Best books you've read about music on things that helped your production, satisfied an interest , or helped fuel curiosity/gave you a boner ?

 

The 4th Edition Mastering Engineer's Handbook - 28,96 €
Paperback / English / By (author) Bobby Owsinski

Audio mastering is the final step in the audio production process, polishing the recording's final mix and prepping it for release and distribution. This fourth edition of Bobby Owsinski's classic The Mastering Engineer's Handbook is a thoroughly updated and comprehensive manual on the art and science of creating well-mastered recordings.

Today's musicians and engineers have many high quality and low cost software-based mastering tools available to them, but the challenge is to understand those tools and learn to use them wisely.

Redesigned and updated to reflect both the latest in technology and recent changes in the marketplace, this new edition shows you both the fundamentals, and the advanced aspects of both self-mastering, and prepping your mix for mastering by a pro.
Topics covered include: Techniques for making a hot-level master A comprehensive look at mastering for vinyl including the format's latest technology improvements Mastering techniques for the best sounding online streams An overview of the tools required for successful self-mastering

The book also features interviews with a number of legendary mastering engineers discussing their techniques and tips that will help you master your own music with style and technical know-how. Give your music the benefit of the expertise you'll find with The Mastering Engineer's Handbook, Fourth Edition.

www.amazon.de/Mastering-Engineers-Handbook-4th/dp/0998503363
www.bookdepository.com/4th-Edition-Mastering-Engineers-Handbook-Bobby-Owsinski/9780998503363

 

This is easy. When I first picked up the guitar in my teen years, I didn't know a string from a hole in the wall, but I got my grubby little fingers on a Django Rheinhardt book of chords and scales. I don't remember if it was a Mel Bay book. In any case, to this day, I'd say that was the impost import teaching tool I'd ever had.

 

Polyrhythms by Peter Magadini

 

The Sound Book by Trevor Cox (Author)
The Science of the Sonic Wonders of the World

"A lucid and passionate case for a more mindful way of listening to and engaging with musical, natural, and manmade sounds."
—New York Times

In this tour of the world’s most unexpected sounds, Trevor Cox—the “David Attenborough of the acoustic realm” (Observer)—discovers the world’s longest echo in a hidden oil cavern in Scotland, unlocks the secret of singing sand dunes in California, and alerts us to the aural gems that exist everywhere in between. Using the world’s most amazing acoustic ..

https://wwnorton.com/books/The-Sound-Book/

 

KLF: Chaos Magic Music Money.

 

The main books that I have read so far have been music theory books.
For any german reader I would probably recommend Arnold Schönberg's "Die Harmonielehre".
Rick Beato's Book is also good and has interesting content.
If you are into metal mixing you should check out Ermin Hamidovic's " The systematic mixing guide"

 

How Music Works by David Byrne

 

Thats for sure interesting.
Didn't he only have 2 fingers on his LH?
I wonder if it'd make sense to learn his style of musicianship as someone who doesn't have that disability though.

I wouldn't recommend starting with Schönberg except if you want to focus on composing for a piano.
De La Motte's book is better for beginners because he makes you understand how harmony works in a historic context (which is similar to learning about different genres, Baroque and Romantic are sort of different musical genres in the end, it gets more obvious if we talk about classical music before and after Bach) and exposes you to a wider variety of ideas leaving it up to you if you want to further research them or not.

 

I think the book is for sure not beginner friendly but if you have some basic background knowledge it can help extremely.
The many chord progression examples also often help to get a better understanding of the sound that specific things can create

 

This sits on my mixing desk. Always at the ready.
Mixing Secrets For The Small Studio (2nd Edition) by Mike Senior
https://i.postimg.cc/RVDVdJDy/Mixing-Secrets.jpg

 

Mixing Secrets for the Small studio by Mike Senior

 

The Beatles Complete, even though the guitar chords are probably wrong (usually added by a piano player in those days).

 

Here, There, and Everywhere by Geoff Emerick. Also, Ken Scott's book (the title escapes me at the moment).

 

A very good book for not only saxophone players:
Findings - My Experience With The Soprano Saxophone by Steve Lacy. In French and English, out of print and not easy to come by.

 

reread it periodically, when no interest.
https://makingmusic.ableton.com/

download book pdf
https://cdn-resources.ableton.com/resources/uploads/makingmusic/MakingMusic_DennisDeSantis.pdf

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicle_of_Anna_Magdalena_Bach
There is a book called The Little Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach, which was published in 1925 and written by the English author Esther Meynell. It is a fictionalized account of Anna Magdalena's life and marriage to Johann Sebastian Bach. https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20200924


The full film footage:

 

Last edited by a moderator: Oct 23, 2023

the ones on https://samplecraze.com/ebooks/

 

- Traité d'harmonie ("Theory of Harmony") by Arnold Schoenberg - Ed. J.C. Lattes
- A Modern Method for Guitar by William Levitt, 3 volumes - Berklee Press