Techniques of the Contemporary Composer

by David Cope

This text is a practical guide to the compositional techniques, resources, and technologies available to composers today.
Each chapter traces the development of traditional and modern elements that form the foundation of music in the late twentieth century. Among the subjects discussed are interval exploration, serialism, pitch-class sets, twelve-tone music, electronic music, algorithmic composition, and indeterminacy.

Genres: Music

322 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 7, 1997

About the author

David “Dave” Cope was an American author, composer, scientist, and Dickerson Emeriti Professor of Music at UC Santa Cruz. His primary area of research involved artificial intelligence and music; he wrote programs and algorithms that can analyze existing music and create new compositions in the style of the original input music. He taught the groundbreaking summer workshop in Workshop in Algorithmic Computer Music (WACM) that was open to the public as well as a general education course entitled Artificial Intelligence and Music for enrolled UCSC students. Cope was also co-founder and CTO Emeritus of Recombinant Inc., a music technology company.

Reviews

[rae diamond · Rating 4 out of 5]

pretty thorough study of the subject matter, very brainy, and not an easy read.