• Contents A Message from Neil xi Introduction 1
• CHAPTER 1: The Most Important Thing I've Ever Done 7
• CHAPTER 2: A Look at Audio Quality 15
• CHAPTER 3: How I Discovered We Were Losing the Music 29
• CHAPTER 4: Neil Was Not Alone 47
• CHAPTER 5: The Birth of Pono 51
• CHAPTER 6: Meeting Neil 61
• CHAPTER 7: Getting Started 69
• CHAPTER 8: Beginning Development 73
• CHAPTER 9: Pono Is for and by the Artists 79
• CHAPTER 10: Inventing Pono 87
• CHAPTER 11: Leadership at Pono 99
• CHAPTER 12: A New Direction 111
• CHAPTER 13: Our Kickstarter Adventure 117
• CHAPTER 14: The Drive from Kickstarter to Production 137
• CHAPTER 15: Going to China 141
• CHAPTER 16: Building the Pono Music Store 153
• CHAPTER 17: More Management Turmoil 161.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Neil Young took on the music industry so that fans could hear his music-all music-the way it was meant to be heard. Today, most of the music we hear is com-pressed to a fraction of its original sound, while analog masterpieces are turning to dustin record company vaults. As these record-ings disappear, music fans aren't just losing acollection of notes. We're losing spaciousness, breadth of the sound field, and the ability tohear and feel a ping of a triangle or a pluckof a guitar string, each with its own reso-nance and harmonics that slowly trail off intosilence. The result is music that is robbed of its original quality-muddy and flat in sound compared to the rich, warm sound artists hear in the studio. It doesn't have to be this way, but the record and technology companies have incorrectly assumed that most listeners are satisfied with these low-quality tracks. Neil Young is challenging the assault on audio quality-and working to free music lovers from the flat and lifeless status quo. To Feel the Music is the true story of his questto bring high-quality audio back to musiclovers-the most important undertaking ofhis career. It's an unprecedented look insidethe successes and setbacks of creating thePono player, the fights and negotiationswith record companies to preserve master-pieces for the future, and Neil's unrelentingdetermination to make musical art availableto everyone. It's a story that shows how muchmore there is to music than meets the ear. Neil's efforts to bring quality audio to his fans garnered media attention when his Kickstarter campaign for his Pono player-a revolutionary music player that would combine the highest quality possible with the portability, simplicity and affordability modern listeners crave-became the third-most successful Kickstarter campaign in the website's history. It had raised more than $6M in pledges in 40 days. Encouraged by the enthusiastic response, Neil still had a long road ahead, and his Pono music player would not have the commercial success he'd imagined. But he remained committed to his mission, and faced with the rise of streaming services that used even lower quality audio, he was determined to rise to the challenge. An eye-opening read for all fans of Neil Young and all fans of great music, as well as readers interesting in going behind the scenes of product creation, To Feel the Music has an inspiring story at its heart: One determined artist with a groundbreaking vision and the absolute refusal to give up, despite setbacks, naysayers, and skeptics.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Contents A Message from Neil xi Introduction 1
• CHAPTER 1: The Most Important Thing I've Ever Done 7
• CHAPTER 2: A Look at Audio Quality 15
• CHAPTER 3: How I Discovered We Were Losing the Music 29
• CHAPTER 4: Neil Was Not Alone 47
• CHAPTER 5: The Birth of Pono 51
• CHAPTER 6: Meeting Neil 61
• CHAPTER 7: Getting Started 69
• CHAPTER 8: Beginning Development 73
• CHAPTER 9: Pono Is for and by the Artists 79
• CHAPTER 10: Inventing Pono 87
• CHAPTER 11: Leadership at Pono 99
• CHAPTER 12: A New Direction 111
• CHAPTER 13: Our Kickstarter Adventure 117
• CHAPTER 14: The Drive from Kickstarter to Production 137
• CHAPTER 15: Going to China 141
• CHAPTER 16: Building the Pono Music Store 153
• CHAPTER 17: More Management Turmoil 161.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Neil Young took on the music industry so that fans could hear his music-all music-the way it was meant to be heard. Today, most of the music we hear is com-pressed to a fraction of its original sound, while analog masterpieces are turning to dustin record company vaults. As these record-ings disappear, music fans aren't just losing acollection of notes. We're losing spaciousness, breadth of the sound field, and the ability tohear and feel a ping of a triangle or a pluckof a guitar string, each with its own reso-nance and harmonics that slowly trail off intosilence. The result is music that is robbed of its original quality-muddy and flat in sound compared to the rich, warm sound artists hear in the studio. It doesn't have to be this way, but the record and technology companies have incorrectly assumed that most listeners are satisfied with these low-quality tracks. Neil Young is challenging the assault on audio quality-and working to free music lovers from the flat and lifeless status quo. To Feel the Music is the true story of his questto bring high-quality audio back to musiclovers-the most important undertaking ofhis career. It's an unprecedented look insidethe successes and setbacks of creating thePono player, the fights and negotiationswith record companies to preserve master-pieces for the future, and Neil's unrelentingdetermination to make musical art availableto everyone. It's a story that shows how muchmore there is to music than meets the ear. Neil's efforts to bring quality audio to his fans garnered media attention when his Kickstarter campaign for his Pono player-a revolutionary music player that would combine the highest quality possible with the portability, simplicity and affordability modern listeners crave-became the third-most successful Kickstarter campaign in the website's history. It had raised more than $6M in pledges in 40 days. Encouraged by the enthusiastic response, Neil still had a long road ahead, and his Pono music player would not have the commercial success he'd imagined. But he remained committed to his mission, and faced with the rise of streaming services that used even lower quality audio, he was determined to rise to the challenge. An eye-opening read for all fans of Neil Young and all fans of great music, as well as readers interesting in going behind the scenes of product creation, To Feel the Music has an inspiring story at its heart: One determined artist with a groundbreaking vision and the absolute refusal to give up, despite setbacks, naysayers, and skeptics.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Amazon's Echo assistant has not only opened up a world of new interactions for their customers, it has opened up a whole host of technologies for programmers to explore. From Amazon's Alexa SDK to AWS Lambda, the tools for building voice experiences are challenging, but also a joy to use once you've gotten past the initial hurdles. What you'll learn—and how you can apply it You'll learn how to create an Amazon Alexa skill. You'll see how to set up and configure the voice interactions and how to create an AWS Lambda function that handles the requests and responses that users initiate. Prerequisites Be comfortable using your computer's terminal or command prompt and know how to create and edit plain text files Install Node.js (version 5 or later) and update npm using these instructions You'll need an AWS account; the free tier is sufficient for this lesson You'll need to register as a developer in Amazon's developer portal.

