Introduction to Computer Music
84 comments
·July 31, 2025bane
poulpy123
Correct me if I'm wrong, but a tracker is a software to compose music ? This books is about making sounds, so lower level
bane
Look at the table of contents.
poulpy123
I did it and even started to read before commenting. The table of contents is acoustics, studio gears, midi, synthesis, digital audio, history and some appendix. Even if midi and potentially gears are side topics, it is focused on sound creation not composition.
richrichardsson
No mention of Daphne Oram [1] in the history of electronic music. :(
bondarchuk
The whole of BBC/radiophonic workshop are not there, maybe it's a bit US centered..
null
vodou
She wrote a "treatise" on electronic music called An Individual Note of Music, Sound and Electronics. From the back cover:
"[...] a fascinating glimpse into the creative mind behind the Oramics machine. In this engaging account of the possibilities of electronic sound, Oram touches on acoustics, mathematics, cybernetics and esoteric thought, but always returns to the human, urging us to 'see whether we can break open watertight compartments and glance anew' at the world around us."
http://www.anomie-publishing.com/coming-soon-daphne-oram-an-...
waffletower
If it makes you feel better, when I taught the history of electronic music I introduced students to Daphne Oram.
spacechild1
Just slimmed some chapters, but this looks like a great resource! If someone wants to dive more deeply into digital synthesis, I can recommend "The Theory and Technique of Electronic Music" by Miller Puckette (creator of Max and Pure Data): https://msp.ucsd.edu/techniques/latest/book.pdf. All examples are actually Pure Data patches that you can try out and experiment with.
matheusmoreira
My favorite is OneLoneCoder's videos where he just writes his own synthesizer:
MarcelOlsz
Alternatively there is Curtis Roads' "The Computer Music Tutorial" [0]
[0] https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262044912/the-computer-music-tu...
TheOtherHobbes
The second edition is almost a complete rewrite - much more up to date, but loses some of the core nerdiness of the original.
It's worth mentioning that "computer music" in the original sense was more about generative compositions and experiments with synthesis and DSP, all controlled and generated by hand-written software.
DAWs are much more emulations of a traditional recording studio that happen to run on a computer. So although a computer is involved, they're not "computer music" in the traditional sense.
The difference is that you can do far more with languages like Supercollider. Max, PD, and Csound, especially when controlled with custom code.
But they're much harder to work with. Unlike DAWs and VSTs, they're not optimised for commercial production values. This makes them more experimental and more of a niche interest.
There isn't a lot of notable pure computer music around outside of academia. The biggest success was probably the THX Deep Note. BT made some albums with (mostly) Csound. Autechre used Max quite heavily. Holly Herndon is another name.
So commercially, DAWs are everywhere, but there's no huge commercial computer music fan scene in its own right.
i_am_proteus
Another fine text on this subject I can recommend (at a somewhat higher level, and not provided for free) is The Computer Music Tutorial:
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262044912/the-computer-music-tu...
I suggest having some kind of sequencer and synthesizers (one subtractive, one FM) available to play with while reading. Free VSTs in the free Reaper DAW are a fine starting point.
PaulDavisThe1st
Reaper can be downloaded without paying anything for it. But in a wink-wink strategy, continued use of it after a certain period of time is supposed to be accompanied by paying for a license. This is not enforced. You can call this free if you wish, but it's all a bit wobbly.
Also, if you want to play with synthesis, then VCV Rack, which is truly free (but also comes in a for-cost version with a few more features) is likely the right place to start, or its even free-er cousin/fork Cardinal (which can even be run in your browser)
JoeDaDude
"Computer Music" is a very broad term (no surprises here) so, like many here, I can point out topics that are not covered. In particular, computer music (aka algorithmic) composition [1], or very recent AI techniques like the Google seq2seq example at [2], or the (unpublished, but probably a form of generative adversarial networks) techniques used by SunoAI and Udio.
waffletower
"Computer Music" is also a fairly conventional academic musical genre exploring elements of electro-acoustic, acousmatic, musique concrete, synthesis, algorithmic and serial composition techniques.
latexr
I’m interested in the subject but not really a fan of the presentation. Is there an ePUB version or similar that I’m not seeing?
