Leitmotifs

A useful sorting of the motifs in Wagner's Ring cycle with notation and synthesised audio. And a vidoe playlist of the same

from notation to music

The internet is a wonderful thing:

Too often we talk about the score when we mean the music. 

Percussion instruments

Here are some examples of (mostly) unpitched percussion instruments. And here is a list of some of the more common used unpitched percussions.

Is there no musical repetition here

While there are no note-pattern repetitions in here, when listening to this - as music - I hear repeated ideas. An appoggiatura (short-long) motif is heard multiple times, as is the upward motion through the keyboard.
This is a neat illustration of the problem of identifying music with its notation. Equating music with a sequence of note onsets, because this is how it looks on the page.

Granados - Goyescas

A recording of Granados performing his own music (in 1916 remastered from piano rolls):

Simple Metric Modulation

A drum tutorial explaining metric modulation (with notated illustrations as a bonus):

Harmony

An approach to learning  harmony and developing harmonic language that extends beyond traditional tertiary-chords. 

Schoenberg's 'timbre' piece

In his book on harmony Schoenberg remarks that " it must also be possible to make progressions out of tone colours....progressions whose relations with one another work with a kind of logic entirely equivalent to that logic which satisfies us in the melody of pitches."
This is often linked to the 3rd of his orchestral pieces:

film music - learning from the masters

It pays to study the music of the past (only ca. 40 years but that counts as distant past in this era):

Quartal harmony

•  Debussy's 3rd etude 'pour les quartes' 
• Ives The Cage. 
• Also listen to composers such as Bartok, Schoenberg, Hindemith.
• These, in turn, found their way into jazz - such as Bill Evans (with Miles Davies) and others

implicit knowledge of pentatonic scale

Grieg - Lyric Pieces

Construction of melody - elaboration, variation; phrase structure; use of simple harmony;

And the same melody in a different dress (+ unexpected modulation):

Technology project meets counterpoint rules

An interesting set of hardware/software instruments developed as an MA project from NYU based on aspect of Baroque music.

Wild is the Wind

Comparing this version of Wild is the Wind to this rendition, mainly focusing on the structure and how to work with (and around) conventional forms.

Noise and Subtractive Synthesis

We use the term noise for:

a) auditory sensation arising in response to non-periodic sound waves/signals, with flat and dense spectral distributions (vibrational/physical frame of reference) 

b) auditory sensation that is undesirable/unpleasant/unintended within a given context, interfering with auditory sensations that are desirable/pleasant/intended (i.e. sounds) within the same context (cognitive/semantic frame of reference, focusing on communication)

 Vassilakis et al lecture notes 

Also see Truax about the meaning of noise. 

A tutorial about using filters for subtractive synthesis (see also section 4-3 & 4-4 Music & Computers). Noise elements are actually used in music often, a very interesting example is the work of Italian composer Luigi Nono. Other examples include Ryoji Ikeda and Carsten Nicolai (alva noto) - Impulse or Fades.
and this is an article explaining different approaches to noise generation refining our understanding of the range of possible sounds: 

Atomic noise

KRISTOFFER JENSEN (2005).
Organised Sound, Volume 10, Issue01, April 2005 pp 75-81
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=306542

Music & Computers

This introductory text covers a range of topics from basic acoustics to synthesis with good examples and interactive tools.

Music Theory

Aptly titles 'Music theory for musicians and normal people' This collection from Toby W. Rush is a wonderful resource about music theory from basic notation to chromatic harmony

Phasing

Reich's Clapping Music is one of the most famous pieces using phasing as a musical device. An animated illustrating of the process. His Music for Pieces of Wood shares similar approach but achieves in in a slightly different way:

 Piano phase, as the name indicates, applies phasing techniques but with pitched material. The first part of Tehilim (psalms) uses phasing to generate rich evolving textures. And discussion of the composition process: