wcc@omaha1.UUCP (William C Carey) (09/23/89)
Is anyone out there familiar with a book called "CYBERNETIC MUSIC" by someone calling him/her self Jaxitron (pronounced jazzy-tron perhaps?)? It contains a wide ranging study of music producing algorithms written in APL. Doesn't the Atari ST offer some sort of APL interpreter? Could it (the APL interpreter) possibly communicate directly with the MIDI port? All of the examples in the book ( 300+ pages) were designed to print out a type of music notation on a line printer which someone then converted to conventional sheet music notation. The copyright is 1979 I believe, well in advance of Postscript, MIDI, and so forth.
roger@esquire.UUCP ( r l reid ) (09/26/89)
In article <164@omaha1.UUCP> wcc@omaha1.UUCP (William C Carey) writes: > >Is anyone out there familiar with a book called "CYBERNETIC MUSIC" by >someone calling him/her self Jaxitron (pronounced jazzy-tron perhaps?)? >It contains a wide ranging study of music producing algorithms written in >APL. It was an interesting book, to say the least, but be careful with it. Even though I don't much know APL, I was able to find extensive bugs thoughout the book. This is consistant with TAB Books apparent policy of publishing books on really interesting subjects that are so poorly written and proofed that they become useless.] (c.f. their "Rebuilding Reed Organs") >Could it (the APL interpreter) possibly communicate directly with the MIDI port? No doubt it could, assuming such a beast (ST APL) exists. I found it more useful to absorb the non-linear approach to composition that it pushes via APL and try to integrate it into my musical life. I think the message is more imprtant than the vehicle. Though honestly, if I had an APL interpreter (and the keyboard to talk to it!) I'd be tempted to try. So much music, so little time. -- Ro roger@esquire.dpw.com {phri|cucard}!hombre!cmcl2!esquire!roger rlr@woof.columbia.edu
hafer@tubsibr.uucp (Udo Hafermann) (09/26/89)
wcc@omaha1.UUCP (William C Carey) writes: >Is anyone out there familiar with a book called "CYBERNETIC MUSIC" >[...] ? Doesn't the Atari ST offer some sort of APL interpreter? >Could it (the APL interpreter) possibly communicate directly with the >MIDI port? There is APL.68000 from MicroAPL in London (distibuted in the US by Spencer, I believe), which is a good "first-generation" interpreter. You can read and write data using the MIDI ports quite simply. Unfortunately, APL.68000 isn't fast enough for real-time music applications. You'd have to write machine-language or C code for that. >All of the examples in the book ( 300+ pages) were designed to print out >a type of music notation on a line printer which someone then converted to >conventional sheet music notation. The copyright is 1979 I believe, well in >advance of Postscript, MIDI, and so forth. I'd be interested in that book. Any details how to get it?