Synthesizer performance and real-time techniques

Abstract

Jeff Pressing’s book, Synthesizer Performance and Real-Time Techniques, is a ground-breaking work; it documents, in a clear and lucid fashion, an aspect of contemporary electronic music which has been largely ignored in writing about the subject. While being part of the milieu of electronic and computer music since its inception, performance with electronic instruments and systems has been discussed mainly in journal articles and implicitly in books about MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface). Until now, concepts of electronic performance have never been drawn together and treated in an integrated fashion in the way that other aspects of electronic and computer music and digital signal processing have been. In redressing this imbalance, Pressing has made a welcome and highly valuable contribution.