Music 220b: Winter 2001
Fernando Lopez-Lezcano, instructor
Christopher Burns, teaching assistant
Tamara Smyth, teaching assistant
Bibliography
These supplemental articles cover topics discussed in greater depth. Many of them are technical in nature, but are well worth the effort.
Frequency modulation synthesis:
Chowning, John.
The synthesis of complex audio spectra by means of frequency modulation.
Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, 21(7):526-534. (1973)
Reprinted in Curtis Roads and John Strawn, eds. Foundations of Computer Music, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985.
Copies available in the CCRMA trailer.
The classic article on FM synthesis, with basic recipes for simulating the spectra of acoustic instruments.
Schottstaedt, Bill.
An Introduction to FM.
http://www-ccrma.stanford.edu/CCRMA/Software/clm/clm-manual/fm.html
FM in all its technical glory, with a number of modifications which make the basic technique more interesting.
Granular synthesis:
Truax, Barry.
Time-shifting and transposition of sampled sound with a real-time granulation technique
Proceedings of the 1993 International Computer Music Conference. San Francisco: International Computer Music Association, 1993. p. 82-85.
A key figure in the development of granular synthesis describes its application to sampled sound.
Clarke, Michael.
Composing at the intersection of time and frequency
Organised sound: An international journal of music technology, vol. 1, no. 2, Aug 1996 p. 107-117. ISSN: 1355-7718.
A comparison of time-domain and frequency-domain approaches to granular synthesis.
Digital filters/subtractive synthesis:
Smith, Julius O.
Introduction to digital filter theory.
In J. Strawn, editor, Digital Audio Signal Processing: An Anthology. Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc. (1985)
Copies available in the CCRMA trailer.
The basics of digital filters, concentrating on one-zero/pole and two-zero/pole designs.
Cellular automata:
Chareyron, Jacques.
Digital synthesis of self-modifing waveforms by means of linear automata.
Computer music journal, vol. XIV/4 (winter 1990), 25-41.
Application of linear automata to sound-synthesis: what if each cell produced a sample?
McAlpine, Kenneth, et. al.
Making music with algorithms: a case-study system
Computer music journal, vol. XXIII/2 (summer 1999), 19-30.
Demonstrates the use of cellular automata in generating musical parameters.
Reverberation and spatialization:
Moorer, James.
About this reverberation business.
Rapports IRCAM, France Vol. 17/78, (Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1978) 69 p.
reprinted in Foundations of computer music. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1985.
Copies available in the CCRMA trailer.
An early article on the promise and limits of Schroeder reverbs.
Pierce, John.
Hearing in time and space.
in Perry Cook, ed. Music, Cognition, and Computerized Sound. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1999.
An introduction to the psychoacoustic principles which underly spatialization.
Physical modeling:
Karplus, Kevin, and Strong, Alex.
Synthesis of plucked-string and drum timbres.
in Curtis Roads, ed. The Music Machine. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Instuitute of Technology, 1989.
The original article describing the Karplus-Strong plucked-string algorithm.
Jaffe, David, and Smith, Julius.
Extensions of the Karplus-Strong plucked-string algorithm.
in Curtis Roads, ed. The Music Machine. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Instuitute of Technology, 1989.
A wide set of compositionally useful extensions to Karplus and Strong's original idea.
Sullivan, Charles.
Extending the Karplus-Strong algorithm to synthesize electric guitar timbres with distortion feedback.
Computer music journal, vol. XIV/3 (fall 1990), 26-37.
Even more extensions to the Karplus-Strong pluck, oriented towards the electric guitar. Includes a waveshaping function intended to model distortion.
Cook, Perry.
Singing voice synthesis: History, current work, and future directions
Computer music journal, vol. XX/3 (fall 1996), 38-46.
A review of various methods of synthesizing vocal timbres with an emphasis on physical modeling. Includes an extensive bibliography.
Smith, Julius.
Physical modeling synthesis update.
Computer music journal, vol. XX/2 (summer 1996), 44-56.
Copies available in the CCRMA trailer and online.
A review of research in physical modeling.
Smith, Julius.
Digital Waveguide Synthesis Homepage.
http://www-ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/wg.html
Links to additional papers, tutorials, articles, and sound examples.
Composition:
Cage, John
The Boulez-Cage correspondence / documents collected, edited, and introduced by Jean-Jacques Nattiez ... [et al.] ; translated and edited by Robert Samuels.
Cambridge [England]; New York, NY. USA: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
A fascinating historical document and an opportunity to witness the early developments in Cage's use of chance techniques.
Harvey, Jonathan (1981)
Mortuos plango, vivos voco: a realization at IRCAM.
Computer music journal, vol. V/4 (winter 1981), 22-24.
Reprinted in The music machine. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1989. p. 91-94.
A discussion of the composer's tape piece, now an electroacoustic classic.
Xenakis, Iannis (1992)
Formalized music: thought and mathematics in composition. Rev. ed.
Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1992.
A technical discussion of the composer's career in algorithmic composition.