A tad off topic, but this helped me. I'm in the thick of building a mess of audio circuits for some kinetic art pieces. The question that I started with was similar to yours, but a little more basic: How does manipulating electricity make noise?
The two books that I refer to almost DAILY are Sound Synthesis: Analog and Digital Techniques by Terence Thomas and The Secrets of Analog and Digital Synthesis by Steve de Furia.
While both are geared toward building synthesizers, de Furia spends a LOT of time going through the bare essentials...like waveforms, how sound works, basic music theory about the relationship between tones on a scale, and then progresses to basic sound synthesis concepts. What's a ring modulator? How does an envelope work? What does an EQ do? The book goes into a lot of detail about what synthesizer components do to the sound.
Thomas' book is chock full of schematics, and for me, it built on de Furia's concepts. Once I understood what a white noise generator DID from de Furia, Thomas goes into the details about how to use specific resistors, caps and ICs to produce white, pink and brown noise.
I'm not sure if there's any crossover between synth-making and guitar pedals, but maybe there should be. :) The principles seem similar enough...make a sound, manipulate it and get another one.