Description: For the growing number of professionals in computer music, composers, performers, and teachers who are looking for more from the computer music systems that are now available, "Interactive Music Systems provides the first comprehensive survey and evaluation of new computer programs that can analyze and compose music in live performance.

Although Rowe focuses primarily on musical motivations and possibilities of interactive systems, he also takes up such practical considerations as how to build, analyze, and extend these systems and looks at the impact of music theory, music cognition, and artificial intelligence on the design of interactive systems and on ensemble performance. He describes in detail both the theory and practice of his own real-time interactive music program, Cypher, and further illustrates basic concepts and characteristic issues using the graphic MIDI programming environment Max.

In a concluding chapter, Rowe assesses developments in hardware and software with implications for the evolution of interactive systems, including their implementation in multipleprocessor environments, the impact of real-time digital signal processing, and extended prospects for sensing performance gesture.

Robert Rowe is Associate Director of the Music Technology Program at New York University.

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