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Module description
Reading List
General Reading
Sound Recording
Composing Electronic Music
Acoustics, Psychoacoustics and the Psychology of Music
History of Recording
Electroacoustic Music
Computer Music
Sound Synthesis
Sound Design
Audiovisuals
Some further links in these bibliographies (no longer maintained, but may be of interest):
Computer Music Bibliography
Advanced Computer Music Bibliography
Electronic Music Bibliography
Braun, Hans-Joachim (ed.) (2002) Music and Technology in the Twentieth Century. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Collins, Nick (2010) Introduction to Computer Music. Chichester: Wiley
Roads, Curtis (1996) The computer music tutorial. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
Collins, N., Schedel, M., and Wilson, S. (2013) Electronic Music. (Introductions to Music series) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Chadabe, Joel (1997) Electric sound : the past and promise of electronic music. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall
Ernst, David (1977) The evolution of electronic music. Schirmer Books: New York
Griffiths, Paul (1979) A guide to electronic music. London: Thames and Hudson
Manning, Peter (2013) Electronic and computer music. 4th edn.. New York: Oxford University Press
Nyman, Michael (1999) Experimental music : Cage and beyond. 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Schrader, B. (1982) Introduction to electro-acoustic music. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall
Schwartz, E. (1973) Electronic music: a listener's guide. London: Secker & Warburg
Theberge, Paul. (1997) Any Sound You Can Imagine: Making Music/Consuming Technology. Hanover, MH: Wesleyan University Press
Borwick, J. (ed.) (1994) Sound recording practice. 4th edn. New York: Oxford University Press
Huber, David M. and Runstein, Robert E. (2013) Modern recording techniques. 8th edn. Boston: Focal Press/Elsevier
Rumsey, F. and McCormick, T. (2009) Sound and recording. 6th edn. Amsterdam: Elsevier/Focal Press
Pohlmann, Ken C. (2005) Principles of Digital Audio (5th edition). New York: McGraw-Hill
Watkinson, John (1988) The Art of Digital Audio. London: Focal Press
Bartlett, B. (1987) Introduction to Professional Recording Techniques, Howard W. Sams & Company
Hugonnet, C. and Walder, P. (1998) Stereophonic Sound Recording: Theory and Practice, Chicester: Wiley
d'Escrivan, Julio (2012) Music Technology (Cambridge Introductions to Music series). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Senior, Mike (2011) Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio. Abingdon: Focal Press
10 Mixing Mistakes Everyone Makes - And How to Avoid Them Point Blank, June 7, 2014
Adrian Moore and Dave Moore (2012) Sonic Art: Recipes and Reasonings. University of Sheffield Sound Studios. Online text
Wishart, Trevor (1996) On Sonic Art (revised edition, edited by Simon Emmerson). New York, NY: Routledge
Wishart, Trevor (1994) Audible design: a plain and easy introduction to practical sound composition. York: Orpheus the Pantomime
Wishart, Trevor (2012) Sound composition. York: Orpheus the Pantomime
Roads, Curtis (2015) Composing Electronic Music: A New Aesthetic. New York, NY: Oxford University Press
Schafer, R. Murray (1994) The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Rochester, Vermont: Destiny Books
Schafer, R. Murray (1986) The Thinking Ear. Toronto, Canada: Arcana Editions
EARS 2 pedagogical ElectroAcoustic Resource Site website.
Accompanying book: Leigh Landy (2012) Making Music with Sounds. New York: Routledge.
Snoman, Rick (2014) The dance music manual: tools, toys and techniques (3rd edition). Abingdon: Focal Press.
Phillips, Winifred (2014) A Composer's Guide to Game Music. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
You might also productively consult textbooks on composition in general (often though oriented to acoustic note-based music), and collections of interviews and articles from composers, both acoustic and electronic, such as:
Schwartz, Elliott, Barney Childs, and James Fox, eds. (1998) Contemporary composers on contemporary music. Da Capo Press
Zorn, John (ed.) Arcana: Musicians on Music series
Cope, David (1997) Techniques of the Contemporary Composer. New York: Schirmer
etc.
