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Electronic and Computer Music.

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Electronic and Computer Music. By Peter Manning. Revised and expanded ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. [x, 474 p. ISBN 0-19-517085-7. $35.00.] Bibliography, illustrations, discography, index, photos.

No other genre of music has experienced such expansion, in terms of both mechanics and craft, as electroacoustic music has in its approximately 100 year history, a history as much about the developing technology as it is about the music itself. As director of the electroacoustic music studio at the University of Durham, Peter Manning has the background and experience that enables him to provide a thoughtful and thorough account of electroacoustic music, an umbrella term he uses to describe electronic and computer music "because it does not attempt to partition the medium in terms of the techniques by which sound material is generated, processed, and organized. Instead, it focuses attention on the very special nature of the acoustic results, taking account of the fact that these will always be reproduced via loudspeakers or headphones" (p. 403).

The intent of Electronic and Computer Music is not only to provide a chronology of the genre, but also to impart technical foundations that magnify the significance of each development in its history; a particularly important aspect, considering nearly one half of this revised and expanded book is new material dedicated to digital audio and its related elements. Admittedly, the book does become heavily laden with technical jargon at times for the casual reader, but it is clearly necessary in order to fully appreciate the innovations that contributed to the evolution of modern music synthesis and digital audio techniques.

The book is divided into eight sections: (1) "Developments from 1945-1960;" (2) "New Horizons in Electronic Design;" (3) "The Electronic Repertory from 1960;" (4) "The Digital Revolution to 1980;" (5) "Digital...

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