Curtis Roads, ed. The Computer Music Tutorial. MIT Press, 1996. 1,234 pp Joel Chadabe. Electric Sound: The Past and Promise of Electronic Music. Prentice Hall, 1997.370 pp

To the uninitiated, the field of computer music may seem a bit overwhelming, in that it combines new technologies with music composition and performance practices that often seem quite distant from the Western classical tradition.For those who are intrigued but unsure where or how to get started, two recently published texts combine to serve as a thorough introduction to both the history and techniques of computer music Geers reviews these pieces both in merit and utility