Customer Reviews

Making Music with Your Computer 2E

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I think the best title for this book should be "Making Music With Your Computer BUT Let's Learn about Music Theory and Do The Music in a Later Edition." This book is more about theory than programming music on your computer. The theory in this book assumes you know how to read music. It does not instruct those without a clue, but I was lucky to have already known how to read music. If you're looking for a book to give you some insight to write commercial music, this isn't the book. If you're looking for ideas on composing for an orchestra, buy it.

So, what's good about the book? There are a few chapters on mastering, MIDI, and sound synthesis. They aren't highly detailed, but it will give you a clue to what those topics are about.

This is NOT a book for the neophyte musician--computer savvy or otherwise. The author assumes a fairly high level of musical background and what is presented is probably not new material for people with said background. Therefore the new information presented, could be offed in a couple of chapters. Conversely, any reasonable book on basic music theory (as it pertains to In essence, this book attempts to be too much to, too many and succeeds in being not enough in any given area to be of any real use. Additionally, Throughout the book, the author comes across as self important and preachy--no to real end.composition) will offer more pertinent information. After that, anything else needed could be found in most user's manuals for any electronic music instrument you may have or be considering.

I can not stress this last point enough: if you do not have a musical background, this is not the book for you. All it is, is a survey of music theory which can be applied to any musical discipline with the addition of a small number of pages on MIDI basics. In this day and age where electronic musical instruments and sequencing software is so inexpensive, it would be nice if somebody could put together a good primer which covers the basic elements of music from notation to theory to synth's to sequencers, from hardware to software.

I must say that title is misleading. Not only it covers making music with your computer, it covers HOW to make music in any media. There are chapters on practical music theory, on classical, pop and jazz chords, on music composition, etc. This is a must-have for musicians to learn more theory on composition and to use your computer to compose music.

Pay no attention to the one star review. It is about the old version. This new version is the biggest, most detailed book on using computers with music ever released! You'll learn about everything from MIDI to orchestration, to digital audio, mixing, and more with this one. This is NOT the old book!