Customer Reviews

New Music Composition

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This book is a fantastic introduction to 20th century composition techniques. It doesn't really get into too much depth on any one subject but I see this book as being a great place to begin if your interested in that kind of composing. Subjects covered include: Twelve-Tone Processes, Pointillism, Polytonality, Clusters, Microtones, Indeterminancy, Minimalization, Antimusic and much more. The writing style, ilistrations and assignments make this book very accessable to people who have no previous experience in 20th century composition techniques.

This book, currently out of print, covers most of the important of 20th century styles and techniques, with emphasis on "past 40 years" (1937-1977): pointillism; klangfarbenmelodie; 12-tone; polytonality; prepared, new and invented instruments; new performance and notation techniques; minimalism; anti-music; and mixed media music. The breadth of material covered goes hand-in-hand with Cope's teaching perspective, which is that there is no "right" way to compose; freedom of expression comes from knowledge of as many procedures as possible.

Composer, professor, and author David Cope (b. 1941) writes in a clear, easy to read style with an authoritative tone. The book is organized to function as a text for either a two semester or two year course, and includes directed assignments at the end of chapter, plus annotated bibliographies for further study. The style, scope, and structure of this text make it very suitable for use as a college composition text, but has several drawbacks.

Throughout, the examples are hand written; the clarity of the figures would have been enhanced if they were engraved or typeset. The section on 12-tone technique is not as detailed as other texts on the subject, and only discusses the most basic operations and forms of the row (original, retrograde, inversion, and retrograde inversion). The material in Chapter 19 (on computers and synthesizers) needs updated: the concepts are useful and valid, but many of the specifics are outdated. Appendix I ("The Composer's Table") is similarly out of date (for example, the discussions of ink pens and the ozalid process are now obsolete topics), and its discussions of grants, prizes, commissions and copyrights are too brief (three pages) to be of much practical use. Its most glaring deficiency is that, because of its publication date, it provides no discussion of trends and practices of the most recent 35 years (1977-2012).

Nonetheless, this book would make a fine text for second semester composition students, as well as anyone wishing to undertake a broad, if none too deep, survey of 20th Century music.