Electronic Music: Home

This updated and expanded third edition of Peter Manning's classic text, Electronic and Computer Music, deals with the development of the medium from its birth to the 21st century. The first section of the book, which remains essentially unchanged in this edition, covers electroacoustic music from its beginning at the turn of the century to 1945, the development of post-1945 'classical' studios, development of voltage-controlled technology, and its commercial exploitation in tape works, live electronic music, and the early use of electronics in rock and pop music. Section two, Computer Music, is heavily revised and significantly expanded and treats the digital revolution from the early experiments during the late 1950s and early 1960s to the advanced systems of today. Emphasizing the functional characteristics of emerging digital technologies and their influence on the creative development of the medium, Manning covers key developments in both commercial and the non-commercial sectors.

Describes digital musical instruments, industries that supply & promote them, & the meanings they have for musicians.

Assuming no prior knowledge on the part of the reader, Dobson introduces and explains this mass of technical information in clear, comprehensive entries dealing with common principles and techniques, such as those on the computer, electronic components, and synthesis. Specific products are then referred to as examples of a particular approach.

The contributors to this collection of essays are all composers, who focus on the various technological media of electroacoustic music while keeping sharply in sight their role as creative musicians.

This book, by the composer Michael Nyman, is a first-hand account of the postwar experimental tradition in music. The experimentalist par excellence was John Cage whose legendary 4' 33'' consists of four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence. Nyman's book traces the revolutionary attitudes that were developed towards concepts of time, space, sound, and composer/performer responsibility. It was within the experimental tradition that the seeds of musical minimalism were sown and the book contains reference to the early works of Steve Reich and Philip Glass.

"In this book, Gilbert Trythall conveys much of the spirit of these collaborations (between engineers and musicians) by explaining from a musician's viewpoint the way in which the various circuits and instruments that electronic musicians use actually operate."