Electronic Music - not so very new

120years.net provides a wealth of information on developments in electronic music. 

"The focus of this project is in exploring the main themes of electronic instrument design and development previous to 1970 (and therefore isn’t intended as an exhaustive list of recent commercial synthesisers or software packages.) As well as creating a free, encyclopaedic, pedagogical resource on the History of Electronic Music"

Risset's Rhythm illusion

An analogy of the endless glissando is an ever increasing (or decreasing) tempo. The method is explained here. Dan Stowell  created a version with supercollider.

Pd patches

• A repository for Pd with an interactive website, examples patches, and documentation of a variety of project.
•  Pd website includes a section of patches shared by users
• A modular synth build with Pd with some examples. 

Russolo - Noise music

The new instruments designed and built by Russolo -  intonarumori:

And you can hear how they probably sounded. Futurists also used noise machines in combination with other instruments: Macchina Tipografica

Ondes Martenot

One of the early (1928) electric instruments. An introduction about the instrument:

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.

Psychoacoustics in the recording studio

Producer Bruce Swedien considers understanding the nature of sound and hearing as an essential element in developing your studio skills:

Determining the abilities and limitations of human hearing is invaluable to us involved in the production of music recordings. Any resource that produces sound for the purpose of human listening should take into account what the listener’s ears are going to do with that sound, if we are going to take that resource to its utmost potential.

He also mentions the importance of listening - especially to live instruments - and the acoustic environment. Read the full article.

Why so loud?

Perhaps a truism of composition is that most (all?) effects can be overused. Including compression:

Unwanted Sounds

Christian Marclay:

And on a much lighter note:

Maryanne Amacher

Interesting talk about her sound art and how technology and listening shaped her work:

Psychoacoustic & mixing

Some examples of common mixing practices and their psychoacoustic origins. And this article discusses methods for evaluating sound quality for human purposes. 

Genre and Style

Well crafted fun 

with useful compositional lessons.

Live coding

Here is a documentary explaining what is live coding. And a version of Reich's Piano Phase done with live coding. 

Soundscape Composition

Listen:


Organised Sound 7:1 is an issue dedicated to soundscape composition with papers by some prominent practitioners including Hilegard Westerkamp and Barry Truax. 
Issue 14:1, on the topic of sound art, also has good, relevant articles. While issue 16:3 (listening) is also highly relevant.
Andra McCartney on Soundscape composition and electroacoustic music. 

Interaction

Analogue 'sequencer' using distance sensor (with the arduino platform).
Silent Drum from Jaime Oliver (not jamie) using Pd/Gem to map gesture to audio creating a new instrument.

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

Filters

• An explanation of the most commonly used filters.
• A more in depth chapter including theory, applications, and more sophisticated filter designs.
• Short delays will have a filtering effect (see the above chapter for explanation). The phasor and flanger effects are an example.
• Both are essentially types of comb filtering.
• Which is an effect you usually want to avoid with careful mic placement.
• Simple (analogue) filtering was used to great effect in Stockhausen's piece Mikrophonie. Some of the composer's notes about this piece are available here.

Granular Synthesis

Curtis Roads demonstrating the technique of granulation:

 

An introduction to the concept of using grains of sound. A central resource for granular synthesis with basic explanation, musical examples, and links to applications. Borderlands is an application (developed by a music technology students) for granular synthesis - an iPad version as well as windows). 

Spectrum

• Definition from the Handbook of Acoustic Ecology.
• More about sound & spectrum from physclips.
• Analysing and transforming sounds with open source program SPEAR.
• Composition based on piano overtones from Erik Oña.
• Music on a Long Thin Wire. And here is a video documenting a reconstruction of the piece.
• Discussion of tuning and timbre.
• Spectral transformation plug-ins Soundmagic Spectral.

Electronic music examples

A large collection of recordings from ubuweb: History of Electronic Music.