dakiol
Indeed, or a PDF. When one study these topics is way easier to do so via PDFs for example: you bookmark the page and continue tomorrow. If it’s HTML, you need to bookmark too, but this is a hassle since bookmarking creates an entry in your browser bookmarks (that you need to clean up later) and if the html page is too long and has no anchors, good luck remembering what part you read last (not to mention that one can read a pdf offline and the pdf can be archived easily). Also knowing how many pages there are to read and how many you have read so far is very helpful (in contrast, reading a website is rather tiring since you don’t know how far are you or how much is left)
lastcoyotes
I love that people share historical pioneers in electronic music, but I'd also want to add some artists of the last decade who really pushed new directions and visions. The PC Music collective/label has been one of my favorite bunch of artists. AG Cook, Danny L Harle, Finn Keane (FKA EasyFun), and all of their tangential collaborators outside the label have been making such awesome computer music.
jschveibinz
Let's not forget the contributions of Bernie Hutchins (Electronotes):
https://archive.org/details/electronotes-meh-ebgpcc-torrent
https://www.timstinchcombe.co.uk/synth/Electronotes_EN_index...
The full set is very rare--but what a treasure trove of high quality material.
BlandDuck
I judge technical explanations of audio gear by their description of balanced signals. A common error is to focus on the positive and negative signals having opposite polarity, which is entirely irrelevant for canceling out interference (it may improve headroom, but what is actually important for eliminating common mode noise is to have identical impedance with respect to ground).
I would say this text fails this test, which gives me pause. The description is: "The two conductors carry the same signal, but with reverse polarity (meaning that one conductor carries a signal that is the mirror image of the other). If external noise and interference enters the cable, it will probably affect both conductors equally."
larodi
Quickly read thorough it, is indeed a nice introductory read. Recommending, may be suitable for 10th-12th graders also.
brcmthrowaway
Any way to compose compelling electronic music without having to spend time learning a commercial app like Ableton?
whilenot-dev
So many to choose from (in alphabetical order)...
- Bytebeat: https://dollchan.net/bytebeat/ (https://greggman.com/downloads/examples/html5bytebeat/html5b... !Warning loud!)
- Cardinal: https://cardinal.kx.studio/live
- Glicol: https://glicol.org
- Kabelsalat: https://kabel.salat.dev
- NoiseCraft: https://noisecraft.app
- Strudel: https://strudel.cc (https://github.com/terryds/awesome-strudel)
- Tidal Cycles: https://tidalcycles.org
nyeah
You're really going to dump a total newbie into simulated rack synths, computer music languages, and whatnot? In order to "save time" over learning a DAW?
I'm sympathetic to some of what you're plugging. Really. I love VCVRack. But have mercy!
theSuda
I am one of those newbies and I spent way too much of my morning going through all of these. :D
I love Ableton though. You can google any random thing about it and get an answer somewhere because it's so widely used. Dunno what OP has against it. It's not hard to come by Ableton Live Lite license for free. I think just buying their iphone app gives you access to Lite license.
nyeah
If you want to make "normal" electronic music (and never tried before), use GarageBand on an iPad. It's easier to learn than Ableton et al. because GarageBand has reasonable settings built in. I.e. it will make sounds right away, without endless screwing around. (You might even try GarageBand on a phone, if the screen is large enough.)
If you want to make "experimental" music then ... you'll have to experiment. Most of the recommendations in these comments are aimed at experimental music.
Most things labeled "computer music" belong to a very specific retro experimental music aesthetic, literally dating back to the era when you could barely make music on a computer at all. Much of this music was heavily influenced by academic workers. That may be exactly what you're looking for! On the other hand if you're not quite sure what I'm talking about, then be aware that "computer music" is not the only, or even the sanest, way to make music on your computer.
bpc777
Agreed! If you have an Apple device GarageBand is the best way to get started.
bpc777
Once you start getting into many tracks and advanced routing it seems like the choice (for me at least) is Logic Pro or Ableton Live. And I find Ableton much more fun to use when I want to jam, whereas Logic feels more like programming which is also great. FL Studio is also lots of fun. Try various options and see what fits best with what you are trying to do.
rs186
It's like asking whether you can do serious photography without Photoshop/Lightroom or create games without Unreal/Unity. The answer is you can, but do you really want to? Your most important goal is to use a tool to get the job done. The tool is a method to get there, not something you want to fight with.
duped
It's more like when kids start taking music lessons. Most parents aren't going to spend more than $100-200 on an instrument, in case the kid decides they want to quit. But the entrypoint for virtually any instrument that you could call "playable" is usually north of $500 (which also competes against a massive supply of used instruments from people that spent $500+ and then quit).
