Computer Music - Synthesis, Composition, and Performance- 2 ed (Charles Dodge, Thomas A. Jerse).pdf

Computer Music: Synthesis, Composition, and Performance by Charles Dodge; Thomas A. Jerse Review by: Christopher Dobrian Notes, Second Series, Vol. 55, No. 1 (Sep., 1998), pp. 136-137 Published by: Music Library Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/900385 . Accessed: 14/06/2014 04:27 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

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NOTES, September

temptation to plead "You just had to be there!") While championing the adventurous approach to operatic reinterpretation, Sutcliffe is no mere apologist. He cites the failures as well as the successes, noting that "innovation naturally does not always equal excellence. The modern way is not always best. Bad eccentricity is the worst thing of all" (p. 14). Yet he argues convincingly for the need to give directors the creative freedom they must have in order to challenge artistic preconceptions and cause their audiences to rethink the dramatic import of familiar repertory. Opera fans who prefer the traditional approach may remain unconvinced by Sutcliffe's manifesto. Yet they can hardly fail to admire his determination to help his readers toward a new understanding of the changing aesthetics of opera production. CLIFFORD CRANNA

San Francisco Opera Computer Music: Synthesis, Compo2d ed. By sition, and Performance. Charles Dodge and Thomas A. Jerse. New York: Schirmer Books, 1997. [xv, 455 p. ISBN 0-02-864682-7. $42.] This book is a valuable source of techniques for computer sound synthesis and sound processing. It explains the concepts that an electrical engineer or a programmer needs to know to undertake work in computer audio, and it is therefore appropriate as a reference or as a text for a college course in audio applications of digital signal processing. It would be equally useful in a music library or the library of any scientific or technical school. It is not, however, a book that a musician without prior experience in the field will readily understand, despite the authors' efforts to start with basics. A novice would likely find it appropriate only with the help of an instructor, as a textbook in a course on the underlying workings of computer synthesis. For the reader who does have some prior experience, however, it will be valuable as a reference for broadening or deepening existing knowledge. The authors present the theory and the practical implementation of a wide variety of methods of synthesizing and processing sound

1998

with a computer, and although their account is quite technical, it is admirably clear and concise. The book does not lack detail and gives the reader fully adequate information to implement any of the ideas presented, yet it contains no more mathematical formulas than are necessary. The authors rely heavily on diagrammatic flowchart depictions of the techniques and their sonic results. This is a wise and effective choice because the graphics are an excellent complement to the text and are independent of any specific computer platform. This second edition differs most notably from the first, published in 1985, in its addition of several ideas and techniques that have since gained greater prominence, such as phase vocoding, granular synthesis, and physical modeling. The examples of actual programming code originally provided in the now archaic FORTRAN language have either been replaced with flowchart diagrams or updated to the modern C+ + language. In the two chapters dealing with music composition and performance, many of the music examples have been changed to include more recent works. In the twelve years between the first and second editions, the field of computer music has become much larger and more diverse. Today the ubiquity and power of personal computers and computerized synthesizers have almost completely replaced the 1985 modus operandi of laborious software synthesis on large mainframe computers described in the first edition. Computer music is now as prevalent in the studios of freelance composers and commercial recording artists as in the academy, and there are now so many branches of interest that the term "computer music" means radically different things to different people. For this reason, it is worth clarifying what this book is not about. There is little or no mention of computer music outside academic circles, or of synthesizers, audio processors, or personal computer software (contrary to the publisher's decision to adorn the cover with images obviously intended to evoke a Macintosh computer). This book is not a historical account of the use of the computer in music, nor does it deal substantively with cultural or aesthetic issues. It deals specifically with music composition and performance only

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Book Reviews in the last two of its twelve chapters, although throughout the entire text the authors cite musical works that use the techniques under discussion and provide discographic references. The book excels in its chapters containing explanations of specific techniques for computer audio and computer-aided composition, intended for the reader who wishes to program these ideas directly or simply to understand them more profoundly. The first chapter attempts to give an overview of how computers work and how they can be used to deal with the concepts of sound and music. While this may seem necessary, it proves to be of dubious value; it is too complicated and technical for the novice, and superfluous for the experienced reader. The final chapter, dealing with real-time performance of computer music, suffers from the attempt to cover too large a topic in a single chapter; it points to some example works that are of interest to the authors without adequately discussing their significance. Despite these weaknesses, the book is well constructed and lucid overall. As a survey and explication of the most important fundamental techniques of computer audio, this book is one of the most current, thorough, and comprehensible resources available and is highly recommended for inclusion in any library. CHRISTOPHER DOBRIAN

Universityof California, Irvine Models of AbGraph Theoretical An stract Musical Transformation: for Introduction and Compendium Composers and Theorists. By Jeffrey Johnson. (Music Reference Collection, Conn.: Greenwood 62.) Westport, Press, 1997. [xii, 200 p. ISBN 0-01330158-1. $75.] Jeffrey Johnson's second book for Greenwood Press is designed to provide an introduction to graph theory for musicians, particularly visually oriented twelve-tone composers. The text is divided into four parts: (1) Graphing (formal aspects of graphs and basic definitions); (2) Construction (how to build graphs that have predefined characteristics or that will embody

desired properties); (3) Classification (the organization of the universe of graphs); and (4) Realizations (how graphs can be used to create or analyze musical works). Part 4 concludes with an analysis of the opening section of Stefan Wolpe's Form IV: Broken Sequences. Although the pace of the book is fast and furious (necessary for a condensed introduction), Johnson's prose is generally clear enough that the intended audiencecomposers or analysts of twelve-tone works -will, without previous study of graph theory, be able to understand fundamental concepts and have their interest piqued enough to move with minimal difficulty to mathematical graph theory texts, which might otherwise have seemed impenetrable. The most fascinating and accessible part of the book is that on graph construction; it is especially clear and will spark creative experiments. There are, however, a number of annoying glitches. Although the organizational scheme is clear, Johnson often introduces terms and concepts of momentary interest that are not defined until much later. For example, in part 2 he writes, "When the maximum number of vertices for five generators is realized, it forms a 3-level cyclic hierarchy [4443333222] in figure 2-8A" (p. 45), but hierarchies and levels are not defined until part 3 (hierarchies on p. 49 and levels on p. 63). In another example, we find on page 29 that "the saturation factor of a transformation graph is the percentage determined from edge sum divided by the edges in the complete graph of its cardinality," but we do not get the definition of "complete graph" until page 52. There are numerous errors concerning the properties of graphs given as examples in part 3. For example, there are two accepted ways of measuring the diameter of a graph, which is determined by the maximum of the shortest distances between any two matrices: one may include the starting vertex in the count or one may count only the number of "moves" needed to cross the graph. Johnson changes his mind on which definition to use; he begins with the noninclusive one, then becomes convinced of the superiority of the inclusive. The original definition (noninclusive) is the one actually given in the text, and a large number

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