Working Musicians
Labor and Creativity in Film and Television Production
$78.72
- Paperback
264 pages
- Release Date
28 April 2023
Summary
In Working Musicians, Timothy D. Taylor offers a behind-the-scenes look at the labor of the mostly unknown composers, music editors, orchestrators, recording engineers, and other workers involved in producing music for films, television, and video games. Drawing on dozens of interviews with music workers in Los Angeles, Taylor explores the nature of their work and how they understand their roles in the entertainment business. Taylor traces how these cultural laborers have adapted to and cope with the conditions of neoliberalism as, over the last decade, their working conditions have become increasingly precarious. Digital technologies have accelerated production timelines and changed how content is delivered, while new pay schemes have emerged that have transformed composers from artists into managers and paymasters. Taylor demonstrates that as bureaucratization and commercialization affect every aspect of media, the composers, musicians, music editors, engineers, and others whose soundtracks excite, inspire, and touch millions face the same structural economic challenges that have transformed American society, concentrating wealth and power in fewer and fewer hands.
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781478019879 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 1478019875 |
| Author: | Timothy D. Taylor |
| Publisher: | Duke University Press |
| Imprint: | Duke University Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 264 |
| Release Date: | 28 April 2023 |
| Weight: | 363g |
| Dimensions: | 152mm x 229mm |
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Critics Review
“Working Musicians makes for an excellent deep dive into the world of contemporary composers working in the television and film industries.”–Michael L. Siciliano “American Ethnologist”
“The use of labor theory is … a major strength, making Working Musicians indispensable for the study of musical labor. Taylor’s writing is, as always, entertaining and engaging. He presents us with several new ways to analyze this labor, and by extension musical labor in other settings.”–John R. Pippen “Notes”
“Written in clear, straightforward prose, Working Musicians is a worthy addition to the expanding literature on cultural and media production studies and the anthropology of neoliberal capitalism, understood as a ‘social form’. More than a method to gather data, ethnography emerges as a place where description, analysis, and interpretation converge to deliver social theory, critique, and hope.”–Sofia Sampaio “Journal of the Royal Anthropological Association”
Timothy D. Taylor
Timothy D. Taylor is Professor of Anthropology, Ethnomusicology, and Musicology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of many books, including Beyond Exoticism: Western Music and the World, also published by Duke University Press, and Music and Capitalism: A History of the Present.
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