music lovers who want to turn AI-generated music into a full-time income or scalable digital empire—no studio, no label, no musical background required. Whether you’re a complete beginner or an experienced producer looking to modernize your workflow, this book shows you how to use AI tools like Suno, Boomy, and Soundraw to create high-quality music fast—and build real wealth from it.

When the author stumbled across a derelict vinyl record factory in Harare, Zimbabwe, he didn’t see rust and ruin . He saw potential. A crazy kind of potential. The kind that keeps you awake at night wondering, What if I could make this thing spin again? What began as a wild idea soon turned into a global escapade involving eccentric engineers, a determined Polish businessman, exploding oil pipes, lost tempers, and countless cups of lukewarm tea. From the dust and disarray of Africa to the immaculate order of a Polish factory floor, Gordon and his unlikely partners set out to do the ...

The definitive inside account of the file-sharing revolution that overthrew the music industry, All the Rave reveals the family betrayal, greed, and mismanagement that hijacked one the most fundamental innovations of the Internet era. Named one of the three best books of 2003 by Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc., All the Rave has been out of print until now and unavailable in most formats. Author and veteran technology journalist Joseph Menn also wrote 2010's Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords who are Bringing Down the Internet.

In AND WE PUTTIN IT ON WAX, delve into an absorbing odyssey that charts the transformation of music through the ever-evolving platforms on which it's experienced. From the grooves of vinyl records to the ephemeral world of streaming, this book reveals how shifts in technology don't merely change how we listen, but alter the very essence of the music itself. Through insights frommusicians, producers, and industry insiders across diverse genres, we explore how artistic choices are influenced by medium, and how these choices reverberate through culture. Immerse yourself in a rich narrative ...

When an army of giant robot AIs threatens to devastate Earth, a virtuoso pianist becomes humanity's last hope in this bold, lightning-paced, technicolor space opera series from the author of A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe. Jazz pianist Gus Kitko expected to spend his final moments on...

From our Five Dollar Reader Series - Welcome to "How-To Turn Music into Money: Building a Future-Proof Music Business," the first book in The Five Dollar Reader Series. In this guide, The Dollar Writers provide practical advice and strategies for musicians and music business professionals to build a successful and sustainable music business in today's dynamic landscape. From understanding the music business landscape to identifying opportunities, developing effective marketing and promotion strategies, managing finances and cash flow, building strong relationships with fans and supporters, ...

How do our brains give rise to our conscious minds? How do our minds learn and consciously experience miraculous creations of our civilizations, such as visual art, music, and the languages whose meanings enable us to think and communicate about our experiences in the world?

From Rock to Rockets has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher...

This audiobook tells the story of how Philo Farnsworth came up with the idea for electronic television at age 14, and later developed his idea into the technology for television that is still used today.

A poet’s audio obsession, from collecting his earliest vinyl to his quest for the ideal vacuum tubes. A captivating book that “ingeniously mixes personal memoir with cultural history and offers us an indispensable guide for the search of acoustic truth” (Yunte Huang, author of Charlie...