> it remains a source of inspiration for many. What do you think gives
this particular text such staying power?
> Jason: I find Allen’s work really weird and enticing. I’m not a
musician or composer. I’m at best a student. His book is a masterful
enticement to exploration.
In the age of plugins and off-the-shelf products that supplant
principles and knowledge we so need arts technology books that hold
this torch.
I still go back to Dodge and Jerse, Curtis Roads CMT, or Boulangers
Csound Book when I am feeling a little jaded with music tech, just to
find a spark of inspiration that sets off a new idea.
Yeah, the classics are evergreen. Beyond Roads' Computer Music Tutorial, his Microsound is also a classic of the genre and IMO one of the best treatments I've seen of time-based artforms, situating compositional practice in between the Planck time as the lower bound and the age of the universe as the upper. :-)
Allen Strange also wrote a manual for programming the Buchla Music Easel synth:
Haven't seen Strange's book, looks interesting, but a couple things have changed since 1970.
One I have seen and strongly recommend is "Computer Music: synthesis, composition, and performance" by Dodge and Jerse (1997 2nd Ed.). It's a great technical -but readable- reference to learn important bottom-up concepts in detail (including graphs and equations). No computer needed! (Of course, some things have changed since 1997 too. But basics are basics.)
> Jason: I find Allen’s work really weird and enticing. I’m not a musician or composer. I’m at best a student. His book is a masterful enticement to exploration.
In the age of plugins and off-the-shelf products that supplant principles and knowledge we so need arts technology books that hold this torch.
I still go back to Dodge and Jerse, Curtis Roads CMT, or Boulangers Csound Book when I am feeling a little jaded with music tech, just to find a spark of inspiration that sets off a new idea.