Introduction to the Book

Queen are often misrepresented by hardcore fans as stalwart defenders of rock and roll, as up until 1980 all of their albums had written into the liner notes “No Synths!” or “Nobody played synthesizer”. Let’s correct this once and for all through the immortal words of Brian May:

“There was no stipulation that we wouldn’t have any synths, but the statement ‘No synths’ was printed on the album sleeves because of peoples’ lack of intellect in the ears department. Many people couldn’t hear the difference between a multitracked guitar and a synthesizer. We would spend four days multi-layering a guitar solo and then some imbecile from the record company would come in and say, ‘I like that synth!’”

—Brian May, Queen Guitarist [1]

Why is this relevant for a textbook on digital music? For the average person with typical music taste (i.e. your Dad), there is an bit of apprehension to music involving computers and technology. They have no frame of reference for the effort involved in making music through non-conventional methods, so they will erroneously believe that the “computer made it”. This is akin to claiming that a guitar is making the music rather than the guitarist, instead we are not only playing our respective instrument, we make our own instruments.

This book will try to give readers a cursory knowledge of common topics within the realm of digital music, filled with plenty of rabbit holes for dedicated students to explore in. The goal is that interested students can research topics on their own and decide which fields of study are worth dedicating their time to. Given that this book is an online resource, readers can jump between the book and other resources linked in the chapter appendix.

This book will not cover much heavy math as there are many other books that do a better job covering that material. [2] The goal is to give the reader a practical understanding of the science of music.

What is Creative Coding?

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Structure of the Book

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This book covers three general knowledge areas: physics, music theory, and signal processing. Some of these may sound intimidating depending on your current field of study, however this book is written with no assumption of previous knowledge so no one will be left behind. It can be surprising how high-level topics are easily learned when they are presented with an ulterior goal, especially to a passionate reader such as yourself.

Each knowledge area is presented with some introductory material, filled with practical and fun examples. If you already feel comfortable with one or more of these topics, feel free to skip or skim the introductory sections and jump into the meat of the chapters. Once a cursory knowledge is obtained, it will be folded into other topics for some interesting overlaps.

Software Used in the Book

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Footnotes

[1]	Mark Cunningham, “Roy Thomas Baker & Gary Langan: The Making Of Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’”, Sound on Sound, October 1995, accessed 22 January 2015, http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1995_articles/oct95/queen.html

[2]	I highly recommend the Musimathics series. http://www.musimathics.com/