Composing Electronic Music: A New Aesthetic

by Curtis Roads

Overview

Electronic music evokes new sensations, feelings, and thoughts in both composers and listeners. Opening the door to an unlimited universe of sound, it engages spatialization as an integral aspect of composition and focuses on sound transformation as a core structural strategy. In this new domain, pitch occurs as a flowing and ephemeral substance that can be bent, modulated, or dissolved into noise. Similarly, time occurs not merely as a fixed duration subdivided by ratios, but as a plastic medium that can be generated, modulated, reversed, warped, scrambled, and granulated. Envelope and waveform undulations on all time scales interweave to generate form. The power of algorithmic methods amplify the capabilities of music technology. Taken together, these constitute game-changing possibilities.

This convergence of technical and aesthetic trends prompts the need for a new text focused on the opportunities of a sound oriented, multiscale approach to composition of electronic music. Sound oriented means a practice that takes place in the presence of sound. Multiscale means an approach that takes into account the perceptual and physical reality of multiple, interacting time scales-each of which can be composed. After more than a century of research and development, now is an appropriate moment to step back and reevaluate all that has changed under the ground of artistic practice.

Composing Electronic Music outlines a new theory of composition based on the toolkit of electronic music techniques. The theory consists of a framework of concepts and a vocabulary of terms describing musical materials, their transformation, and their organization. Central to this discourse is the notion of narrative structure in composition-how sounds are born, interact, transform, and die. It presents a guidebook: a tour of facts, history, commentary, opinions, and pointers to interesting ideas and new possibilities to consider and explore.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195373240
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	07/17/2015
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	512
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Curtis Roads is an award-winning composer and researcher who teaches electronic music composition at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He co-founded the International Computer Music Association and served as an editor/associate editor of Computer Music Journal for 23 years. The author of numerous books, his electronic music set POINT LINE CLOUD won the Award of Distinction at the 2002 Ars Electronica.

Table of Contents

00 Preface
01 The electronic medium
02 Aesthetic foundations
03 The nature of sound
04 Creating sound materials
05 Sound transformation
06 Processes of rhythm
07 Pitch in electronic music
08 Articulating space
09 Multiscale organization
10 Sonic narrative
11 Generative strategies
12 The art of mixing
13 References
Appendix A List of sound examples
Index

Editorial Reviews

"a worthwhile addition to electronic music literature." — Richard Barrett, Journal of Sonic Studies

"Clearly formulated starting points engage the reader in more challenging concepts and interesting lines of enquiry, contextualising the many perspectives surrounding each topic. This well researched treasure chest of quotes, references, and examples illustrates an insightful text which the author, himself with decades of experience as a transcontinental practitioner, has enriched with personal reflections that in turn allow the reader to do the same."-Natasha Barrett

Curtis Roads' book is a kind of prism that reevaluates the field of music composition in the light of the new technologies of the 21st century. He builds a thousand bridges between different approaches to attributes like pitch, rhythm, time scales, and even sonic narratives in order to help us to understand present music practices." -Horacio Vaggione, composer, Professor Emeritus, the University of Paris VIII

"A rich and enjoyable survey for the computer musician, ranging from the objects of compositional manipulation to the performative aspects of the shaping of sensory experience. This book will be of interest not only to the electronic music composer, but also to the performing musician, and the general reader interested in the process and principles of musical design." -Elaine Chew, Professor of Digital Media, Queen Mary University of London

"[I]f you want a great overview of just about any aspect of the field of electronic music, you'll find it in this book. Clearly written, with a minimum of mathematics, it's the kind of book you can refer to time and time again."—SoundBytes

"Time is passing, and when I came back to Paris, I read [the] wonderful book Composing
Electronic Music : A New Aesthetic. Congratulations! It is a great book! I totally agree with the main thesis of this book, clarifying that electronic music has been opening a new full area on the history of music, and putting a clear separation between the area of 'acoustic' music, and the area of 'electronic' music. What a pleasure to read a book which explains to us all the foundations of electronic music, all of its researchs, its true history, etc...I hope that [the] book is going to be translated in French, because the French music situation needs it absolutely!" — Jean-Claude Eloy, French composer of instrumental, vocal and electroacoustic music

"The text does have the primary motivational benefit that at many moments it makes the reader want to go and compose. Aside from the joy of crafting pure sound at many structural levels, it provokes new organizational ideas in reaction to theory."—Music and Letters

From the Publisher