Content area
Full Text
146 BOOK REVIEWSand economic implications of music composition in prior centuries may benefit, in
particular, from the extensive citations of secondary sources made throughout the
book.PETER TSCHMUCK
Institute of Culture Management and Culture Studies,Karlsplatz 2-2-9, 1010 Vienna,AustriaPeter Tschmuck: 2003, Kreativit
at und Innovation in der Musikindustrie (Creativity
and Innovation in the Music Industry), Studienverlag, Innsbruck, ISBN 3-70651-
836-8.Peter Tschmucks book is convincing in many respects: On the one hand, he delivers
a comprehensive history of the music industry in the 20th century, and on the
other hand, he manages to combine traditional and the most recent innovation and
creativity theories in order to explore and explain certain paths of the music industry
as well as structural breaks in its development. Thus, some of his theoretical results
and conclusions apply not only to the music industry, but to other industrial histories
as well.The book consists of 12 chapters, of which the first 9 deal with a detailed description of the history of the music industry. The rest deal with creativity and innovation theories and their application to the history of the music industry. Tschmuck
starts out with the first technological developments to conserve human words and
speeches on music rolls, such as the inventions of Thomas Edison. This technological invention became a product and process innovation for the music industry,
then mainly consisting of publishers of (popular) music on paper, sold to private
and professional musicians. The technology of music rolls opened the market for
a wider audience listening to the spoken word as well as to singers. Even in those
early days, the music industry delivered mainstream music (e.g., Tin Pan Alleyhits, named after a New York City neighbourhood), though segmented in local
and regional markets, and the classical market. The latter is, broadly speaking, the only constant in the development of the music industry. Technological,
legal, institutional and social framework changes also led to significant shifts in
the main players in the music industry. For instance, the first copyright laws and
the institutional innovation of artists associations striving for...