Published by Yank Gulch Music
Copyright © 2007. All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2006940453
291 pages, 42 figures, 19 sound examples
Bibliography
Includes index
Stock No. YGM-03
Sound Color introduces a systematic approach to the musical organization of an aspect of timbre called ``sound color''. The fundamental concepts of sound color are delineated, perceptual dimensions are suggested, and musical operations analogous to transposition and inversion are defined and illustrated. A thorough, non-technical survey of relevant scientific research in auditory physiology, psycho-acoustics, and speech science, together with analyses of pre-existing musical works, provide plausible bases for the music-theoretical hypotheses and for compositional experimentation. The author's general approach to composition with sound color is described and illustrated by an extensive discussion of his composition, Colors.
Included with the new paperback edition is a compact disc containing newly-synthesized sound examples that illustrate concepts introduced in the book and a newly-mastered, stereo version of Colors.
Wayne Slawson is Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of California, Davis. He has served on the faculties of Yale University and the University of Pittsburgh, and presently teaches part-time at Southern Oregon University. Born in Detroit in 1932, he attended Cass Technical High School and earned a B.A. in Mathematics and a M.A. in Music Composition at the University of Michigan. He was introduced to computer technology while in the U. S. Air Force in the late 1950s and was employed as a computer programmer at the Mitre Corporation. Studies at Harvard University in the early 1960s led to a PhD in Psychology with a specialty in psychoacoustics. He was granted post-doctoral fellowships in computer music at MIT and in acoustic phonetics and speech perception at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. He has published in the fields of music theory, psychoacoustics, acoustic phonetics, and computer music. His computer system, SYNTAL, has been used by him and others for specifying and synthesizing speech-derived music. In addition to many pieces of electroacoustic ``color music'', his compositions include works for orchestra, a variety of instrumental ensembles, solo instruments, and vocal ensembles.
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