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The Musician And The Micro was published by the Blandford Press in 1982 and achieved two firsts. It was the world's first book for musicians about the practical uses of computer technology in music making and it was also the first book in the UK to be directly typeset from an author's word-processed keystrokes.
Prior to writing the book, Ray Hammond had been the founder publisher and co-owner of International Musician and Recording World, a monthly magazine for musicians, that was published in the USA, UK and Germany.
Quotes from The Musician And The Micro (1982):
"The computer will liberate the music in all of us. There is no longer the need for years of piano practice, agonized months of violin scrapings and the deliberate cultivation of finger-tip calluses. The computer will take over the mechanical parts of the job and allow us to make melody, to sing, allowing the music to pour forth."
"The (software) programmers are finding themselves in a similar position to that faced by music publishers and composers versus the photo-copy machine. It has long been a complaint that bandleaders buy one complete score for a tune, photocopy it and distribute it to the band, thus saving the purchase of 30 copies. Composers and music publishers have long given up fighting that one, but in some countries writers are still fighting lending libraries, record companies are still fighting the blank cassette tape, film companies are worried about illegal video-tape copying and so on. But logic would appear to suggest that there is now no protection for any single published piece of creation which is stored electronically and total reward must be sought before publication."
"At the end of 1981 home computers were in 500,000 homes across the USA. By the end of 1982 that figure had risen to 1.5 million. A similarly sustained future growth curve would put computers in every home by the end of 1986. Of course, that won’t quite happen, but as prices continue to drop, a high rate of growth will be sustained and the home computer will be as common as the TV set by the end of the decade."
Ray Hammond presenting TV package on "The Musician And The Micro" from his home in 1982.
What the reviewers said about The Musician And The Micro:
This is the first guide to the new world of affordable computer music. Sounds
An intelligent and thorough survey of the new computer-based equipment that will completely change music making. International Musician (USA).
Beam me up Scotty! Keyboards
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