Re: [microsound] opinions of the microsound book?

[Jeth Odom <jethrokins@xxxxxxxxx>]

> anyone else reading through curtis roads' new book
> yet? if so what 
> are people's impressions?

Hi -

I'm about 100 pages into it.  It's definitely not
light reading - for example: "The mechanisms of
preattentive perception perform a rapid analysis by an
array of neurons, combining this with past experience
into a wave packet in its physical form, or a percept
in its behavioral form."  

I'm finding it to be excellent reading so far.  The
first chapter on time scales encourages thinking of
composing from the smallest of units.  There are lots
of psychoacoustical examples of human perception that
can be used as a guide when writing at the micro
level.  His coining of the term perisonics (sounds so
loud as to be physically dangerous) is interesting. 
The second chapter is a brief history of microsound
and has the best summary of Xenakis' ideas from
Formalized Music that I've read.  

The CD is pretty much just full of little reference
examples, and not really a CD to put on and listen to.
 It definitely helps make the book more
understandable.

Another poster mentioned that many of the examples are
the author's own; I think this is because the book was
his PhD thesis.

At this point I'd recommend it to anyone to wants a
very deep and complete understanding of creating and
working with microsounds.  

Jethro



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