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Composing Electronic Music: A New Aesthetic

Curtis Roads

4.49 · Rating details · 65 ratings · 7 reviews

Electronic music evokes new sensations, feelings, and thoughts in both composers and listeners. Opening the door to an unlimited universe of sound, it engages spatialization as an integral aspect of composition and focuses on sound transformation as a core structural strategy. In this new domain, pitch occurs as a flowing and ephemeral substance that can be bent, modulated ...more

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Hardcover, 510 pages

Published July 17th 2015 by Oxford University Press, USA (first published April 1st 2015)

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Jun 28, 2017 Geoff rated it it was amazing

Comprehensive, deep, dense - and in all of those senses loving and beautiful. There is an accompanying website with audio snippets of the works discussed, and that in itself is a treasure trove. But unfortunately the meat of this book is probably not for the casual listener/reader. This one's for the the craftswomen, the craftsmen - though I must say, even if you do not make music based in electronics, any musician would find this a worthwhile read - the sheer complexity of what is covered is en Comprehensive, deep, dense - and in all of those senses loving and beautiful. There is an accompanying website with audio snippets of the works discussed, and that in itself is a treasure trove. But unfortunately the meat of this book is probably not for the casual listener/reader. This one's for the the craftswomen, the craftsmen - though I must say, even if you do not make music based in electronics, any musician would find this a worthwhile read - the sheer complexity of what is covered is enough to awe anyone who has ever set out to make a song. Roads' book will stay within arms' reach for this fellow traveler in the years ahead. A reminder that I am a pre-Columbite setting out toward this aural new world - that all of us musicians have not yet even formulated the language required to grab hold of the essences of what is possible once we set out to depart and leave behind the old world of linearity, tonality, scale systems, melodic/harmonic relations, textural movements, time scales that have been conventionally associated with music composition. That this new world of control voltages, algorithms, micro- and macro-timing, inversions, reversals, grain and particle level dissection of each moment of sound is as of now a great new undiscovered country, with a relatively short history, and we are now just breaching its beaches and fragrant forests and plains... A blessing of a book for those of us taking our stab at infinity through this particular sound-magic. New sounds for the new man! I started out building my modular synthesizer a few years ago completely naive, a total neophyte in a world that I was only glimpsing the edges and corners of, knowing only that somewhere in this vast field of what I had heard might be hiding what I'd always looked for in making music - a scale that seems infinite - composition aligned with improvisation - the happy surprises of random chance in an ordered system of sound events - the potential for one lone soul to try to gain the ability to paint the vast range of sounds one hears always at the edge of thought - that the cosmic ringing and resonance of the universe (for what is the universe but a collection of faster or slower waveforms and particles...) - the Music of the Spheres - might also be made by creatures so dumb and damned as us humans... it's a beautiful thought, and sometimes enough to make this tired old universe seem capable of something new, of pleasantly surprising curious seekers - which is all we ask of art anyway. ...more

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Mar 15, 2016 Mikael Lind rated it really liked it

Shelves: aesthetics, composition, music, music-theory

Curtis Roads is brilliant at expanding your horizon. With a philosophical take on music composition with electronics, he manages to expand your views on the subject, and also lets you get a glimpse of how electronic music evolved.

If you just want to find a music sequencer and make cool beats, then this book is not for you. If you've been making electronic music for a while, and want to find new ways of doing it, as well as reflecting on the music you've already composed, then you should definite ...more

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Feb 19, 2019 Matthew rated it liked it

Okay. A lot of it felt repetitive, and like a list of methods rather than interesting commentary on those methods. (And too many comparisons to architecture for me.) I was expecting more about the aesthetic philosophy of music (even if only the author's particular philosophy) than this provided: e.g., not what granular synthesis is, but why one would use it, what it provides aesthetically. There wasn't much of that. ...more

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Jul 31, 2018 Tony rated it it was amazing

At the risk of sounding like a fanatic, I would suggest that this book become a required reading for anyone looking to go into composition, regardless of style or medium. The advice, ideas, and aesthetic considerations that Roads put forth are well thought-out and clearly articulated. It is refreshing and inspiring to see a book dedicated to talking about the act of composition (not just electronic composition).

Highlights: The chapters on rhythm (6), space (8), and narrative (10) could easily b At the risk of sounding like a fanatic, I would suggest that this book become a required reading for anyone looking to go into composition, regardless of style or medium. The advice, ideas, and aesthetic considerations that Roads put forth are well thought-out and clearly articulated. It is refreshing and inspiring to see a book dedicated to talking about the act of composition (not just electronic composition).

Highlights: The chapters on rhythm (6), space (8), and narrative (10) could easily be extracted and read for a composition seminar meeting or to give to a student between lessons. I also think that his discussion of the nine timescales (pages 49-51) and chapter 9 on mutliscale organization should belong in every senior composition major's notebook. Finally, the companion website - specifically the audio examples - is very easy to navigate and use; I ended up having the site open on my phone with headphones so I could read in the living room and listen to the examples. From these audio examples, of which there are over 150, you can generate a hell of a listening list, so have your pencils ready.

Possible Issues: Varèse looms over the entire book. For me, this isn't a bad thing; one can always be reminded of Varèse and his contributions. However, if you aren't a fan of Varèse's aesthetics and thinking, you may not agree with a lot of what Roads has to say.

In the chapter on generative strategies (chapter 11), Roads says some things about Feldman that surprised me, and therefore may surprise or upset those who are fans of his style. I've always felt that Feldman was a composer whose primary interest was the sound itself. Many of Feldman's writings can support this feeling, and one of the most beautiful things about his music (granted, this is my opinion) is his attention to instrumental and timbral color. Roads, though, paints Feldman as an "all-mind" rather than an "all-ear" composer (quotes are mine). From page 349: "Some have gone further, arguing that the composition is the program code itself, not the music it produces. This is similar to the position taken in the 1960s by composers such as Morton Feldman that the composition was the ink on paper, and that its rendition into sound was irrelevant."

Later, he quotes Feldman twice, and these quotes support the position Roads takes earlier, so there you have it. I'm not saying it's a bad thing; it's not. It was just surprising to me as a fan of Feldman, so I can see how some people make take a little bit of issue with it.

In the end, though, it doesn't matter. This book belongs on every composer's shelf. I wish more composers would put their ideas forward in such a well-written, clear manner; I actually wish composers would just put their musical ideas forward as open and free dialogue and discussion about composition is rare. I highly recommend this book and hope you enjoy it as much as I did. ...more

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Sep 08, 2018 Ben rated it it was amazing

Essential reading for anyone making music today

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Jul 15, 2018 Ken Reisman rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

An ambitious survey of electronic music from early 20th century to the present that has fundamentally challenged and broadened how I think of composition.

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