PUSH TURN MOVE

NEW Updated 2021-version with stunning new print and paper quality! Featuring more than 30 new or updated instruments — including the Polyend Tracker, the new Haken Continuum models, ASM Hydrasynth, Sensel Morph, Novation Launchpad X, and many others.

Mankind touches music technology

PUSH TURN MOVE is an utterly unique and unprecedented book. Beautiful pictures, insightful essays, and fascinating interviews teach how electronic musical instruments are designed for the special needs of the most expressive, lyrical, and demanding things in the music world: human beings.

• Hundreds of electronic instruments going back over 100 years
• Over 45 interviews with designers and artists
• Dozens of essays and diagrams showing the beauty of instrument design
• Foreword by world-famous electronic artist Jean-Michel Jarre
• 352 colorful pages printed on high-quality, certified-ecofriendly paper 
• Hardcover format (9.8" x 9.8" / 25 x 25 cm)

PUSH TURN MOVE features hundreds of photos and diagrams, dozens of interviews with designers and artists, and eye-opening essays on history, philosophy, design, and user experience. With clear writing and stunning photography, it builds a bridge between abstract design concepts and the feelings we have when we touch our music... between technology and humanity. Science, engineering, passion, and inspiration come together in a unique look at the special bond between instrument and player. PUSH TURN MOVE is a love letter from human to machine that has to be experienced to be believed.

Inspiring stories by groundbreaking artists

Modern instrument designs are a strange and beautiful landscape, and the pioneers who explore it combine a spirit of adventure with a sharp eye on the turning tides of technology. Be inspired by insightful interviews with Dorit Chrysler, Suzanne Ciani, Richard Devine, DiVINCi, Laura Escudé, Imogen Heap, Larry Heard, Moldover, Jordan Rudess, Skinnerbox, and others.

Meet the minds behind the magic

Musical instrument designers bring these fascinating concepts to life, and never before have so many of their insights been collected into one book. Take a journey through the history and mystery of human and music machine with the creative geniuses of Ableton, Artiphon, Arturia, Axel Hartmann Design, Cycling ‘74, DJ TechTools, Elektron, Haken Audio, Joué, Keith McMillen Instruments, Korg, Make Noise, mi.mu, monome, Moog, Mutable Instruments, Native Instruments, Nonlinear Labs, Novation, Papernoise, Percussa, Propellerhead, Roger Linn Design, Roland, Sequential, Snyderphonics, Symbolic Sound, Synthstrom Audible, Teenage Engineering, u-he, Wizdom Music, and more.

Have you ever wondered...
...why one synthesizer is fabulously inspiring while another leaves you flat? How the simplest of design choices can make radical differences in how a musical instrument is used? What divides the truly historic from the quickly forgotten? And why your bandmates love one synthesizer while you love another? PUSH TURN MOVE lays out the answers with beauty and stunning clarity.

A fascinating framework for a book like no other

PUSH TURN MOVE is built around an extraordinary architecture. It moves smoothly from the inner mind of the user to the sounds of electronic music to the ways in which music machines are laid out and designed. It’s an intricate tapestry of ideas, weaving together everything from simple lines and planes and curves to revolutions in touch and color and texture. You’ll read about everything from synthesizers, drum machines, and beatmakers to alternative controllers, mixers, and software in a whole new way – they become sensual objects, endlessly intriguing and alluring. For the first time, you can see and truly understand the essence of the fascination they hold for so many artists.

The first outing for an unstoppable creative team

PUSH TURN MOVE is the book that launched bjooks as a publisher and made visionary author and musician Kim Bjørn a household name in studios around the world. Kim was aided by respected author, educator, and electronic musician Dr. Mike Metlay, who served as Editor and wrote the book’s Time section – a retrospective of human-machine interaction going back over 400 years. The book was edited by Mike with his Atomic Words colleague Diana Smethurst, and expert synthesist and author Paul Nagle acted as Editor and technical advisor.

Beauty and fascination unite

From the Foreword by world-famous synthesist Jean-Michel Jarre to a comprehensive list of references and resources, PUSH TURN MOVE takes the mysterious interaction between us and our synthesizers and opens it up for everyone to admire. If you love electronic music, this book is a must-have title that you’ll return to again and again.