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Electronic Music: Allen Strange's Classic Book Reissued

43 points by bwidlar 4y ago

waffletower 4y ago
Wonderful and amazing to see this news here! Sad that Allen was taken too early shortly after retiring.
nonrandomstring 4y ago
> 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.
- Optimal_Persona 4y ago
  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: https://buchla.com/guides/Buchla_Music_Easel_Manual.pdf https://buchla.com/guides/Buchla_Music_Easel_Manual.pdf Minus the patch storage of the original hardware, you can work through it using Arturia's Buchla Easel standalone/plugin software: https://www.arturia.com/products/software-instruments/buchla-easel-v/overview https://www.arturia.com/products/software-instruments/buchla...
miobrien 4y ago
Very cool. Thanks for posting!
_def 4y ago
I don't really get why one doesn't get the pdf in any case with the soft or hard cover but I'm still glad this is happening
8bitsrule 4y ago
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.)

43 points by bwidlar 4y ago

Wonderful and amazing to see this news here! Sad that Allen was taken too early shortly after retiring.

> 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.

Optimal_Persona 4y ago
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: https://buchla.com/guides/Buchla_Music_Easel_Manual.pdf https://buchla.com/guides/Buchla_Music_Easel_Manual.pdf Minus the patch storage of the original hardware, you can work through it using Arturia's Buchla Easel standalone/plugin software: https://www.arturia.com/products/software-instruments/buchla-easel-v/overview https://www.arturia.com/products/software-instruments/buchla...

miobrien 4y ago

Very cool. Thanks for posting!

_def 4y ago

I don't really get why one doesn't get the pdf in any case with the soft or hard cover but I'm still glad this is happening

8bitsrule 4y ago

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.)