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Alda: A music programming language

daveyarwood.github.io

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Re: Alda: A music programming language

#11

Post by sampl »

rebootthesystem wrote: post #7

This is neat, of course. Yet, being classically trained myself and a software engineer, both for 30 years, I have yet to find an alternative music notation system that would make me proclaim I would use it. When I look at a traditional score I see and hear the music in my mind pretty much instantly. There is zero cognitive load, at least at the conscious level. With any kind of text-based notation you have to read te…

> why it is our brains have evolved to be "tuned" for notation

I'm not sure they are tuned--is there any reason you say this beyond personal experience? Music notation is noriously difficult to learn for most people, and many non-classical musicians avoid it entirely.

Maybe it's just self-selection. Those with a natural gift for reading are likely to become classically trained musicians, and those without it are likely to find other means of creative expression.

Re: Alda: A music programming language

#13

Post by coldtea »

rebootthesystem wrote: post #7

This is neat, of course. Yet, being classically trained myself and a software engineer, both for 30 years, I have yet to find an alternative music notation system that would make me proclaim I would use it. When I look at a traditional score I see and hear the music in my mind pretty much instantly. There is zero cognitive load, at least at the conscious level. With any kind of text-based notation you have to read te…

>This is neat, of course. Yet, being classically trained myself and a software engineer, both for 30 years, I have yet to find an alternative music notation system that would make me proclaim I would use it.

Emm, this is not an "alternative music notation system" meant for musicians to read music in.

It's an entry method for writing MIDI (and therefore alo getting standard notation output).

>Someone more qualified on the subject can probably explain why it is our brains have evolved to be "tuned" for notation.

They haven't. You're just used to it. Tons of self-tought musicians can't handle it, even though they're virtuoso players on their own.

Besides, the brain doesn't "evolve" in the Darwinian sense in the span of mere centuries that we have had our modern music notation. It takes tens of thousands of years for something like that -- and only if reading notation provides any evolutionary benefit to not reading it.

Re: Alda: A music programming language

#15

Post by klum »

vfdfv wrote: post #3
archimedespi wrote: post #2

This is awesome , I've dreamed about something like this for a long time. Cool that it's done in Clojure too :)

I also think Clojure is a great fit. I've had some really good results with sample-based algorithmic composition, so I'm really looking forward to this: "In the near future, Alda’s scope will be expanded to include sounds synthesized from basic waveforms, samples loaded from sound files, and perhaps other forms of synthesis."

Wonder if VST support is a possibility. Also things like automation, for changing parameters like volume over time.

It's easy to see how a programming language can be a good fit for notating certain kinds of music and allowing playback of it. Seems to me like the challenge is to go beyond lining things up neatly to a grid and introducing any kind of "looseness" to the music.

Edit: Then again, people do great stuff with trackers, so I'm sure a programming language can be a great fit for some kinds of music.

Re: Alda: A music programming language

#16

Post by heuermh »

phyzicist wrote: post #10

I'd like to add to this discussion by mentioning the ChucK music programming language ( http://chuck.cs.princeton.edu/ ). Here is a TedX talk by the co-author, Ge Wang, talking about the joys of digital instruments ( http://www.ted.com/talks/ge_wang_the_diy_orchestra_of_the_fu... ). In the talk, Ge Wang talks about leading the Stanford Laptop Orchestra, which uses ChucK to program all sorts of crazy digital instrumen…

+1 to ChucK!

I have a library of ChucK code here, LiCK

https://github.com/heuermh/lick

Re: Alda: A music programming language

#18

Post by gtani »

sampl wrote: post #11
rebootthesystem wrote: post #7

This is neat, of course. Yet, being classically trained myself and a software engineer, both for 30 years, I have yet to find an alternative music notation system that would make me proclaim I would use it. When I look at a traditional score I see and hear the music in my mind pretty much instantly. There is zero cognitive load, at least at the conscious level. With any kind of text-based notation you have to read te…

> why it is our brains have evolved to be "tuned" for notation I'm not sure they are tuned--is there any reason you say this beyond personal experience? Music notation is noriously difficult to learn for most people, and many non-classical musicians avoid it entirely. Maybe it's just self-selection. Those with a natural gift for reading are likely to become classically trained musicians, and those without it are like…

i think pianists, string, woodwind and guitar players look at scores differently, they visualize them and start recruiting motor skills ahead of time.

WHen i look at a Bach score as a pianist, i just kind of flow thru it, if i see it as a guitar score, i think of the simplest fingering patterns (CAGED patterns are the simplest framework), a woodwind player wants to pinpoint the large intervals and octave breaks and other difficulties where intonation and tone become tricky

(whereas with somebody laying out a c++ project or studying Baby Rudin (real analysis), you can't explain it in terms of muscle memory

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