Opening day today at the brand new complement.inversion.etc store in Tallahassee, Florida. Staff from left to right, Margret: Marketing Manager, Terri: Retail Assistant, Carl: Manager, Riley: Security, Lynn: Stock Manager. Welcome to the complement.inversion.etc family guys, and remember, companies don't succeed, people do.
Yes, check the sidebar on the right. I've only 'stocked' music books and some aesthetics stuff so far, not in any particular order (just listed the ones I own or have read and recommend, and a few I don't own yet but intend to, like 'The Music of Lutoslawski' which i'll order through 'shop' shortly.)
You'll see there is a US store and a UK shop.
Also I have created a 'product of the week' widget where i'll try and promote some worthy purchase (if I spot something cheap and good etc, available in a US and UK version)
I intend to add more stuff to the shop like scores, DVDs and CDs etc. Every time you buy something through the shop with your Amazon account I get some sort of credit with them which eventually gets turned into an Amazon voucher, so I can buy more books and music and post yet more quotes and rambling remarks here, so, everyone's a winner.
However, some items are not available through Amazon directly, used books etc via their various dealers, i've included those anyway as there is some good stuff you can get second hand thats out of print or whatever.
If you want to special order anything let me know, I can get Lynn to order it in.
Bon Marché.
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13 comments:
Very nice collection Ed, congratulations! A few books I've read, some I've been meaning to read, and some interesting books I didn't know about.
I wonder if you've read the Antokoletz Bartok book, and if so, if you know how it compares to the one by Erno Lendvai -- I've been reading the Lendvai and find the whole tonal axis system fascinating.
cheers
Dan
Thanks Dan, re the Antokoletz, I've got that book and have read it a couple of times but not for ages, I got quite a bit out of it (absorbed some stuff anyway, I think), seems to follow some of the theories of George Perle (symmetry and pitch centricity etc.) I think Antokoletz was student of Perle but as I said it's been a while so don't quote me on it (should be look-up-able) it was one of the first post-tonal theory books I bought nearly 10 years ago (I think, ages ago anyway.)
Ive not read the Lendvai, all I know about his work is Harkleroad's criticism of it, I quote some of it in this old post
http://complementinversion.blogspot.com/2008/03/interesting-post-by-kyle-gann-on-his.html
(from the first month of this blog, some of the format has changed since then so it looks a bit different)
Other Bartok stuff on here that might interest you if you haven't spotted them already, a clarinet quartet version of his String Quartet no2 (free to download) plus a link to a Gresham College lecture about the same piece..
http://complementinversion.blogspot.com/2008/04/bartok-quartet-no2-clarinets-us.html
Interesting. Although, I think music theory tends to be retrospective, so whether Bartok was conscious of the structures we find or not is perhaps irrelevant.
Anyway, I wouldn't want to get sucked into that kind of argument... it's just fascinating to get a fresh (to me) perspective on tonal relationships.
Thanks for the pointers, now I definitely need to read Antokoletz, and George Perle as well... so little time!
cheers
Dan
Agreed that Bartok may have used some of those ideas unconsciously etc, I think Harkleroad is saying that the stuff about the golden section etc wasn't part of his deliberate method as others have suggested it was, or rather, there isn't any evidence for it currently.
Good luck with the reading/harmony etc :-)
Hi Ed
When I click on Ligeti: Music and the imagination it says 'this item is not available for purchase from this store' (its available on the normal Amazon website). I'm not sure if you can fix this, if not I'll get from Amazon direct, but thought I'd buy it from your store so you get credit etc.
Thanks
Lizzie
Lizzie.., i'll check it now thanks for pointing it out, watch this space, back in a minute.
Fixed it now, not sure what was wrong with it (probably wrong ISBN number, it took ages to enter all those books and some I must have made mistakes with getting the wrong print or something.)
Thanks for using my 'shop'!, I hope the purchase goes through ok (no probs if not obviously, get the best deal you can.)
http://astore.amazon.co.uk/complemeinver-21/detail/0571176313
You might want to sign up for 'Amazon Prime' if you haven't already, you get a free month of it (I think that offer is still on anyway.), and during that period you can get free next day delivery on their products (not so with those bought via their other dealers though, you still pay postage there.)
I used it to be that Simha Arom book on African polyphony that was £70, I wanted next day courier delivery just in case it went missing in the post or something, also I got a Lutoslawski book on next day delivery, that was just normal post for some reason (might be a price or weight limit thing, the Arom book is a hefty 700 pages)
Just make sure you cancel it before the month is up or they'll assume you want it for the whole year and will charge you 50quid odd (I have about 2 weeks left on mine, I have a post-it on my monitor reminding me to cancel it.)
Thanks for sorting that out so quickly Ed. I've ordered that now together with 'Music, Imagination and Culture' (I have both out from the library but want my own copies now as I'm finding them really interesting and useful).