Campbell, Murray and Greated, Clive (1987) The Musician's Guide to Acoustics. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Pierce, John R. (1992) The Science of Musical Sound (Revised Edition). New York, NY: W. H. Freeman and Company
Cook, Perry R. (ed.) (1999) Music, Cognition and Computerized Sound. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
Susan Hallam, Ian Cross and Michael Thaut (eds.) (2009) The Oxford Handbook of Music Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press
William Forde Thompson (2009) Music, Thought, and Feeling: Understanding the Psychology of Music. New York, NY: Oxford University Press
Juan G. Roederer (1995) The Physics and Psychophysics of Music: An Introduction (3rd Edition) New York, NY: Springer Verlag
Deutsch, Diana (ed.) (1999) The Psychology of Music (2nd Edition). San Diego, CA: Academic Press
Everest, F. Alton (2001) The Master Handbook of Acoustics (4th Edition). New York: McGraw-Hill
Moore, Brian C.J. (2004) An Introduction to the Psychology of Hearing (5th Edition). London: Elsevier
Sloboda, John A. (1985) The Musical Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Yost, William A. (2007) Fundamentals of Hearing: An Introduction (5th Edition). Burlington, MA: Academic Press
Radio 4 programme on mathematics and music (Real Player stream)
Physics website, with good diagram materials on physics of sound
Phonautogram reconstruction
Archive of old cylinder recordings
Restoring old recordings, including from phonautograms
History of Recording Technology
Evolution of Recording timeline and links
Early pioneering work in electrical recording, from the website for conductor Leopold Stokowski, a famous enthusiast of recording
Reproducing piano recordings
Les Paul and Mary Ford, How High the Moon nicely demonstrates the backing multi-track tapes too
Milner, Greg (2009) Perfecting Sound Forever: The Story of Recorded Music. London: Granta
Nicholas Cook, Eric Clarke, Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, and John Rink (eds.) (2009) Cambridge Companion to Recorded Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Frith, Simon and Andrew Goodwin, Andrew (eds.) (1990) On Record: Rock, Pop,
and the Written Word. London: Routledge.
Katz, Mark (2004) Capturing Sound: How Technology has Changed Music. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Davies, Hugh (1996) A History of Sampling. Organised Sound 1(1): 3-11
Harrower, Andy (2005) Copyright Issues in Digital Music. Contemporary Music Review 24(6): 483 - 488
Palombini, C. 1993. Machine Songs V: Pierre Schaeffer. From Research into Noises to Experimental Music. Computer Music Journal 17(3): 14-19
A Beatles recording dissected: Come Together
Fun History of Sampling Java applet, showing sample sources, and later tracks which used them
Who sampled who website
The Mellotron
Plunderphonics website of John Oswald
Raiding the 20th Century; cut and paste retrospective, mash-ups aplenty
Buchanan and Goodman - The Flying Saucer (Parts 1 and 2)
Films on turntablism: Scratch (Doug Pray, 2001), Wave Twisters (Syd Garon, Eric Henry 2001)
Waters, Darren (2009) Napster: 10 years of change (including comments from Shawn Fanning)
Anderson, Nate (2009) 100 years of Big Content fearing technology in its own words Ars Technica, Last updated October 11, 2009 11:00 PM
Grove article by Simon Emmerson and Denis Smalley.
Jonty Harrison (1998) 'Sound, space, sculpture: some thoughts on the 'what', 'how' and 'why' of sound diffusion.' Organised Sound 3(2):117-127
Interview of Alejandro Vinao
Landy, Leigh (2007) The Art of Sound Organisation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
Wishart, Trevor (1996) On Sonic Art (revised edition, edited by Simon Emmerson). New York, NY: Routledge
Adrian Moore and Dave Moore (2012) Sonic Art: Recipes and Reasonings. University of Sheffield Sound Studios. Online text
Smalley, Denis (1997) 'Spectromorphology: explaining sound-shapes.' Organised Sound 2(2): 107-26
Truax, Barry (1999) Handbook of Acoustic Ecology (2nd Edition). Online book
ElectroAcoustic Resource Site (EARS)
Listening library of electroacoustic works
Canadian electroacoustic community educational resources
Illuminating documentary about Pierre Henry, including his later work after he left Schaeffer's circle
Sound spatialisation research resources
Ambisonics recordings for download
Multichannel works by Adrian Moore
Collins, Nick (2010) Introduction to Computer Music. Chichester: Wiley
Roads, Curtis (1996) The Computer Music Tutorial. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
Dodge, Charles and Jerse, Thomas (1997) Computer Music Synthesis, Composition, and Performance. New York: Schirmer Books
Moore, F. Richard (1990) Elements of Computer Music. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: P T R Prentice Hall
Hugill, Andrew (2008) The Digital Musician. New York, NY: Routledge
Roads, Curtis and Strawn, John (eds.) (1985) Foundations of Computer Music. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
Roads, Curtis (ed.) (1989) The Music Machine. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
Loy, Gareth (2007) Musimathics, Volumes 1 and 2. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
[ONLINE(quite mathematical treatment)]
Puckette, Miller S. (2007) The Theory and Technique of Computer Music. Hackensack, NJ: World Scientific Publishing Co., Inc.
