Post-Tonal Techniques
Recommended Books
In the print Music Collection, books on post-tonal techniques can be found in ML 197, "History and criticism. 1901-2000," ML 197.2, "History and criticism. 2001-present," and MT 40, "Composition." For works on electronic techniques specifically, look in ML 1380 and MT 56. Also run subject searches on terms like modernism, atonality, serialism, avant-garde, and electronic music, or search by a composer's name. The recommended books below are sorted by their call numbers. Hover over the info icon to see a description of the book.
Serial Music and Serialism: A Research and Information Guide by
Focusing on periodical literature 1955 to 1995, Serialism Music and Serialism: A Research and Information Guide offers a very useful research tool for those interested in serial and twelve-tone music. The instructive introduction suggests the work's authority: articles have been selected from reputable journals that published the largest number of significant articles in English dealing with the history and analysis of serial compositions and relevant music theory. The 468 citations, arranged by author, include informative annotations and thorough cross-references and are supplemented by ancillary subject and composer indexes.
Call Number: ML128.T9 V36 2001 (Music Reference)Publication Date: 2001
A History of Twentieth-Century Music in a Theoretic-Analytical Context by
A History of Twentieth-Century Music in a Theoretic-Analytical Context is an integrated account of the genres and concepts of twentieth-century art music, organized topically according to aesthetic, stylistic, technical, and geographic categories, and set within the larger political, social, economic, and cultural framework. While the organization is topical, it is historical within that framework. Musical issues interwoven with political, cultural, and social conditions have had a significant impact on the course of twentieth-century musical tendencies and styles. The goal of this book is to provide a theoretic-analytical basis that will appeal to those instructors who want to incorporate into student learning an analysis of the musical works that have reflected cultural influences on the major musical phenomena of the twentieth century. Focusing on the wide variety of theoretical issues spawned by twentieth-century music, A History of Twentieth-Century Music in a Theoretic-Analytical Context reflects the theoretical/analytical essence of musical structure and design.
Call Number: ML197 .A627 2014Publication Date: 2014
Contemporary Music: Theoretical and Philosophical Perspectives by
This collection of essays and interviews addresses important theoretical, philosophical, and creative issues in Western art music at the end of the twentieth- and the beginning of the twenty-first centuries. Edited by Max Paddison and Irène Deliège, the book offers a wide range of international perspectives from prominent musicologists, philosophers, and composers, including Célestin Deliège, Pascal Decroupet, Richard Toop, Rudolf Frisius, Alastair Williams, Herman Sabbe, François Nicolas, Marc Jimenez, Anne Boissière, Max Paddison, Hugues Dufourt, Jonathan Harvey, and new interviews with Pierre Boulez, Brian Ferneyhough, Helmut Lachenmann, and Wolfgang Rihm. Part I is mainly theoretical in emphasis. The orientation of Part II is mainly philosophical. Part III offers creative perspectives, with new essays and interviews from important contemporary composers.
Call Number: ML197 .C75126 2010Publication Date: 2016
Experimental Music Since 1970 by
What is experimental music today? Experimental Music Since 1970 offers an up to date survey of this field for anyone with an interest, from seasoned practitioners to curious readers. This book takes the stance that experimental music is not a limited historical event, but is a proliferation of approaches to sound that reveals much about present-day experience. An experimental work is not identifiable by its sound alone, but by the nature of the questions it poses and its openness to the sounding event. Experimentation is a way of working. It pushes past that which is known to discover what lies beyond it, finding new knowledge, forms, and relationships, or accepting a state of uncertainty. For each of these composers and sound artists, craft is developed and transformed in response to the questions they bring to their work. Scientific, perceptual, or social phenomena become catalysts in the operation of the work. These practices are not presented according to a chronology, a set of techniques, or social groupings. Instead, they are organized according to the content areas that are their subjects, including resonance, harmony, objects, shapes, perception, language, interaction, sites, and histories. Musical materials may be subject, among other treatments, to systemization, observation, examination, magnification, fragmentation, translation, or destabilization. These restless and exploratory modes of engagement have continued to develop over recent decades, expanding the scope of both musical practice and listening.
Call Number: ML197 .G6857 2016Publication Date: 2016
Exploring Twentieth-Century Music: Tradition and Innovation by
In this wide-ranging book, Arnold Whittall considers a group of important composers of the twentieth century, including Debussy, Webern, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bartók, Janácek, Britten, Carter, Birtwistle, Andriessen, and Adams. He moves skillfully between the cultural and the technical, the general and the particular, to explore the various contexts and critical perspectives which illuminate certain works by these composers. Considering the extent to which place and nationality contribute to the definition of musical character, he investigates the relevance of such images as mirroring and symmetry, the function of genre and the way types of identity may be suggested by such labels as classical, modernist, secular, sacred, radical, traditional. These categories are considered as flexible and interactive and they generate a wide-ranging series of narratives delineating some of the most fundamental forces which affected composers and their works within the complex and challenging world of the twentieth century.
Call Number: ML197 .W54 2003Publication Date: 2003
Electronic and Experimental Music: Technology, Music, and Culture by
Electronic and Experimental Music: Technology, Music, and Culture provides a comprehensive history of electronic music, covering key composers, genres, and techniques used in analog and digital synthesis. This textbook has been extensively revised with the needs of students and instructors in mind. The reader-friendly style, logical organization, and pedagogical features of the fifth edition allow easy access to key ideas, milestones, and concepts.
