Computer Music: Synthesis, Composition, and Performance (Paperback)

~ (Author), Thomas A. Jerse (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

This text reflects the current state of computer technology and music composition. The authors offer clear, practical overviews of program languages, real-time synthesizers, digital filtering, artificial intelligence, and much more.

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Schirmer; 2 edition (July 2, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0028646827
• ISBN-13: 978-0028646824
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #896,202 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Technical and thorough, June 28, 2000

By A Customer

If your intent is to create music *by synthesizing the tones with a computer*, with a program such as Csound, this book is invaluable. It is *not about sequencing*, looping, controlling synthesizers or samplers with MIDI, etc. That said, the serious treatment of various types of sound synthesis is more than adequately technical, with lots of flowcharts, diagrams and a little algebra. The flowcharts illustrate generically how sounds can be synthesized, without getting into the specifics of particular programs. You must be able to leap the gap between the concept and the realization in a particular computer music program. Other chapters nicely introduce psychoacoustics, fundamentals of digital audio and the use of sound processing methodology. Warning: For a person with little technical (engineering-type) background, the book will be tough going in places, possibly overwhelming. It is not an introductory-level text.

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars should have been my first book, February 26, 2004

By A Customer

i've been making computer music with supercollider and before that
with a commercial graphical patch up package for several years now,
and i wish that this had been the first book i had read.
the first book i did in fact read was roads' 'computer music tutorial',
which is a great book which i also highly recommend, but is more of
a reference than a tutorial, both in its layout and style. the dodge/jerse book
is so clearly and pedagogically written, that even though i already knew
a great deal of the material, it solidified quite a lot of it into place for me.

the thing i liked best about it is that the authors invariably direct you
to compositions made using the methods just described. in other words
the methods are not just described in a vacuum.

expect to learn from this book the basics of acoustics and psychoacoustics,
digital audio and sampling theory, and a slew of sound synthesis techniques,
as well as about composition.

who should buy this:

the serious computer music student, who does not necessarily have any
experience yet in computer music, but who is not afraid of some hard study.

the computer musician using either a graphical patch up system ( max/msp, reaktor, pd etc... )
or using some Music-N derived language (supercollider, csound) would both benefit tremendously
from a thorough study of the contents of this book.

the mathematics level required for this book is not high. your algebra should be strong
with a solid understanding of exponents and logarithms, and some basic trig wouldn't
hurt either.

a note about the C++ source code. first off if you don't program, there is nothing to be scared
of, the source only appears in the chapter on composition, and if you do program in C but not C++,
then you should know that you will be fine, because the code snippets are effectively written in C.
aparantly the first edition included fortran code for ugens and was quite a different book. if you want a book on ugen internals, you won't find it in this second edition, but Moore's is terrific, 'Elements of Computer Music'.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great introduction to computer music., April 24, 1998

By A Customer

This book is an excellent introduction to computer music. It has been my reference and textbook for a year-long University course on computer music, providing many explanations that were in-depth enough to understand what is going on and how methods work the way they do, yet does not tie the reader down to a specific software or architecture. This is defintely a good read on the subject.