Julio’s Creative Music Technology Teaching

Acousmatic Composition Resources

Electronic Music is a very new field and although there are good general books on the subject, in order to really appreciate this fast expanding scholarly area, you need to be aware of current papers being published.

In terms of journals, our University Library stocks excellent resources for electronic music. As well as an expanding collection of audio CDs (which you should aim to progressively listen to in its entirety throughout your course of studies). The primary journals you should aim to consult follow below. Remember that you can access them electronically for the full text of articles through the Digital Library: https://login.lib.anglia.ac.uk/index.html.  Also remember that there may be articles kept in print that are not in electronic format and you will find them through a catalogue search, on the library shelves.

These are the primary Journals/E-Journals you should consult regularly:

Organised Sound, OUP.
Computer Music Journal, The MIT Press.
Leonardo Music Journal, The MIT Press.
Contemporary Music Review, Routledge.

There are others relating to music in specific fields. Do make time to browse through the University Colllection.

The following books are excellent core references for the subject of Acousmatic Composition.

Schaeffer, P., 1966. Traité des Objects Musicaux. Editions du Seuil: Paris.

This is the core work in this area and represents a classic of electroacoustic music thinking, well   worth learning french just to read this. No english translation is available yet, although excerpts from this book can be found in the work of other authors.

Roy, S., 2003.  L’Analyse des Musiques Electroacoustiques: Modéles et Propositions. L’Harmattan: Paris.

This is the most complete book on analysis of electroacoustic music, although it is in french it referes to many books that exist originally in English.

Emmerson, S., ed, 1986. The Language of Electroacoustic Music. Macmillan Press: London.

A compendium of foundational articles on electronic music, especially since it contains the first version of Smalley’s SPECTROMORPHOLOGY.

Roads, C., 2004. Microsound. MIT Press: Cambridge, Mass..

Roads, C., 1995. The Computer Music Tutorial.  MIT Press: Cambridge, Mass..

Roads, C., 1985. Composers and the Computer. MIT Press: Cambridge, Mass..

Roads, C., 1987. Foundations of Computer Music. MIT Press: Cambridge, Mass..

Roads, C., 1989. The Music Machine, readings from the Computer Music Journal. MIT Press: Cambridge, Mass..

Curtis Roads is one of the foremost scholars of Electronic Music, you should aim to read all his work if possible, but the main title of importance for this module is Microsound.

Wishart, T., 1996. On Sonic Art. Harwood Academic: London.

Wishart, T., 1994. Audible Design. Orpheus the Pantomime: U.K..

Trevor Wishart is a pioneer of modern acousmatic and experimental music and an original thinker whose ideas challenge preconceived notions of music and stimulate the creative mind.

Barrett, Natasha, 2007. Trends in Electroacoustic Music, in Collins, Nick and d’Escrivan, Julio (eds) 2007. The Cambridge Companion to Electronic Music. CUP: Cambridge.
Great care should be taken when reading material on the Internet. Whilst many sites are a valuable source of information, there are no editorial restrictions in place and many sites contain out of date and inaccurate information. You should also be very wary of including material from Internet sites in your written work and you should familiarise yourself with proper referencing procedures and definitions of plagiarism. The following links contain information or references to other sites where you can find technical and theoretical information on acousmatic composition.

http://webct.anglia.ac.uk/webct/

http://www.ircam.fr/

http://www.cycling74.com/

http://www.sfu.ca/~truax/gsample.html

http://swiki.hfbk-hamburg.de:8888/MusicTechnology/6

http://www.mutantsounds.com/content/view/22/31/

http://www.ixi-software.net/content/backyard.html

http://www.ubu.com/

http://www.rem.ufpr.br/REMv4/vol4/arti-palombini.htm

http://www.mti.dmu.ac.uk/EARS/