Introduction to Computer Music (2009) [pdf]

DougMerritt

This appears to be mercifully shorter and less intimidating than the must-have bible, "Curtis Roads. The Computer Music Tutorial. MIT Press, Cambs, MA, 1996". It says it was originally published by Wiley in 2009, and the rights reverted to the author in 2025, whereupon the author released it on the net for free.

arn3n

I often see people frame music as mathematical manipulation or try to approach music making from a “first principles” approach, where those principles are mathematics and physics. But watching musicians talk about making music, I seldom see any discussion of the underlying math, and instead see discussions of timbres, instruments, and stylistic/historical influences; musicians who make good music seems to believe “first principles” involves historical knowledge and a well-listened ear, and nothing involving math. My question is: Is thinking about music as applied mathematics a good way to create good music? Or is it just the most easily digestible model of music for the crowd on this site?

ablanton

I'm so happy to see Nick Collins taking this on. If you haven't seen his book, Handmade Music, it's an excellent book for music projects. This contribution looks exceptional as well.

ChrisArchitect

A similar endeavour, Introduction to Computer Music, by Prof. Jeffrey Hass https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44744578

p1esk

Wow, this book has been published in 2025, and it has zero mention of AI generated music. Not saying it's a bad thing - from the table of content it covers a lot of important fundamentals, but ignoring the elephant in the room is... weird.

ChrisArchitect

The info page, perhaps a better url for submission instead of the large/hugged PDF https://composerprogrammer.com/introcompmusic.html

Dusseldorf

Amusing to see how attitudes toward AI change over time. On page 6, part of the original text has a footnote apologizing to readers far in the future for outdated speculations, then mentions that future readers "may even be an artificial intelligence rather than a human, how wonderful!" But just a bit before that in the foreword written in the present day, bars AI scrapers from reading or referencing the materials under any circumstances! Anyway, this seems fantastic and I'll definitely be spending some time diving in.

colkassad

I love the world of music production. I started with Ableton Live six years or so ago and it's been a wonderful hobby. It has such a vibrant cottage industry of plugins (sampled instruments, synthesizers, effects, etc) thanks to the VST standard.

adultSwim

I enjoyed Miller Puckette's Theory and Techniques of Electronic Music, using Pd. https://msp.ucsd.edu/techniques.htm