Semi-Conducting: Rambles Through the Post-Cagean Thicket

Written by a composer long immersed in new and experimental music, this book provides a tour of the music, technologies and people that have transformed how we make, hear and think about sound over the past fifty years.

As both a participant and critical observer in the post-Cagean musical landscape, Nicolas Collins uses anecdotes and analysis to survey the history and aesthetics of the musical avant-garde. Among the topics explored are: relationships between popular culture and the avant-garde; the shifting definitions of improvisation and composition in a world where musical scores might take form as charts, drawings, words, notes written on a staff or electronic circuits; the social and aesthetic effects of analog and digital resources in the production and consumption of music; and more broadly, the nature of experimental thinking in creative pursuits.

The book follows a personal chronology of observations and experiences with music, technology, economics and culture-from youthful encounters with John Cage and Minimalism, to the Downtown and East Village scenes of the 1980s, the assimilation of avant-garde sensibilities into European concert halls and global pop, the burgeoning of sound art, and the transformative influence of digital technologies both positive and negative.