Music Book Review: Understanding Records -- A Field Guide to Recording Practice by Jay Hodgson

Understanding Records: A Field Guide to Recording Practice
by Jay Hodgson (Music 781.49 Hod)

 

Understanding Records is a book aimed at people in music academia, but I found it helpful as someone getting into music recording at home. The idea is that the academic study of music has mainly focused on aspects like composition, arrangement, and performance without much attention to what Hodgson calls “recording practice.” He makes an analogy to “seeing the screen” in film arts.

 

Suppose we were focused on theater performance and half-heartedly acknowledged that sometimes people film performances for later viewing. Even in this situation, artistic choices must be made about how it’s filmed. Beyond that, new levels of artistry are available along with recording media. This book looks at those artistic choices and techniques at the level of tracking, mixing, and mastering. I learned that The Beatles were early adopters of many of these techniques that went beyond the “recording a live performance” approach. This book comes with Spotify playlists of commercial tracks that are a mixture of well-known songs (mostly rock and pop) plus lesser known tracks that the author was involved in creating. There are also short technique demonstration tracks to help train your ear, plus some YouTube videos to see how this is done in contemporary software.

 

While wordy and repetitive at times, I enjoyed reading through this book and listening to the examples when prompted. It clued me into when & how to use a number of features in software I already use. It also gave me new aspects to listen for when I’m enjoying a record.

[ publisher’s official Understanding Records (2nd edition) web page ] | [ official Jay Hodgson faculty page on the Western University web site ]

 

Recommended by Garren H.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

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