A Century of Recorded Music: Listening to Musical History

by Timothy Day

Looks at the history of recording technology and its effect on music, including artistic performance, listening habits, and audience participation.

Genres: Music

306 pages, Hardcover

First published November 10, 2000

Reviews

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book - I cannot recommend it highly enough. Anyone who has ever collected or seriously listened to classical recordings will readily see that Mr. Day is telling a story that they have been an active part of. I began collecting LPs and listening to music on the radio just as I was starting my teen-age years in the early Seventies. People may have a hard time believing it now, but in those days it wasn't too unusual for youngsters to take up listening to classical music as a hobby - many of my friends were into it, too, and I had one pal who a serious reel-to-reel guy. I was aided in my explorations by the facts that New York City had three excellent classical stations - WQXR, WNCN, and WNYC - and that my local libraries in Passaic and Rutherford, New Jersey, had first-rate LP collections.

So I read Mr. Day's book with a thrill of recognition. He delves deep into subjects that I only had sketchy knowledge of, but now realize that I had always wanted to know more about. This is a pioneering volume that opens avenues that others will surely explore. Work is already being done in some areas of popular music - there is considerable scholarship on the Beatles in the studio, for example. But we need more on jazz recording, recording of folk and world music in the field, spoken word recording (Shakespeare recordings are a particular passion of mine). Archives happily exist, but much more research in them needs to be undertaken.