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.

Nicolas Collins is an internationally recognized composer of experimental music, Professor of Sound at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago., USA. His book Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking, now in its third edition (2020), has inspired maker-musician communities around the world.  With this book, expect 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.

Table of Contents

1. The Hidden Switch
2. I am Sitting in a Classroom
3. Worlds of Music
4. Four Ridiculously Large Speakers
5. Playing with Chips
6. The Infinite Amplification of Silence
7. Old Guard Avant Garde
8. Newcastle to Narvik
9. The Eden Before Apple
10. A Bright Red Electric Guitar
11. Devil’s Music
12. Planes, Train and Step-Down Transformers
13. A Computer Walks into a Bar
14. We Were All Seated Around the Campfire
15. Still Lives
16. STEIM: IRCAM with a Human Face
17. Whistling in the Woods
18. Strange Heaven
19. Art School
20. Hardware Hacking
21. Salvage
22. The Missing Switch
23. Surprise Me

Paperback, published in 2025, 272 pages.