Coproduction

This chapter sets out a framework for the study of collaborative practices in music production by identifying a series of types of practice that occur from the operations of a few individuals working closely together, to the contribution of the whole world to the entirety of produced music. It begins by discussing the dominance of the singular producer in the literature and iconography of recorded music and progresses to suggest four overarching types of collaborative practices (types of coproduction) that break with this ideology of the singular producer and demonstrates the various ways in which joint authorship operates. The theoretical frameworks encompass collaborative typologies developed by Vygotskyan theorist Vera John-Steiner and the postmodern milieu of Deleuzian rhizomatics. In this way the chapter aims to move between a grounded and pragmatic approach to the observation of collaborative practices in recorded music and a philosophical reframing of the ground itself, where the territory is in a state of destabilizing and restabilizing up to a hypothetical point where production itself must cease.