This text is a practical guide to the compositional techniques, resources, and technologies available to composers today. Each chapter traces the development of traditional and modern elements that form the foundation of music in the late twentieth century. Among the subjects discussed are interval exploration, serialism, pitch-class sets, twelve-tone music, electronic music, algorithmic composition, and indeterminacy.

In this collection of essays and interviews, nine gifted composers openly discuss their work.

This anthology of essays, interviews, and autobiographical pieces provides an invaluable overview of the evolution of contemporary music—from chromaticism, serialism, and indeterminacy to jazz, vernacular, electronic, and non-Western influences. Featuring classic essays by Stravinsky, Stockhausen, and Reich, as well as writings by lesser-known but equally innovative composers such as Jack Beeson, Richard Maxfield, and T. J. Anderson, this collection covers a broad range of styles and approaches. Here you will find Busoni's influential "Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music"; Partch's exploration of a new notation system; Babbitt's defense of advanced composition in his controversial "Who Cares If You Listen?"; and Pauline Oliveros's meditations on sound. Now updated with fifteen new composers including Michael Tippet, György Ligeti, Gunther Schuller, Ben Johnston, Sofia Gubaidulina, and William Bolcom, this important book gathers together forty-nine pieces—many out of print and some newly written for this volume—which serve as a documentary history of twentieth-century music, in theory and practice. Impassioned, provocative, and eloquent, these writings are as exciting and diverse as the music they discuss.

American composers are at the forefront of a renaissance in concert music, in the process expanding the very definition of the category. The impact of digital technology on the creative process and the unprecedented diversity of contemporary composers are arguably among the catalysts driving the rebirth. In this series of personal interviews with some of the most prominent composers of art music currently working on the American music scene, composer and educator Robert Raines leads the intimate conversations through subjects ranging from the source of inspiration to work habits, the realities of the business of music, and the impact of technology on music and life in the 21st century. The musicians who participated in these conversations are as different from one another as might be imagined, both in styles of music and approaches to life and art, resulting in a series of stories that offer a kaleidoscopic view of the many paths to creativity, yet a common thread that runs through the interviews is the passionate artistic drive that is shared by all. The inspirational stories of struggles and successes, told in the artists' own words and distinctively framed by their individual personalities - humorous, curmudgeonly, serious, serene, and playful by turns - is a delightful and thought-provoking journey full of personal insights, advice, and sharp observations on composing music in a changing, technology-driven world. A loving homage to the artistic spirit, this book is a must-read for students of composition, professors and scholars of music, composers and aspiring composers, and anyone interested in the subjective process of writing music. This rich and entertaining collection provides a unique glimpse into the workings of the creative spirit in the digital age.

With Contemporary Piano: A Performer and Composer’s Guide to Techniques and Resources, Alan Shockley provides a comprehensive resource for composers writing music that uses extended techniques for the piano, and for pianists interested in playing repertoire that makes use of techniques and/or implements unfamiliar to them. Shockley explains dozens of ways to prepare a piano without damaging the instrument, how to notate every standard technique and many, many obscure ones, and the specific geographies of every common concert hall piano. This will be the standard reference for pianists touring and playing inside-the-piano repertoire, and for composers at all levels of familiarity with the piano hoping to understand the mechanical miracle that is the modern piano.