Although we live in a golden age of music tools and technology, making music remains as difficult as ever. Why this is so, and what musicians can do to become more productive, is the subject of the first book to be published by Berlin-based music software and hardware developer Ableton.
Entitled Making Music – 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers, the 340-page hard-bound volume was written by Dennis DeSantis, the company’s head of documentation. Making Music, however, is not an Ableton Live manual – in fact, Ableton products are mentioned nowhere in the text. The book’s intended purpose is to be a resource for anyone who makes music with computers, using any software or hardware.
Corresponding to the production process itself, the book is divided into three sections – ”Problems of beginning,” “Problems of progressing,” and “Problems of finishing.” Within this structure, each of Making Music’s 74 chapters examines one typical roadblock that prevents producers from moving forward with a particular piece of music, and offers up concrete methods for solving musical problems, making progress, or completing projects.
On the newly created Making Music site, curious readers can peruse approximately one third of Making Music’s contents as complete and unabridged chapters from all three sections of the book.
Making Music – 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers is available for immediate purchase directly from the Ableton.com webshop for EUR 25. The ebook and iBook editions will be available from Amazon and the iTunes store in April – pricing for these editions will be announced shortly.