ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author provides an outline presentation of some techniques and issues involved in the composition of electronic and computer music. He examines a compositional and stylistic ramification of electroacoustic music, spectral music, which has had a substantial impact on numerous composers in Europe and America in the last forty years. Most computer-music synthesis techniques are based on the analysis of natural sound, in what the readers know as analysis-based synthesis techniques. Composers have been particularly interested in speech synthesis, based on the analysis of speech. In deterministic composition the computer is used to calculate permutations of a set of predetermined compositional elements. The computer is thus used to aid in the composition of music where there is an amount of repetition or recurrence of musical materials. A variety of synthesis techniques used in electronic music, such as spectral distortion, filtering, ring modulation, or frequency modulation, can be used as models for instrumental processes in spectral music.
