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162 lines
5.6 KiB
162 lines
5.6 KiB
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<H1><A ID="SECTION00300000000000000000">
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Foreword</A>
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</H1>
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<P>
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<I>The Theory and Technique of Electronic Music</I> is a uniquely complete
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source of information for the computer synthesis of rich and interesting
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musical timbres. The theory is clearly presented in a completely general
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form. But in addition, examples of how to synthesize each theoretical aspect
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are presented in the Pd language so the reader of the book can immediately use
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the theory for his musical purposes. I know of no other book which combines
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theory and technique so usefully.
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<P>
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By far the most popular music and sound synthesis programs in use today are
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block diagram compilers with graphical interfaces. These allow the composer to
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design instruments by displaying the "objects" of his instrument on a computer
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screen and drawing the connecting paths between the objects. The resulting
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graphical display is very congenial to musicians. A naive user can design a
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simple instrument instantly. He can rapidly learn to design complex
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instruments. He can understand how complex instruments work by looking at
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their graphical images.
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<P>
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The first graphical compiler program, Max, was written by Miller Puckette in
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1988. Max dealt only with control signals for music synthesis because the
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computers available at the time were not fast enough to deal with sound. As
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soon as faster computers which could compute soundwave samples in real-time
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were available, Puckette and David Zicarelli appended MSP to Max (Max/MSP) thus
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making the computer, usually a laptop computer, into a complete musical
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instrument capable of live performance.
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<P>
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Development of Max/MSP was done by Puckette and Zicarelli at IRCAM in the
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period 1993 to 1994 . Both have now moved to California. Zicarelli
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commercialized and sells Max, MSP, and JITTER (an extension to video synthesis)
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as products. Puckette, now a professor at UCSD, wrote Pd (Pure Data). It is
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an open source program which is a close equivalent to Max/MSP.
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<P>
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Max and Pd allow almost anyone to synthesize uninteresting timbres almost
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instantly. Making interesting timbres is much more difficult and requires much
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additional knowledge. <I>The Theory and Technique of Electronic Music</I> is
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that body of knowledge. The theory is important for any synthesis program.
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<I>The Theory and Technique of Electronic Music</I> gives copious examples of
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how to apply the theory using Pd. The combination of theory plus Pd examples
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makes this book uniquely useful. It also contains problem sets for each
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chapter so it is a fine textbook.
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<P>
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I expect Puckette's book to become THE essential book in any electronic
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musician's library.
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<P>
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Max Mathews
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<ADDRESS>
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Miller Puckette
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2006-12-30
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