There's nothing wrong with playing around with Reaper, Garageband, BandLab, or any of the more entry level "instruments" in this analogy. Preferable even, if you don't want to blow hundreds of bucks on a program.
PaulDavisThe1st
Reaper is not an "entry level instrument". It is a low cost, but full featured DAW. Garageband and BandLab are beginner DAWs, though for many they might work just fine for a long time or even for ever, depending on someone's goals and aspirations.
mrob
You can get perfectly playable electric guitars in the $100 to $200 price range. It might need some setup first but you can learn to do that yourself from online videos. Modern mass production means popular instruments can be excellent value for money.
dv_dt
I have been seeing a few DJ with livestreams composing with Strudel. It's a live web repl programming based approach. I don't think it necessarily scales to professional use, but it's a reasonable intro to the core concepts.
I've gone through the tutorial and it was honestly the most fun I've had on the web in a while.
Karrot_Kream
Hey thanks I hadn't heard of this.
dv_dt
You're welcome. I should expand on my "professional use" comment as i think it may be overly critical. Strudel is being used professionally by some artists. What I meant by the comment is the expertise you get in Strudel as a tool is not directly transferrable to the tools that most of the other electronic music artists use professionally. All of the fundamental concepts and skills map over but how things are directly done is very different in Strudel (and its cousins - the history of Strudel is fascinating too) from other electronic music tools used by professional artists.
mfro
Learning the app is not the difficult part. It is honing your style within the toolset you're comfortable with. Every DAW has its pain points and learning curve. Spend a few hours a week with each and see which one works for you, is my advice. Same as any other tool, you can't create effectively until you've become comfortable with it.
jamboca
Literally hundreds or even thousands of ways, physical instrument such as sequencer/sampler, other DAWs. It’s not about learning a commercial app it’s about understanding principles of music production irrelevant of your platform. Just pick one and go: your ears won’t know any difference
rollcat
Honorable mention: FruityLoops. I remember it from high school, 2006, we've had a hand-me-down 486 with maybe 32mb RAM? The boys made some great loops, I brought a guitar, we ran a freakin live hip hop show, standing ovations, FL delivered.
thrtythreeforty
If you bought FL back then, you should still have a license for the latest FL Studio! They offer lifetime updates, which is a pretty good offer if you like the software. (I use Bitwig which doesn't, but I find it worth the tradeoff.)
xoac
Learning a bit of ableton is the least hard part of making compelling electronic music. Bitwig is fine as well. There is such a deluge of people eager to teach you via youtube or udemy etc.
Oh man, I get that as an author you have to choose a path to introduce the new learner to...but it bums me out to see that the material completely avoids tracking as one of the preeminent ways to make music on computers.
Instead it goes down the midi path, which of course ultimately is the dominant commercial technology today. But I've always thought that the complexity and expense of a good midi setup is more of a prosumer-type thing.
Tracking gets you quick entry from chiptunes through extraordinarily expressive sampling to VSTs and even into midi at the edges, and there's trackers for pretty much every kind of computer that can make music.
You can very cheap/free/easily explore the main musical concepts presented here from synthesis to digital audio.
Bonus, most classical tracker files are a kind of "open source" music in that you can see all the note data, the techniques the composers used, and have access to all of their instruments. You get to "see" both composition and performance details down to the note.
I really wish that the academic computer arts educators would catch on to these core pieces of the demoscene -- which is now UNESCO recognized by now six countries as intangible cultural heritage for all of humanity -- and were developed to both challenge and wow the audience and make production by literally penniless children possible.