Ebook: The computer music tutorial

With the use of computers and digital devices, the processes of music composition and its production have become intertwined with the scientific and technical resources of society to a greater extent than ever before. Through extensive application of computers in the generation and processing of sound and the composition of music from levels of the microformal to the macroformal, composers, from creative necessity, have provoked a robust interdependence between domains of scientific and musical thought. Not only have science and technology enriched contemporary music, but the converse is also true: problems of particular musical importance in some cases suggest or pose directly problems of scientific and technological importance, as well. Each having their own motivations, music and science depend on one another and in so doing define a unique relationship to their mutual benefit.
The use of technology in music is not new however, it has reached a new level of pertinence with the rapid development of computer systems. Modern computer systems encompass concepts that extend far beyond those that are intrinsic to the physical machines themselves. One of the distinctive attributes of computing is programmability and hence programming languages. High-level programming languages, representing centuries of thought about thinking, are the means by which computers become accessible to diverse disciplines.
Programming involves mental processes and rigorous attention to detail not unlike those involved in composition. Thus, it is not surprising that composers were the first artists to make substantive use of computers. There were compelling reasons to integrate some essential scientific knowledge and concepts into the musical consciousness and to gain competence in areas which are seemingly foreign to music. Two reasons were (and are) particularly compelling: (1) the generality of sound synthesis by computer, and (2) the power of programming in relation to the musical structure and the process of composition.

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This text provides a step-by-step introduction to the entire field of computer music techniques. Written for nontechnical as well as technical readers, it uses hundreds of charts, diagrams, screen images, and photographs as well as clear explanations to present basic concepts and terms.