The Best Books About Synthesis History You’ll Ever (be unable to) Read

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I was recently at the excellent DOX center in Prague to see a mid-career retrospective of the Czech composer/artist Milan Gustar. Gustar could be described as a minimalist electronic composer.  His pieces seem concerned with the perception of sound and with systems of describing, organizing, and controlling sound.  One of the two pieces on display for actual playback (as opposed to simply a graphic score) was his TWIST; it was quite beautiful, and you can hear it here.  Anyhow, Gustar’s work has unsurprisingly also taken him into the realm of research, and at the DOX I was able to purchase the two above-depicted hardbound Czech-language volumes, approx. 400pp and 500pp respectively.  Although I can decipher very little of the text, these books are incredibly fascinating, with hundreds of photos and diagrams, and offer an extremely detailed account of the history of electro-mechanical instruments (vol. 1) and electronic instruments (vol. 2).  You can read detailed descriptions of both books at these English-language links  – VOLUME 1; VOLUME 2.  As far as I know, no texts with this degree of detail exist in the English language.  And remember, we always have Google Translate if you need to know roughly what’s being communicated – just type the Czech into the translation widget and cross yr fingers.

Anyhow, just a ton of stuff to dig into and use as a springboard for your own research and/or gear-hoarding activities.  The books are quite affordable, approx.  $30 US each, and you can purchase them by writing directly to the publisher at the email address here….