Curtis Roads, et al: The Computer Music Tutorial (1996–) [English, French]

“The Computer Music Tutorial is a comprehensive text and reference that covers all aspects of computer music, including digital audio, synthesis techniques, signal processing, musical input devices, performance software, editing systems, algorithmic composition, MIDI, synthesizer architecture, system interconnection, and psychoacoustics. A special effort has been made to impart an appreciation for the rich history behind current activities in the field.

Profusely illustrated and exhaustively referenced and cross-referenced, The Computer Music Tutorial provides a step-by-step introduction to the entire field of computer music techniques. Written for nontechnical as well as technical readers, it uses hundreds of charts, diagrams, screen images, and photographs as well as clear explanations to present basic concepts and terms. Mathematical notation and program code examples are used only when absolutely necessary. Explanations are not tied to any specific software or hardware.”

Publisher MIT Press, 1996
ISBN 0262680823, 9780262680820
xx+1234 pages

Reviews: Sam Reese (Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, 1997), Douglas Geers (Current Musicology, 2001), Gregory Taylor (Cycling ’74, 2016).

Publisher

The Computer Music Tutorial (English, DJVU, 22 MB, updated on 2021-4-8)
L’audionumérique: musique et informatique (French, trans. Jean de Reydellet, 3rd ed., 1999/2016, 15 MB, added on 2021-4-8)
Corrections and revisions (added on 2017-11-20, updated on 2021-4-8)

Nils L. Wallin, Björn Merker, Steven Brown (eds.): The Origins of Music (1999)

What biological and cognitive forces have shaped humankind’s musical behavior and the rich global repertoire of musical structures? What is music for, and why does every human culture have it? What are the universal features of music and musical behavior across cultures? In this groundbreaking book, musicologists, biologists, anthropologists, archaeologists, psychologists, neuroscientists, ethologists, and linguists come together for the first time to examine these and related issues. The book can be viewed as representing the birth of evolutionary biomusicology—the study of which will contribute greatly to our understanding of the evolutionary precursors of human music, the evolution of the hominid vocal tract, localization of brain function, the structure of acoustic-communication signals, symbolic gesture, emotional manipulation through sound, self-expression, creativity, the human affinity for the spiritual, and the human attachment to music itself.

Contributors: Simha Arom, Derek Bickerton, Steven Brown, Ellen Dissanayake, Dean Falk, David W. Frayer, Walter Freeman, Thomas Geissmann, Marc D. Hauser, Michel Imberty, Harry Jerison, Drago Kunej, François-Bernard Mâche, Peter Marler, Björn Merker, Geoffrey Miller, Jean Molino, Bruno Nettl, Chris Nicolay, Katharine Payne, Bruce Richman, Peter J. B. Slater, Peter Todd, Sandra Trehub, Ivan Turk, Maria Ujhelyi, Nils L. Wallin, Carol Whaling.

Publisher MIT Press, 2001
Bradford Books series
ISBN 0262731436, 9780262731430
512 pages

publisher
google books

PDF (updated on 2012-8-3)

Iannis Xenakis: Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition (1963–) [French, English]

In this landmark book Iannis Xenakis offers a critical self-examination of his theoretical propositions and artistic output of the thirty-five years of his career. It is an essential tool for understanding the man and the thought processes of one of this century’s most important and revolutionary musical figures.

Publisher Richard Masse, Paris, 1963
232 pages

English edition
First published by Indiana University Press, 1971.
Additional material compiled and edited by Sharon Kanach
Publisher Pendragon Press, Stuyvesant/NY, 1992
Contains translations of 6 chapters from the 1963 French edition, 3 chapters and 2 appendices added to the 1971 English edition, and another 4 chapters and 1 appendix added for this edition.
Volume 6 of Harmonologia series
ISBN 0945193246
387 pages

Publisher (EN)

Musiques formelles. Noveaux principes formels de composition musicale (French, 1963, 17 MB, added on 2012-2-17; updated on 2014-2-28), Chapter PDFs (at Iannis-Xenakis.org, added on 2014-11-11)
Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition (English, 1971/1992, no OCR; updated on 2012-8-3)