Below the level of the musical note lies the realm of microsound, of sound particles lasting less than one-tenth of a second. Recent technological advances allow us to probe and manipulate these pinpoints of sound, dissolving the traditional building blocks of music—notes and their intervals—into a more fluid and supple medium. The sensations of point, pulse (series of points), line (tone), and surface (texture) emerge as particle density increases. Sounds coalesce, evaporate, and mutate into other sounds. Composers have used theories of microsound in computer music since the 1950s. Distinguished practitioners include Karlheinz Stockhausen and Iannis Xenakis. Today, with the increased interest in computer and electronic music, many young composers and software synthesis developers are exploring its advantages. Covering all aspects of composition with sound particles, Microsound offers composition theory, historical accounts, technical overviews, acoustical experiments, descriptions of musical works, and aesthetic reflections.

Electronic music evokes new sensations, feelings, and thoughts in both composers and listeners. Composing Electronic Music outlines a new theory based on the powerful toolkit of electronic music techniques.

A comprehensive text and reference that covers all aspects of computer music, including digital audio, synthesis techniques, signal processing, musical input devices, performance software, editing systems, algorithmic composition, MIDI, synthesizer architecture, system interconnection, and psychoacoustics. The Computer Music Tutorial is a comprehensive text and reference that covers all aspects of computer music, including digital audio, synthesis techniques, signal processing, musical input devices, performance software, editing systems, algorithmic composition, MIDI, synthesizer architecture, system interconnection, and psychoacoustics. A special effort has been made to impart an appreciation for the rich history behind current activities in the field. Profusely illustrated and exhaustively referenced and cross-referenced, The Computer Music Tutorial 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. Mathematical notation and program code examples are used only when absolutely necessary. Explanations are not tied to any specific software or hardware. The material in this book was compiled and refined over a period of several years of teaching in classes at Harvard University, Oberlin Conservatory, the University of Naples, IRCAM, Les Ateliers UPIC, and in seminars and workshops in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Contemporary electronic music has splintered into numerous genres and subgenres, all of which share a concern with whether sound, in itself, bears meaning. Listening through the Noise considers how the experience of listening to electronic music constitutes a departure from the expectations that have long governed music listening in the West.

Successful business ideas are not so much about talent as about a systematic approach. The Business Idea encourages new ways of thinking when it comes to entrepreneurship and innovation. Too many ventures originate in the solutions the entrepreneur has to offer and not in the problem the customer needs solved. Business plans done this way can often lead to disappointment. The Business Idea leaves behind this product orientated logic. The book presents new, applicable entrepreneurship methods for developing creative market insight, for identifying windows of opportunity, creating business concepts and entrepreneurial strategies for successful market entry. Entrepreneurship is a complex and risky process compared to almost everything else in business life, so it richly deserves to have its own theoretical and methodological toolbox. The Business Idea provides the tools making it of interest to anyone who works with getting an enterprise off the ground or studies entrepreneurship.

Representations of Musical Signals describes a new generation of digital audio and computer music systems made possible by recent advances in digital signal processing theory, hardware design, and programming techniques. It explores new representations of musical signals that can have profound effects on the way musicians conceive of and realize musical ideas. In particular, the book focuses on models that combine time-domain and frequency-domain representations (grains, wavelets, and physical models), visual programming and advanced user interfaces, and that incorporate musical knowledge using artificial intelligence techniques and adaptive neural networks. The 14 contributions take up issues of how musical signals should be displayed to musicians, engineers, and scientists who want to work with them, how professionals can work with the representations to accomplish musical tasks, how systems can be designed to permit working with multiple views of the same signal, and how representations of musical signals should be organized to promote efficient communication between devices using these signals. Giovanni DePoli is a member of the faculty of the Department of Informatics and Electronics at the University of Padua. Aldo Piccialli is a member of the faculty of the Department of Physics at the University of Naples. Curtis Roads is a composer and consulting editor of Computer Music Journal. Contributors: J. M. Adrien. D. Arfib. R. D'Autilia. C. Cadoz. S. Cavaliere G. De Poli, G. Evangelista. J. Florens. G. Garnett. A. Grossman. F. Guerra. K. Hebei. R. Kronland­Martinet. C. Lischka. A. Piccialli. J-C. Risset. C. Roads. C. Scaletti., J. Sundberg.

This survey chronicles the major advances in computer music that have changed the way music is composed, performed, and recorded. It contains many of the classic, seminal articles in the field (most of which are now out of print) in revised and updated versions. Computer music pioneers, digital audio specialists, and highly knowledgeable practitioners have contributed to the book. Thirty-six articles written in the 1970s and 1980s cover sound synthesis techniques, synthesizer hardware and engineering, software systems for music, and perception and digital signal processing. The editors have provided extensive summaries for each section.Curtis Roads is editor of Computer Music Journal. John Strawn is a Research Associate at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University.