IX. Music Technology Books (Recommended, not required).

Music Technology, Production, and Interfaces

Organology, Instrument Studies, and Theories of Sound

Acoustics and Physics of Instruments

Performance, Technique, and Notation

Music Aesthetics, Philosophy, and Media Theory

Burgess, Richard James. The Art of Music Production. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-art-of-music-production-9780199921744?lang=en&cc=us.

———. The History of Music Production. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-history-of-music-production-9780199357161?cc=us&lang=en&.

Gordon, Theodore. The Composer’s Black Box. Oakland: University of California Press, 2025. https://www.ucpress.edu/books/the-composers-black-box/paper.

Hosken, Dan. An Introduction to Music Technology. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2019. https://www.routledge.com/An-Introduction-to-Music-Technology/Hosken/p/book/9780415825733?srsltid=AfmBOopFmmW2t9vMz4vsC0xyo5HYpSTqHNPYPKBFukkIKe1aFLyKk1bQ.

Corey, Jason. Audio production and critical listening: Technical ear training. London: Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2016. 

Magnusson, Thor. Sonic Writing: Technologies of Material, Symbolic, and Signal Inscriptions. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019.Miranda,

Eduardo Reck, and Marcelo M. Wanderley. New Digital Musical Instruments: Control and Interaction Beyond the Keyboard. Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, Inc., 2006.

Mudd, Tom, Simon Holland, and Paul Mulholland. “Nonlinear Dynamical Processes in Musical Interactions: Investigating the Role of Nonlinear Dynamics in Supporting Surprise and Exploration in Interactions with Digital Musical Instruments.” International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 128 (August 2019): 27–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2019.02.008.

Van Eck, Cathy. Between Air and Electricity: Microphones and Loudspeakers as Musical Instruments. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/between-air-and-electricity-9781501327605/. See also the accompanying website: https://microphonesandloudspeakers.com.

Bijsterveld, Karin, and Peter Frank Peters. “Composing Claims on Musical Instrument Development: A Science and Technology Studies’ Contribution.” Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 35, no. 2 (June 2010): 106–21. https://doi.org/10.1179/030801810X12723585301039.

Bovermann, Till, Alberto De Campo, Hauke Egermann, Sarah-Indriyati Hardjowirogo, and Stefan Weinzierl, eds. Musical Instruments in the 21st Century. Singapore: Springer, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2951-6.

Brunner, Christoph. “A Cultural Approach Toward the Notion of the Instrument.” ICMC Proceedings 2009, 347–50. Accessed July 10, 2024. https://www.academia.edu/61464939/A_Cultural_Approach_Toward_the_Notion_of_the_Instrument.

Jensenius, Alexander Refsum. Sound Actions: Conceptualizing Musical Instruments. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2022.

Tresch, John, and Emily I. Dolan. “Toward a New Organology: Instruments of Music and Science.” Osiris 28, no. 1 (2013): 278–98. https://doi.org/10.1086/671381.

Weisser, Stéphanie, and Maarten Quanten. “Rethinking Musical Instrument Classification: Towards a Modular Approach to the Hornbostel-Sachs System.” Yearbook for Traditional Music 43 (2011): 122–46. https://doi.org/10.5921/yeartradmusi.43.0122.

Fletcher, Neville H., and Thomas D. Rossing. The Physics of Musical Instruments. New York: Springer, 1991. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2980-3.

Bunger, Richard, and John Cage. The Well-Prepared Piano. 2nd American ed. San Pedro, CA: Litoral Arts Press, 1981.

Dierstein, Christian, Michel Roth, and Jens Ruland. The Techniques of Percussion Playing: Mallets, Implements and Applications = Die Spieltechnik Des Schlagzeugs: Schlägel, Anreger Und Anwendungen. Edited by Christiana Nobach. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2018.Perks,

Richard, and John McGrath. 21st Century Guitar: Evolutions and Augmentations. New York: Bloomsbury Academic & Professional, 2023. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/columbia/detail.action?docID=7131950.

Stone, Kurt. Music Notation in the Twentieth Century: A Practical Guidebook. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1980.

Cobussen, Marcel. “Music and Spirituality: 13 Meditations around George Crumb’s Black Angels.” CR (East Lansing, Mich.) 7, no. 1 (2007): 181–211. https://doi.org/10.1353/ncr.2007.0028.

Gordon, Theodore. “‘Androgynous Music’: Pauline Oliveros’s Early Cybernetic Improvisation.” Contemporary Music Review 40, no. 4 (2021): 386–408. https://doi.org/10.1080/07494467.2021.2001939.

Hookway, Branden. Interface. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9919.001.0001.

Ihde, Don. Listening and Voice: Phenomenologies of Sound. 2nd ed. Albany: SUNY Press, 2007.

———. Technology and the Lifeworld: From Garden to Earth. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990.

Mills, Mara. “Deaf Jam: From Inscription to Reproduction to Information.” Social Text 28, no. 1 (102) (March 1, 2010): 35–58. https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-2009-059.

———. “On Disability and Cybernetics: Helen Keller, Norbert Wiener, and the Hearing Glove.” Differences 22, no. 2–3 (December 1, 2011): 74–111. https://doi.org/10.1215/10407391-1428852.

Patteson, Thomas. Instruments for New Music: Sound, Technology, and Modernism. Oakland: University of California Press, 2015.