I'm reading about his piece Metamorphoses at the mo and having Spotify really helps. They have so much more music than Naxos. Plus you can create your own playlist. It's so similar to Itunes layout, I'm not sure how they are getting away with it really. (Only downside is the annoying adverts every 10mins or so, but can hardly complain really).
Cheers for pointing out the Amazon Prime. I didn't sign up though as I'm rubbish at remembering to cancel things like that.
No probs re fixing the link, thanks for buying through the 'shop'.
Both great books which thought worth buying too, I want the Nicholas Cook 'guide to analysis' next, I presume it will be practically written like his other stuff.
Another one to recommend if perhaps you want a good overview of post-war compositional techniques written in an easy to read style is this.... )
http://astore.amazon.co.uk/complemeinver-21/detail/0193154684
(one 'acceptable' used copy for only £6.94 apparently, and/or check your library or if you are up in brum any time have a look at my copy.)
If you haven't heard of him he was a British composer and writer and teacher(and Italian/English translator). You might have seen or read his book 'Musical Composition' which is fairly popular and good too (as is 'serial composition') His writing style is really straightforward and The New Music: The Avant-Garde since 1945 covers most of the post-war non-traditional techiques chapter by chapter.
(sorry if you have already read it and any of his other books etc, just a thought)
The New Music: The Avant-Garde since 1945 book looks really interesting. In the review it states the book talks about the future of music being influenced by technology rather than compositional techniques - is this a large part of the book or just a small chapter do you know? (had a look on amazon.com as has the 'look inside' thing but can only see a couple chapters on computer music). I just wondered as i've applied to a masters in music psychology and this is the area I'm keen to research but so far I haven't really found any books that discuss this indepth, if at all. (just checked uni library online and have book but out at moment).
The only chapters are you the ones you saw, 10 and 11 about electronic music ('concrete music and electronic music')
I just think it's a really good overview of compositional techniques post-war, for your masters (which sounds good btw) you might find it useful just in terms of putting electronic music in context (although you might feel you already know enough about that from your degree I suppose.)
There is some crossover actually, such as the chapters on integral serialism and numbers (and pointillism), these techniques were applied by composers making electronic music too (infact as you may know, serial technique was particuarily suited to electronic composition as peformers didn't have to struggle with all those different demands, such as lots of dynamic marking etc)
It's arguably the case that to understand electronic music you have to look at is as an outgrowth of traditional composition (though it depends how specific your research is and how confident you are about the traditional stuff already, I don't know what you did your degree in specifically or how much you know about all this already so I am just suggesting stuff)
If you wanted to follow the serial route further (not sure if that's your bag though) there is a really good book about serial music and importantly, it's aesthetics (which has some obvious psychology crossover) it's written by Morag Grant... (I got it out from Birmingham Library a couple of times, the early chapter were she talks about information theory was quite enlightening.)
its a fairly pricey academic book unfortunately, not outrageously so but nearly £30 which isn't exactly a bargain.
http://astore.amazon.co.uk/complemeinver-21/detail/0521619920
Smith Brindle's book on serial composition is good too (though I have an ebook version I could sort out for you if necessary which is worth doing if you have a printer or dont mind reading off a screen)
http://astore.amazon.co.uk/complemeinver-21/detail/0193119064
I have forgotten a lot of what I learnt at uni so a book like this would be good in helping me remember. Just from reading Xenakis and Ligeti bios and the first chapter of this book, which I read on the ‘look inside’ thing on amazon.com, I’ve learnt a lot about the wars at this time and the importance of how this affected music (both during and after), which I really don’t remember being discussed at all on my degree. But from this reading it now makes musique concrete, electronic music & new compositional techniques in general make sense and puts it in context. (Pretty unbelievable I never really linked all this together before).
Re my course – it was mainly on 20th century music particularly electroacoustic but module topics seemed to be segmented into little boxes which were not related to one another, it wasn’t a particularly good course in hindsight. Actually put me off writing music for several years. But since doing pgce I’ve realised I’m really not a big fan of traditional classical music (although I love playing some of it esp. Chopin and Weber) but ‘experimental’ music I find fascinating and really enjoy hence all the reading, masters etc (well there’s much more to it than that but you get the gist).
I’m not a massive fan of serial music, I understand its importance and its something I want to know more about but not at the top of my list of things I want to learn more about at the moment anyway. (Thanks for the book recommendations though, I’ve noted them down).
Understood re the serial stuff, the Smith Brindle one will give you an overview of that anyway amongst all the other areas.
Sorry to hear your course wan't that good, from people I have spoken to about their music degrees it all sounds like a bit of a squeeze really, to fit it all the information in just a few terms (add to that it's unlikely the people doing the teaching are experienced in more than a few specific areas.)
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