[ONLINE(very mathematical treatment)]
Benson, David J. (2007) Music: A Mathematical Offering. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Brown, Andrew (2007) Computers in Music Education. New York, NY: Routledge
Dean, Roger (ed.) (2009) The Oxford Handbook of Computer Music. NY: Oxford University Press
[ONLINE] Search old International Computer Music Conference Proceedings
Miranda, Eduardo Reck (2002) Computer Sound Design : Synthesis Techniques and Programming. Oxford: Focal Press. (used to be Eduardo Miranda (1998) Computer Sound Synthesis for the Electronic Musician. Oxford: Focal Press.)
Russ, Martin (2008) Sound Synthesis and Sampling (3rd Edition) Oxford: Focal Press
Cook, Perry (2002) Real Sound Synthesis for Interactive Applications. A.K.Peters
Boulanger, Richard (ed). (2000) The Csound Book. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
Csound website
Barry Truax on granular synthesis
[LINK] Julius O. Smith (1991) "Viewpoints on the History of Digital Sound Synthesis". Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference, Montreal, Oct 1991, pp. 1-10
Vesa Välimäki and Tapio Takala. (1996) "Virtual Musical Instruments - Natural Sound Using Physical Models." Organised Sound 1(2): 75-86
[LINK]Tero Tolonen, Vesa Välimäki and Matti Karjalainen (1998). Evaluation of Modern Sound Synthesis Methods. Technical Report 48, Helsinki University of Technology.
[LINK] Chris Chafe (1999) "A Short History of Digital Sound Synthesis by Composers in the U.S.A". Creativity and the Computer, Recontres Musicales Pluridisciplinaires, Lyon, March, 1999.
[LINK] Chris Chafe (2004) "Case Studies of Physical Models in Music Composition". Proc. 2004 Intl. Congress Acoustics, Kyoto
Nord Modular book with lots of sound synthesis ideas
Computer music magazines (Music Technology, Future Music, Computer Music, Sound on Sound et al.) can be a good source of tutorials and tips sections. An example from Computer Music of 100 Tips
Synth Secrets articles from Sound on Sound by Gordon Reid
Forum discussion on synthesizing a kick drum
Dan's cymbal synthesis
Nice DX7 example sounds
Sonnenschein, David. (2001) Sound design : the expressive power of music, voice, and sound effects in cinema. Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions.
Viers, Ric (2008) The Sound Effects Bible: How to Create and Record Hollywood Style Sound Effects. Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions.
Collins, Karen (2008) Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press
Farnell, Andy (2012) Designing Sound: Procedural Audio for Games and Film. MIT Press. The first part of the book, on Pd, is available for free download, and there are also some nice example chapters. Dan Stowell has also supplied translations of some examples to SuperCollider: [SC examples]
A SuperCollider movie theme example
Recreating James Moorer's THX sound by Batuhan Bozkurt
The Miranda and Cook sound synthesis textbooks have some related materials.
Sound Design Blog
"filmsound.org: Learning Space dedicated to the Art of Film Sound Design"
Chion, Michel (1994) Audio-vision. New York: Columbia University Press. Original published 1990, translated by Gorbman, C.
Cook, Nicholas (1998) Analysing Musical Multimedia. New York: Oxford University Press
Kalinak, Kathryn (2010) Film Music: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press
Wierzbicki, James (2009) Film Music: A History. New York : Routledge
Cooke, Mervyn (2008) A history of film music. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press
Neumeyer, David (ed.) (2014) The Oxford Handbook of Film Music Studies. New York: Oxford University Press
Kompanek, Sonny (2004) From score to screen: sequencers, scores, and second thoughts: the new film scoring process. New York: Schirmer Trade Books
Horowitz, Steve and Looney, Scott R. (2014) The Essential Guide to Game Audio: The Theory and Practice of Sound for Games. Abingdon: Focal Press
Spinrad, Paul (2005) The VJ Book. Feral House
Collins, Karen (2013) Playing with Sound: A Theory of Interacting with Sound and Music in Video Games. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
Andersen, Martin Stig (2010) Electroacoustic Sound and Audiovisual Structure in Film. cec / econtact / 12.4, august 2010