Call Number: ML1380 .H64 2016Publication Date: 2016
The Theory and Technique of Electronic Music by
This is the first book to develop both the theory and the practice of synthesizing musical sounds using computers. Each chapter starts with a theoretical description of one technique or problem area and ends with a series of working examples (over 100 in all), covering a wide range of applications. A unifying approach is taken throughout; chapter two, for example, treats both sampling and wavetable synthesis as special cases of one underlying technique. Although the theory is presented quantitatively, the mathematics used goes no further than trigonometry and complex numbers. The examples and supported software -- along with a machine-readable version of the text -- are available on the web and maintained by a large online community. The Theory and Techniques of Electronic Music is valuable both as a textbook and as professional reading for electronic musicians and computer music researchers.
Call Number: ML1380 .P83 2007Publication Date: 2007
Materials and Techniques of Twentieth-Century Music by
This text provides the most comprehensive analytical approach to 20th-century music available from Impressionism to recent trends. It covers music from the early 1900s through such movements as Minimalism and the Neoromanticism of the 1990s, and includes chapters on rhythm, form, electronic and computer music, and the roles of chance and choice in 20th-century music.
Call Number: MT40 .K8 2006Publication Date: 2006
Serial Composition and Atonality: An Introduction to the Music of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern by
Widely recognized as the definitive work in its field ever since its original publication in 1962, Serial Composition and Atonality remains an unsurpassed introduction to the technical features of what is probably the most revolutionary body of work since the beginnings of polyphony. In the analysis of specific compositions there is first and last of all a concern with the musical surface--an attempt to trace connections and distinctions there before offering any deeper-level constructions, and to offer none where their effects are not obvious on more immediate levels of musical experience. In this sixth edition of the book, George Perle employs the new and more consistent terminology for the identification of transpositional levels of twelve-tone sets that he first proposed in Twelve-Tone Tonality (1977).
Call Number: MT40 .P45 1991Publication Date: 1991
The Music and Music Theory of Paul Hindemith by
A detailed study of the well-known, yet poorly understood, music theory of composer Paul Hindemith (1895-1963).The music theory of composer Paul Hindemith (1895-1963), originally entitled Unterweisung im Tonsatz, is well known, yet poorly understood. This book provides a critical engagement with Hindemith's Unterweisung, particularly concerning its relationship to existing acoustic music theories. By examining different Unterweisung-versions, it charts the evolution of Hindemith's use of language and mode of communication, including his reference to polytonality, atonality, Fuxian species counterpoint, and avoidance of existing music for his examples. It also elaborates the source material on which the theory is based, using a reconstruction of Hindemith's personal library. Central to the book is the relationship of Hindemith's Unterweisung to his compositional practice. Hindemith's fascination with the challenges of music theory falls into a middle period in his oeuvre, enabling profitable comparisons with his compositional practice both before and after his theory-making. The book also comprises a detailed discussion of Hindemith's theoretical and compositional legacy. Beginning with an overview of existing polemics, it draws together unpublished materials from the Yale Hindemith Institute with reminiscences from former students to construct an Unterweisung reception history. The book shows that, while many areas of Hindemith's theory have been overtaken by recent interests in music theory that relate to cognition and geometry, his influence has been deeply felt.
Call Number: MT40.H53 D47 2018Publication Date: 2018
Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory by
For undergraduate/graduate-level courses in Twentieth-Century Techniques, and Post-Tonal Theory and Analysis taken by music majors. A primer-rather than a survey-this text offers exceptionally clear, simple explanations of basic theoretical concepts for the post-tonal music of the twentieth century. Emphasizing hands-on contact with the music-through playing, singing, listening, and analyzing-it provides six chapters on theory, each illustrated with musical examples and fully worked-out analyses, all drawn largely from the "classical" pre-war repertoire by Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bartok, Berg, and Webern. Straus takes a paced, methodical, logical approach to each topic. He introduces it in context and -- perhaps most significantly of all -- uses language that's so transparent that merely to follow his descriptions, explanations and illustrations carefully is to understand each aspect of the theory under consideration.
Call Number: MT40 .S96 2005Publication Date: 2005
Sonic Art: An Introduction to Electroacoustic Music Composition by
Written by an active composer, performer and educator, Sonic Art: An Introduction to Electroacoustic Music Composition provides a clear and informative introduction to the compositional techniques behind electroacoustic music. It brings together theory, aesthetics, context and practical applications to allow students to start thinking about sound creatively, and gives them the tools to compose meaningful sonic art works. In addition to explaining the techniques and philosophies of sonic art, the book examines over forty composers and their works, introducing the history and context of notable pieces, and includes chapters on how to present compositions professionally, in performance and online. The book is supported by an online software toolkit which enables readers to start creating their own compositions. Encouraging a 'hands on' approach to working with sound, Sonic Art is the perfect introduction for anyone interested in electroacoustic music and crafting art from sounds.
Call Number: MT56 .M66 2016Publication Date: 2016
Algorithmic Composition: Paradigms of Automated Music Generation by
Algorithmic composition - composing by means of formalizable methods - has a century old tradition not only in occidental music history. This is the first book to provide a detailed overview of prominent procedures of algorithmic composition in a pragmatic way rather than by treating formalizable aspects in single works. In addition to an historic overview, each chapter presents a specific class of algorithm in a compositional context by providing a general introduction to its development and theoretical basis and describes different musical applications. Each chapter outlines the strengths, weaknesses and possible aesthetical implications resulting from the application of the treated approaches. Topics covered are: markov models, generative grammars, transition networks, chaos and self-similarity, genetic algorithms, cellular automata, neural networks and artificial intelligence are covered. The comprehensive bibliography makes this work ideal for the musician and the researcher alike.
Call Number: MT56 .N54 2010Publication Date: 2010
Interlibrary Loan
Users are encouraged to search for items beyond University Libraries' catalog via RILM Abstracts of Music Literature and WorldCat. Materials not available in print or online may be requested through Interlibrary Loan. Please allow up to seven days for electronic delivery and up to fourteen days for delivery of physical items.