[linux-audio-user] live coding of music

M P Smoak smoak at mis.net
Mon Oct 11 14:05:47 EDT 2004


On Thursday 07 October 2004 06:09, Dave Griffiths wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> With the talk of text based studios (great site btw, Julien) I
> thought I'd mention http://www.toplap.org which is devoted to
> the practice of programming music and art live, in front of an
> audience.

Good topic, Dave.  One I'm very interested in as a player (sax,
flute, keyboard), teacher and sometimes programmer.  The first
demo of computer generated sound that I saw was at the Museum
of Modern Art about 1970, I think.  I was out of music during
the 70's, but was very impressed by a solo alto sax player in
a club in Oakland about 1976; young woman who had made her on
backups onto cassette tapes.  Good player, good taste and 
simple presentation that worked for the player and the crowd.

>
> Ok, so it's not strictly linux based, but the applications
> used include Alex Mclean's feedback.pl:
> http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2004/08/31/livecode.html lots of
> supercollider, using jitlib:
> http://swiki.hfbk-hamburg.de:8888/MusicTechnology/566 and some
> stuff I've written: http://www.pawfal.org/Software/fluxus/
> which are all running on linux.
>
> The text based nature of the interfaces tend to lead to more
> flexibility rather than less. The idea is to project the code
> as part of the performance to allow the audience to see the
> relationship between the code and the music - and remove the
> "are they just checking email"  syndrome :) )

Strongly agree on the flexibility of interactive text interfaces.
And on the idea of projecting the code as part of the performance 
to expand what the audience sees or hears, with text to speach
conversion.  

In 1992, I saw a great presentation by Stanley Jordan on using 
APL in music performance and teaching at the APL92 conference
at Stanford.  It caused me to start looking into music on the pc
and now at last I have a very good linux machine with audio 
(PlanetCCRMA) and apl (APLX) working.  I just installed apl last 
week so not sure yet how to interface apl with pccrma, but I bet 
it ain't that hard. 

As an aside, some of you might be interested in looking at APLX
not so much as a language but to how well it is done for linux,
mac and windows.  Very easy install and excellent documentation
on not just how to install it, but how and why to use it.  My
biggest difficulty with linux programs has been finding info
on the "why folks use program Z" and "how to use it".  

>
> See also the paper "Live Algorithm Programming and a Temporary
> Organisation for its Promotion" here:
> http://www.toplap.org/?Read_Me_Paper
>
> cheers!
>
> dave

Just recently heard about a performance here, by a solo guitar
player from New York who came in, setup and generated his backups
for several tunes live; explaining how was part of show.  Wish I
had known about in time to attend.  What we can do now is almost
unbelieveable to me. 

Thanks for the links;  looks like I have have some reading to do.
Sure I'll enjoy it.

Marv   in Lex, KY  looking at beautiful leaves under Fall sun.




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