Show HN: Handel – A procedural programming language for writing songs in browser

Post by ddj231 » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 1:32 AM UTC

undecisive wrote: post #21

ddj231 wrote: post #2

I started building Handel some weeks ago, as a simple way of writing music with code. While the livecoding movement focuses on providing solutions for performing music live with code, and making changes on the fly -- I focused on simple song writing (one reason why I wouldn't consider Handel an esoteric language). One notable aspect of Handel is the behavior of its procedures, which are called chunks. Each chunk is c…

Definitely cool! I do like simple text-based music tools, and the fact that it has a live web player is excellent. A couple of things I noted: - I couldn't work out how to run two chunks in sequence - I'm presuming the language doesn't support it yet, since none of the examples do it either? - It would be nice if the "play" keyword accepted the "loop" syntax too (or something similar) - On the web editor, despite the…

Post by yardshop » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 1:42 AM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #42

I suspect that a lot of HN readers may not be aware that this is just the latest example of DSL's used for "live coding" music. There are others that have been around for a lot longer and have incorporated many (all?) of the features you will start to long for if you use this sort of tool a lot. Live-coding is an insanely geeky way to make music, but there are people out there doing quite interesting things with it.…

Post by ddj231 » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 4:11 AM UTC

letientai299 wrote: post #27

I tinkered with it a bit and create this code[0] based on a song[1] that I'm learning. I think this tool is cool and has potential, but still need a lot more improvement. At least it needs a way to reduce duplicate in my code :) [0]: https://pastebin.com/9ziV0HRe [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t9iLEkTeAk

Post by ddj231 » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 5:32 AM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #43

ddj231 wrote: post #2

I started building Handel some weeks ago, as a simple way of writing music with code. While the livecoding movement focuses on providing solutions for performing music live with code, and making changes on the fly -- I focused on simple song writing (one reason why I wouldn't consider Handel an esoteric language). One notable aspect of Handel is the behavior of its procedures, which are called chunks. Each chunk is c…

Is there a reason you decided to start from scratch with this DSL rather than implement one of the many other live coding DSLs on top of Tone.js ? Some specific vision of the end point, or just a desire to start from the beginning?