Coproduction: Collaboration in Music Production 1st edition by Robert Wilsmore and Christopher Johnson from Focal Press is dedicated specifically to the study of an emerging field in music production and musicology. It explores the limits of what this field might be, from the workings of a few individuals producing music together in the studio, to vast contributions of whole societies producing popular music.
Taking a wide-ranging approach to examining the field, Coproduction looks through multiple formats including essays, interviews, and case studies, with analysis and commentary of coproduction experiences at Abbey Road studios. It does so by examining multiple disciplines from social science and coproduction in mental health, to philosophy and mathematics. At its extremes (which is the extreme middle and not the blunt cutting edge) the authors attempt to produce every song in their development of an all-encompassing pop music concept, peculiarly called Toast theory.
In attempting to unite the pragmatic collaborative patterns of Vera John-Steiner with philosophical postmodernist concepts of connection, Coproduction has something to offer readers interested in the traditional workings of teams of producers as well as those seeking to understand the wider philosophy of collaboration in music production.
List of Tables
List of Examples
List of Contributors
Preface
Acknowledgements
Credits
How to Read this Book: Design and Structure
1. A Typology of Collaborative Practices in Music Production
PART ONE: Type
1. Group Coproduction: Collaboration Between Individuals
2. Producing Together
3. Creativity and the Production Habitus
4. The Production Habitus of Smoke Rainbows – Music Minds Matter (Abbey Road Case Study No.1)
5. Lauren Christy and The Matrix Production Team: Coproduction in Familial Mode (The Three-headed Monster and the Butterfly Collector)
6. Hierarchical Production and Complementarity, Before, During, and After PWL: An Interview with Phil Harding
7. Group Genius, Scenius, the Invisible, and the Oblique: Eno, Lanois, and Communities of Creativity
8. Grace Jones, Spontaneity, and Collaboration in the Moment: An Interview with Bruce Woolley
9. Small Things of Value: Marginalia, Mental Health, and Coproduction (Abbey Road Case Study No.2, Part 1)
10. Something of Value: Coproducing with Converge, a University-based Educational Programme for Adults with Mental Health Difficulties (Abbey Road Case Study No.2, Part 2)
PART TWO: Type 2. Internal Coproduction: The Self as Many
11. The Artistic Self and the Cycle of Production
12. 'Silver Glass': Re-production
13. Play One We Know! A Pub Singer’s Struggle to Retain His Integrity Whilst Remaining Entertaining
PART THREE: Type 3. Coproduction Without Consent: Denial or Unknowing Collaboration
14. The Song of a Thousand Songs: Popular Music as Distributed Collaboration (Toast Theory, Part 1)
15. Removing Non-sonic Signifiers from Endings (Toast Theory, Part 2)
16. The Ancient Art of Remixing
PART FOUR: Type 4. Deproduction: The Collective Disappearance of Production
17. On Writing Every Song
18. The Mathematics of Writing Every Tune
19. Deproduction
Glossary of Terms
References
Index
Christopher Johnson is a producer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who is perhaps best known in the progressive rock niche for his work with Mostly Autumn, Halo Blind, and Fish. He has collaborated on more than 25 studio records, maintains a busy touring schedule, and is a Senior Lecturer on music production courses at York St John University. He is currently working on his PhD, which explores various models of collaboration in music production and how they affect the aesthetic of the resulting music.