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Alda: A music programming language

daveyarwood.github.io

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Re: Alda: A music programming language

#61

Post by vfdfv »

rebootthesystem wrote: post #57
vfdfv wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an incredibly elitist and dismissive view of music. You are aware that there are entire musical traditions that do not employ notation, right? You're excluding tons of music outside of 12 tone temperament, not to mention plenty of electronic, jazz, and experimental music. And you're idea of Mandarin being more complex than English, French, German, etc... I would challenge you to find a single linguist who agrees…

Oh please. Little kids learn it all over the world. If a five year old can pick it up you and everyone else can too. Elitist my ass.

I can read classical notation well enough for my purposes. I listen to Janacek, Sibelius, Delius, Schubert, Faure, Scriabin, Sorabji, Mompou, and other composers you would probably consider legitimate music. I just don't limit myself strictly to the music of dead white men.

EDIT: Let's hear some music you've created, with all your vast ability and knowledge. I'll post some of my own and we can let HN users be the judge...

Re: Alda: A music programming language

#62

Post by MadcapJake »

daveyarwood wrote: post #51
ww520 wrote: post #46

This is pretty cool. Good work! Couple things come to mind. 1. Is there a way to play a selected segment of the music rather than the whole file? While composing, replaying a segment over and over again is quite common. Don't want to start from the beginning every single time. 2. Is there a way to produce music sheet (PDF or PNG) from the source? There would be really useful. 3. Is there a way to format the notes int…

Thanks for the kind words! 1. I do have plans to implement start and end points for playback, either in the form of minute/second markings or the already-implemented "markers" you can place in an Alda score. I agree this is a crucial feature -- it will be very useful when working on one small part of a large score. Eventually you should be able to do something like: "alda play --file my-score.alda --start 0:30 --end…

4) Just wrote https://github.com/MadcapJake/language-alda for Atom. (Atom has the great https://github.com/atom/vim-mode package and for the parent, though it seems less complete, there's https://github.com/avendael/atomic-emacs)

Also in regards to the parent's interest in having a keybind to autoplay alda files, there is https://github.com/lsegal/atom-runner and with a short snippet in your config you'll have `alt-r` recognize alda files and play them!

For the language-alda package, I'm working on integrating autocomplete support for instruments, markers and attributes. I think I can also add support for atom-runner directly through the language package too.

Between playing around with the langauge and getting tooling support in Atom, my whole Sunday was completely swallowed up! :P

Re: Alda: A music programming language

#63

Post by gott »

This is a pretty advanced language, i like it much!!! I want to share what i was experimenting with lately... It´s a very easy language to produce music in the form binaural audio, it helps me to sleep with my insomnia. Sbagen is the name and you create .sbg files. http://uazu.net/sbagen/ Idoser is based on the same source Use this here to create or edit .drg files from or with .sbg files. http://binaural-spot.blogspot.de/2010/08/drg-author-installe... There is also an online converter for .drg files to .sbg and the .sbg files actually show you the source, you can create wav files but they are very large.. Use the .sbg files and in case you want this mobile, here is an android version that can handle these kind of files: http://www.normalesup.org/~george/comp/binaural_player/

Re: Alda: A music programming language

#64

Post by rebootthesystem »

vfdfv wrote: post #61
rebootthesystem wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh please. Little kids learn it all over the world. If a five year old can pick it up you and everyone else can too. Elitist my ass.

I can read classical notation well enough for my purposes. I listen to Janacek, Sibelius, Delius, Schubert, Faure, Scriabin, Sorabji, Mompou, and other composers you would probably consider legitimate music. I just don't limit myself strictly to the music of dead white men. EDIT: Let's hear some music you've created, with all your vast ability and knowledge. I'll post some of my own and we can let HN users be the jud…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Re: Alda: A music programming language

#65

Post by [deleted] »

rebootthesystem wrote: post #64
vfdfv wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can read classical notation well enough for my purposes. I listen to Janacek, Sibelius, Delius, Schubert, Faure, Scriabin, Sorabji, Mompou, and other composers you would probably consider legitimate music. I just don't limit myself strictly to the music of dead white men. EDIT: Let's hear some music you've created, with all your vast ability and knowledge. I'll post some of my own and we can let HN users be the jud…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

[deleted]

Re: Alda: A music programming language

#66

Post by vfdfv »

rebootthesystem wrote: post #64
vfdfv wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can read classical notation well enough for my purposes. I listen to Janacek, Sibelius, Delius, Schubert, Faure, Scriabin, Sorabji, Mompou, and other composers you would probably consider legitimate music. I just don't limit myself strictly to the music of dead white men. EDIT: Let's hear some music you've created, with all your vast ability and knowledge. I'll post some of my own and we can let HN users be the jud…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Ok, I felt slighted by your presumption that I can't read classical notation.

Can we turn the discussion around? I'm legitimately curious about what music you like. My dad tried to make it professionally as a classical guitarist (a long time ago), so we may have more in common than you think in terms of musical taste.

Here's an example of music I really like that can't be adequately described by classical notation. Jan Jelinek's "Do Dekor"...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkpaDpwdSUI

Jelinek's music is actually fairly tonal but has static-y, noisy textures with arhythmic clicks and pops. I think you might like it.

That though is actually fairly traditional compared to some of the noise music and harsh metal that I enjoy. Here's another example, some blistering avant-garde instrumental death metal:

https://soundcloud.com/willhill/refulgent-shadow-sunspot

Re: Alda: A music programming language

#67

Post by todd8 »

I'm not a musician of any kind, but I wanted to congratulate the creator of Alda. I believe that (almost) everyone on Hacker News admires and respects those who make interesting projects. We are a community of hackers that are interested in reading about projects like yours. I see you just created your HN account. Congratulations!

I found a few of the comments here a bit critical of Alda, but that's just the way Hacker News works. There is such a large, diverse, intelligent, and involved community on Hacker News that there are always people that have keen insights or have already tried out related ideas resulting in useful, or not so useful, observations. Inside the most critical comments may be the best suggestions.

Keep us posted on the development of Alda; here on HN, everyone is cheering you on.

Re: Alda: A music programming language

#69

Post by daveyarwood »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #54

I installed it, but why is my console filled with debug output?

I just deployed a new version of Alda earlier this afternoon (alda 0.4.5) -- it should update for you the next time you run Alda. This new version has better default behavior for logging, i.e. not dumping a bunch of debug logs onto your screen :)

Re: Alda: A music programming language

#70

Post by efnx »

daveyarwood wrote: post #68
efnx wrote: post #49

Besides this being rad - you can see in the Alda repl screeny that the author has earthbound behind it. I love that game.

Haha, good catch! I've been madly in love with Earthbound ever since it came out. Playing it was a life-altering experience.

Me too. Very, very good game. It's the only real RPG I connected with, and one of the few games that I hold close.
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