• List of Contributors Introduction: The Future of and through Music Ewa Mazierska, Les Gillon and Tony Rigg
• Part 1: Music Industry
• 1. Rethinking Independence: What Does `Independent Record Label' Mean Today? Patryk Galuszka and Katarzyna M. Wyrzykowska, University of Lodz, Poland
• 2. The Future of Digital Music Infrastructures: Expectations and Promises of the Blockchain `Revolution' Paolo Magaudda, University of Padua
• 3. `The Sound of the Future is Here Today': The Market for Post-Rock Within the Traditional Small Music Festival Landscape Kenneth Forbes, University of the West of Scotland, UK
• 4. `They Sold the Festival Out!': Axionormativity as the Future of Festivals Waldemar Kuligowski, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland
• 5. The Hidden Worker Bees: Advanced Neoliberalism and Manchester's Underground Club Scene Kamila Rymajdo, Kingston University, UK
• Part 2: Musicians and Their Music
• 6. The Adaptive Musician: The Case of Peter Hook and Graham Massey Ewa Mazierska and Tony Rigg, University of Central Lancashire, UK
• 7. Where Do We Go From Here?: The Future of Composers in the Post-Digital Era Lars Broendum, University of Skoevde, Sweden
• 8. Searching for International Success in Europe's Periphery: The Case of Gin Ga and Fran Palermo Ewa Mazierska, University of Central Lancashire, UK
• 9. Electro Swing: The Re-Introduction of the Sounds of the Past into the Music of the Future Chris Inglis, University of South Wales, UK
• Part 3: Music Consumption
• 10. Back to the Future: Proposing a Heuristic for Predicting the Future of Recorded Music Use Mathew Flynn, University of Liverpool, UK
• 11. Young People's Current Music and Media Use in Austria: The Musical Practice of the Future? Michael Huber, University of Vienna, Austria
• 12. Curators as Taste Entrepreneurs in the Digital Music Industries Emilia Barna, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary
• 13. An Echoic Chamber: Algorithmic Curation and Personalised Listening Andrew Fry, Sounds et al, USA Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Popular Music in the Post-Digital Age explores the relationship between macro environmental factors, such as politics, economics, culture and technology, captured by terms such as `post-digital' and `post-internet'. It also discusses the creation, monetisation and consumption of music and what changes in the music industry can tell us about wider shifts in economy and culture. This collection of 13 case studies covers issues such as curation algorithms, blockchain, careers of mainstream and independent musicians, festivals and clubs-to inform greater understanding and better navigation of the popular music landscape within a global context.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction: Fields of research
• 1. Music, the Internet, streaming: Ongoing debates Part I Practices
• 2. Music, the Internet and everyday life: Contexts and practices
• 3. Experiencing music as part of connectivity culture
• 4. Clouds, streams, materiality: Perceptions of musical value in the age of abundance Part II Platforms
• 5. Spotify: Encountering music in the customized archive
• 6. VK: An expression of a post-recorded culture
• 7. Music on YouTube: Participation, intermediation and spreadability
• 8. Phones, applications, mobility: Framing music use on the go Conclusions.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Streaming Music examines how the Internet has become integrated in contemporary music use, by focusing on streaming as a practice and a technology for music consumption. The backdrop to this enquiry is the digitization of society and culture, where the music industry has undergone profound disruptions, and where music streaming has altered listening modes and meanings of music in everyday life. The objective of Streaming Music is to shed light on what these transformations mean for listeners, by looking at their adaptation in specific cultural contexts, but also by considering how online music platforms and streaming services guide music listeners in specific ways. Drawing on case studies from Moscow and Stockholm, and providing analysis of Spotify, VK and YouTube as popular but distinct sites for music, Streaming Music discusses, through a qualitative, cross-cultural, study, questions around music and value, music sharing, modes of engaging with music, and the way that contemporary music listening is increasingly part of mobile, automated and computational processes. Offering a nuanced perspective on these issues, it adds to research about music and digital media, shedding new light on music cultures as they appear today. As such, this volume will appeal to scholars of media, sociology and music with interests in digital technologies.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)