Musicians In The Making

'Musicians in the Making' explores the creative development of musicians in formal and informal learning contexts. It promotes a novel view of creativity, arguing that creative learning is a complex, lifelong process. Sixteen extended chapters by leading experts are featured alongside ten 'insights' by internationally prominent performers and teachers.

Most musicians focus on learning technique (learning how to play an instrument), rather than on developing an individual, unique voice. Creative Music Making focuses on the creative development of musicians from all levels of experience and in all styles of music. Based on the author's experience leading workshops for performers around the world, the easy-to-follow exercises in this text will enable any musician--from beginner to professional--to improve creativity and self-expression. Creative Music Making will open the ears of all musicians, vocalists or instrumentalists, in classical, popular, or jazz styles, to a world of new possibilities.

Provides an inside guide to the music business, including management, record labels, music publishing, promotion, touring, endorsement, and negotiating deals

*Nominated for the International Association for the Study of Popular Music Book Prize* Partly because they are the objects of such intense adulation by fans popular musicians remain strangely enigmatic figures, shrouded in mythology. This book looks beyond the myth and examines the diverse roles music makers have had to adopt in order to go about their work: designer, ventriloquist, star, delegate of the people. The musician is a divided subject and jack of all trades. However the story does not end here. Arguing against that strand in cultural studies which deconstructs all claims for authorship by the individual artist, Jason Toynbee suggests that creativity should be reconceived rather than abandoned. He argues that what is needed is a sense of 'the radius of creativity' within which musicians work, an approach that takes into account both the embedded collectivism of popular music practice and the institutional power of the music industries. Drawing on a wide range of theoretical positions, as well as examining musical texts from across the history of twentieth-century pop,this groundbreaking book develops a powerful case for the importance of production in contemporary culture. Students of cultural and media studies, music and the performing arts will find this book an invaluable resource.

A society is the result of interacting individuals, and individuals are also the result of this interaction. This interaction happens through music, among other factors. As such, music constitutes a powerful resource for symbolic interaction, which constitutes the medium and substance of a culture. The importance of music in a society is clearly brought to light in the role that it plays in the three basic parameters of the social logics: identity, social order and the need for exchange. If music is so important to us, it is because, apart from its assigned aesthetic values, it fits closely with the dynamics of each of these three different parameters. These parameters, which are consubstantial to the social nature of the human being, constitute the core of the book as they manifest in musical practices. This publication addresses important issues such as the role of music in shaping identities, how music and social order are intertwined and why music is so relevant in human interaction. The last part of the book explores issues related to the social application of musical research. The volume brings together specialists from different academic disciplines with the same powerful starting point: music is not merely something related to the social, but rather a social life itself, something capable of structuring the social experience.

Sinatra. Streisand. Dylan. Pavarotti. McCartney. Sting. Madonna. What do these musicians have in common besides their super-stardom? They have all worked with legendary music producer Phil Ramone. For almost five decades, Phil Ramone has been a force in the music industry. He has produced records and collaborated with almost every major talent in the business. There is a craft to making records, and Phil has spent his life mastering it. For the first time ever, he shares the secrets of his trade. Making Records is a fascinating look "behind the glass" of a recording studio. From Phil's exhilarating early days recording jazz and commercial jingles at A&R, to his first studio, and eventual legendary producer status, Phil allows you to sit in on the sessions that created some of the most memorable music of the 20th century -- including Frank Sinatra's Duets album, Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks, Ray Charles's Genius Loves Company and Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years. In addition to being a ringside seat for contemporary popular music history, Making Records is an unprecedented tutorial on the magic behind what music producers and engineers do. In these pages, Phil offers a rare peek inside the way music is made . . . illuminating the creative thought processes behind some of the most influential sessions in music history. This is a book about the art that is making records -- the way it began, the way it is now, and everything in between.