Found this fascinating blog post about Stravinsky and his controversial comment:

http://theoryofmusic.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/stravinsky-on-expression-in-music/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OADBlQKqPzU

there should be a few computers in the AV lab with reason installed.

http://oliviermessiaen.net/musical-language/rhythmic-language

this is a great interview by Wim Mertens with John Cage talking a bit about John Cage’s feeling about composition, Glenn Branca’s music, society, language…

fun to hear Cage’s thoughts on music in the No Wave era.

http://ubu.artmob.ca/sound/chicago_82/Chicago_82-B2_Cage-Mertens_So-that-each.mp3

http://www.therestisnoise.com/audio

I highly recommend his book “the rest is noise“…now in paperback…

for our purposes, check out these sections:

DOCTOR FAUST: Schoenberg, Debussy, and Atonality

and

ZION PARK: Messiaen, Ligeti, and the Avant-Garde of the Sixties

and

sol lewitt

Hey there…welcome to the new blog.  For week 2 we’re talking about Serialism.  

I can’t recommend this book enough:

Introduction to post-tonal theory: Joseph Straus

And here’s a pretty massive and impressive reading list by Peter Castine on the subject in case you’d like to start digging deeper into the technique:

Forte, Allen. The Structure of Atonal Music. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1973.
Morris, Robert D. Class Notes for Atonal Music Theory. Hanover, New Hamphsire: Forg Peak Music, 1991.
Morris, Robert D. Composition with Pitch-Classes. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.
Rahn, John. Basic Atonal Theory. New York: Schirmer Books, 1980.

further reading
Alphonce, Bo Harry. “The Invariance Matrix.” Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1974.
Babbitt, Milton. “Set Strucuture as a Compositional Determinant.” JMT 5, no. 2 (1961): 72-94.
Babbitt, Milton. “Some Aspects of Twelve-Tone Composition.” 12 (1955): 53-61.
Babbitt, Milton. “Twelve-Tone Invariants as Compositional Determinants.” MQ 46, no. 2 (1960): 246-59.
Chrisman, Richard. “Identification and Correlation of Pitch-Sets.” JMT 15, no. 1 and 2 (1971): 58-83.
Clough, John. “Diatonic Interval Sets and Transformational Structures.” PNM 18, no. 1&2 (1979): 461-482.
Clough, John. “Pitch-Set Equivalence and Inclusion (A Comment on Forte’s Theory of Set-Complexes).” JMT 9, no. 1 (1965): 163-71.
Forte, Allen. “Sets and Non-Sets in Schoenberg’s Atonal Music.” PNM 11, no. 2 (1972): 43-64.
Forte, Allen. “The structure of atonal music: Practical aspects of a computer-oriented research project.” In Musicology and the Computer. 
Musicology 1966-2000: A Practical Program. Three Symposia. New York: American Musicological Society, 1970.
Hanson, Howard. Harmonic Materials of Modern Music: Resources of the Tempered Scale. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1960.
Lewin, David. “Forte’s interval vector, my interval function, and Regener’s common-note function.” JMT 21, no. 2 (1977): 194-237.
Lewin, David. Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University, 1987.
Lewin, David. “Klumpenhouwer networks and some isographies that involve them.” Spectrum 12, no. 1 (1990): 83-120.
Lewin, David. “A response to a response: On pcset relatedness.” PNM 18 (1979): 498-502.
Martino, Donald. “The source-set and its aggregate formations.” JMT 5, no. 2 (1961): 224-73.
Perle, George. Serial Composition and Atonality: An Introduction to the Music of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern. 3rd ed. Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 1972.

Rogers, John. “Some properties of non-duplicating rotational arrays.” PNM 7, no. 1 (1968): 80-102.
Starr, Daniel, and Robert D. Morris. “A general theory of combinatoriality and the aggregate.” PNM 16, no. 1 (1977): 3-35.
Wintle, Christopher. “Milton Babbitt’s Semi-Simple Variations.” PNM 14, no. 2 and 15:1 (1976): 111-54.