Can someone recommend me books about learning the basics in composition?

if you mean like species counterpoint, I’ve always preferred jeppesen over fux
https://books.google.com/books/about/Counterpoint.html?id=OcSVGkug58gC

but, heh, could mean a lot of things.
i think “music and memory” is one of my favorites when it comes to really thinking about what it means to put sounds in time. almost nothing to do with western theory.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Music_and_Memory.html?id=Nln3xTYQwt4C

orchestration? i like norman del mar “anatomy of the orchestra.” i guess that’s pretty far from “basics” but its really well written and a great way to get into orchestral music in general (through examples) and a good reference for idiomatic notation.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Anatomy_of_the_Orchestra.html?id=9G-AkP5LivoC

music theory / notation primer? i don’t have any great ideas…

oh!! “Lou Harrison’s Music Primer” if you can find it anywhere

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Thanks I will look into these books you mentioned! The question was too broad, I will refine when I know better what I’m looking for…

I’ve been working my way through this stack. Started the Tony Conrad book a couple nights ago. Quite dry so it may be a bit of a slog :confused: This is Memorial Device was fantastic though.

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Finished Monstress Vol 2
and The Wicked + The Divine Vol 5
Enjoyed both quite abit.

Working through Mona Lisa Overdrive now. Great stuff from Gibson as usual.

I recently finished the first book in the Witcher series in original Polish. It was interesting.

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Your assignment, should you choose to accept it:

Read the Sprawl Trilogy, then immediately read Neal Stephenson’s snow crash and… realize… something something something.

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Is the game based on the books? Or vice versa?

The games are based on the books (The Witcher series).

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I almost picked up Snow Crash from a thrift shop two weeks ago with this very assignment in mind. Now that it’s been assigned properly I might go back there and retrieve the copy…

Re-read the sprawl trilogy a few years ago. Still excellent stuff.

If you haven’t read the bigend-trilogy (I think it’s called) I recommend it. Not as futuristic as the sprawl books more close to a gap between a now and a future just around the corner. At least when I read them. Today it might not be as much a future around the corner…

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It is a very interesting book both in delivery and in implications. Far more influential than the Sprawl books outside of the sci-fi community in my view.

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I just finished Foucault’s Pendulum. I really found it a chore to get through, which (thankfully) doesn’t happen to me that often. I enjoyed the occult themes, but the writing style was just not for me. That said, it made me want to read more stuff about the occult. I haven’t found any good leads yet though. I’ve typically been a sci-fi reader, so I don’t even really know where to begin.

I just started reading Hyperion by Dan Simmons, which, so far, feels like a good chaser after a more challenging book. :slight_smile:

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I found Hyperion really challenging - not to get through, but because it is so dark.

If you follow that series through, they get frustratingly inconsistent with themselves, particularly around the switch from the first two to the second two, if I remember right. I love the first one, though. Mysterious and ambiguous.

Came home to a gift from my wife.

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If that was a gift from my wife it would be both thoughtful and a sideways jab at my music.

Enjoy, and let us know how it turns out!

Stuff read in November:

Books That Aren’t Graphic Novels

Annihilation by Jeff VenderMeer

The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin

Graphic Novels

Laid Waste by Julia Gförer

Postal, Volume 1, written by Bryan Hill, Matt Hawkins, drawn by Isaac Goodheart

James Bond: Black Box, written by Benjamin Percy, art by Rapha Lobosco

James Bond: Felix Leiter, written by James Robinson, art by Aaron Campbell

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Reading right now. A repulsive man, but really good writer.

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Got this on the go at the moment:

34444199

Reading stack also includes:

David Toop - Sinister Resonance
David Grubbs - Records Ruin the Landscape
Stuart Jeffries - Grand Hotel Abyss
Ben Watson - Derek Bailey

Not as repulsive as some may think, in my opinion.
He was honest and had a good heart.

But he liked being deliberately provocative… Probably a little too much at times.
:roll_eyes:

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