Books! What are you currently reading or just finished?

[eesn]

Special Sound: The Creation and Legacy of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Quite a special read, full of bittersweet details (some of which hit too close to home more often than i’d like).

[soysos]

My wife and I are big Octavia Butler fans. It was great to find another Black woman creating so brilliantly in the sci-fi/fantasy world. N. K. Jemisin fills that space, her Broken Earth Trilogy is so epic! Recently finished her short story collection - How Long Till Black History Month.
It’s a great introduction to the breadth of her world building. Also excited for the upcoming additions to The City We Became…

[slowsounds]

not sure if it fits what you are looking for but worth taking a look at the MusikTexte books- if you don’t read/speak German unfortunately not all of the titles are translated like the Ablinger (who does have a lot of text online though), and the magazines are probably 90+% German. but some of the books that are in English while maybe not providing a sort of textbook compositional take on ‘how to do x’ should provide insight into thoughts and process of some important figures- Rzewski, Feldman, Cage, tom Johnson, the Desert Plants book, Christian Wolf… I highly recommend the Lucier book. To me the book is a great read and also for me really confirmed how different and poetic Lucier’s work is, and that if more people thought and worked the way he has all these decades modern composition and/or music in general would be a much better ‘place’.

[tnelson]

From a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate (vol 1-3), Bass Cathedral and Late Arcade, serial fiction by Nathaniel Mackey. Volumes of the correspondence of trumpet player N. with his (friend? guru? mentor?) Angel of Dust, sharing his musical life events and issues in the fringe avant jazz world of the 1980’s. Dense poetic prose and wordplay, reality and altered reality. I can only digest a few pages at a time, but I’ve never encountered writing that so evokes the addictive magic of live improvised music, lifting players into the zone where anything can happen, along with the challenges of surviving on marginal gigs. Mackey footnotes throughout to a discography at the end of each volume. He ran a world music show on the UC Santa Cruz public radio station for many years, so these are amazing.

[Kheone]

Just finished Broken Earth. Wow.

[soysos]

Gonna pick up this book ASAP, thanks for this!

[herrhewel]

Recently re-read this old Cabaret Voltaire book “The Art of the Sixth Sense” from 1985,
a 35 year old time capsule of early industrial British music

[Cementimental]

Currently

[mypandashallfly]

Do audiobooks count?

I “read” these two very recently

[mattlowery]

Has anyone read “Catching the Big Fish” by David Lynch?

I’m looking for a few books to inform my musical creative practice in 2021, and would love your recommendations.

It seems difficult to find good books about being a musician that aren’t in the vein of “21 secrets to cracking the secrets of the secret music industry: how to make big bukks hocking yr tunez”

[tnelson]

… a few books to inform my musical creative practice in 2021…

Primacy of the Ear, by Ran Blake
It’s About Music: The Art and Heart of Improvisation, by Jean-Michel Pilc
Effortless Mastery, by Kenny Werner

All three books focus on making natural and intuitive connections between creativity, hearing and playing

[youngest_brother]

I haven’t read this one (but I think I will now!) - but I’m nearly finished with “Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice” by JF Martel, which, while not being any kind of how-to book about creativity, is a nice treatise on what art is and how it should be valued, and has been a nice and motivating read

[cowboyelectronics]

For some reason I was recently emailed an ebay coupon for $15 off any purchase, so I picked this up for like $0.75

[zoundsabar]

“Catching the Big Fish” is a good short book on Lynch’s long standing TM practice and what it has meant for him, interleaved with some interesting discussions of working on films especially with work with creative teams. I read the book and enjoyed it, but several years later really enjoyed listening to the audio book read by Lynch himself in his marvelously Jimmy Stewart-like voice. I’d recommend that if you are into those things.

[mattlowery]

Great to know! I actually have a couple Audible credits saved back, so I’ll bite on your recommendation.

[Xylr]

Geeta Dayal’s book on Eno’s Another Green World is a very inspiring book for developing creative ideas as a musician. It’s probably not even strictly necessary to love the album (but oh how I do) in order to get something out of it, since what it is really about is developing the qualities that enable Eno to have ideas and intentionally create fruitful work scenarios. It’s short. I read it when I’m feeling drained by life and there’s always something to grab onto.

[kf6gpe]

@zoundsabar

“Catching the Big Fish” is a good short book on Lynch’s long standing TM practice and what it has meant for him, interleaved with some interesting discussions of working on films especially with work with creative teams. I read the book and enjoyed it, but several years later really enjoyed listening to the audio book read by Lynch himself in his marvelously Jimmy Stewart-like voice. I’d recommend that if you are into those things.

I agree with this completely. I’ve both read it and listened to the audiobook, and the audiobook is a real treat.

It’s a fair look at his views on the creative process; I found it inspirational, in that I respect his work nd hold him in high regard. If you’re not a fan of his imagery, it’s probably less useful.

[Zeke_B]

Back to share that I finished The Silmarillion and also Unfinished Tales by Tolkien. I really enjoyed both. The Silmarillion had some excellent stories in it and I really love the idea of mythology/history of a fictitious world. (Fire and Blood is probably my favorite GRRM book.) The creation story from the beginning of The Silmarillion was amazing and a standout for a creation story even amongst mythology of our world. It’s so good that I have tucked it away for a creative prompt! I would recommend both to fans of Tolkien if they haven’t read them yet.

Next up are some other tales of Middle Earth by Tolkien I hadn’t heard of before, all of which I presume occurred before The Hobbit. After that, I plan to re-read The Hobbit and LOTR trilogy for the first time in a couple of decades.

This thread has been great and I’ve jotted down some notes for books to read in 2021. Thanks everyone!

[Starthief]

I do like the creation story of the Silmarillion. Later sections are kind of a lot to follow. But I think a retelling of the story of Beren and Luthien as a novel or movie could work well.

[Mangrove]

I found that book somewhat pointless. Much better to read the “Room to Dream” biography which has Lynch’s commentary on every chapter, and covers all of the interesting points of CtBF. I’m not anti-TM or anything, it’s just that Lynch gets kind of propagandistic when he’s talking about it outside the context of his work. I think that promoting TM was the point of his lecture, so I found Room to Dream more interesting/related to his work (of which TM is obviously a big part).

TL;DR to me Room to Dream covers the same content in more depth and is a bit more objective. It also has just has more content.