Barce earned a Ph.D. for his studies at the conservatory and the university in Madrid. Influenced by Messiaen and Ligeti, Barce was a self-taught composer who worked in an expressionist atonal style. His later compositions include some serial work, and in 1967 he developed his own harmonic system of a "harmony of levels" based on polar notes. He was a founder of the New Music Group in Madrid in 1958 and of the Zaj group for action music in 1964. He also began the journal Sonda in 1967 and organized concerts of new music under the same name. In 1971 he became the music critic for Madrid's newspaper Ya.