bradr@SUN.COM (Brad Rubenstein) (08/08/89)
Music-Research Digest Sun, 6 Aug 89 Volume 4 : Issue 48
Today's Topics:
ASCII music notation?
gamelan analysis database help
Markovian Music (3 msgs)
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Date: 1 Aug 89 10:04:15 GMT
From: Geraint Wiggins <mcvax!ukc!etive!aipna!geraint@net.uu.uunet>
Subject: ASCII music notation?
To: music-research@uk.ac.oxford.prg
In article <622@sun2.summer.bt.co.uk> ian@summer.bt.co.uk (Ian Stephenson) writes:
>A system was launched by Hybrid Technology a few years ago called AMPLE. It
>runs on acorn BBC micros and surports midi + Hybrids own tone generator.
Yes, and it's been updated quite a bit since then.
>It got a bit of a dodgy reception because people weren't prepared to learn it.
>Its actualy a complete programing language ( loops variables, conditionals etc).There are now reverse compilers for it that take real time or stave input and
>generate programs. The language is very like forth but much more friendly.
The problem is that the notation is rather counter-intuitive. If you have a
notation which is not genuinely musically oriented (not, for example, a stave,
or one of Xenakis' UPIC graphs) then you really need some kind of front end to
be user friendly - there are some now, as you say below.
I personally would contest that AMPLE is as friendly as Forth - but there's no
point in going into detail here.
>Notes are represented by their letters - octaves are relative. "a" means the a
>below the current note. "A" is the a above. A default note length is set
>( normaly in 48th's of a crotchet) and longer notes are made from ties "/".
>Sharps and flats are written using + and - (key signatures are implemented).
>
>chords are made with brackets c(EG-B) = C7 root position. More complex polyphony
>is achieved my multi tasking - write each part seperatly and then run them all
>concurently.
>
>The system is VERY powerfull - particularly as it is a full programing language
>which could be used for any application, but has been tuned to write music
>software. It should meet everything you want to do + lots of things you never
>want to do.
No it certainly won't - at least not without a lot of hassle. For example, and
I think for many composers this would be a BIGGY, you can't return a note name
as the value of a function and then play it; note events are procedures and not
values - which is great for good old traditional western tonal music, but
hopeless if you want to specify "process music", non-western tunings or even
something as simple as a routine to transpose within a key or mode.
This is my hobbyhorse again but: this is the standard problem with a computer
system that has been based upon a particular musical paradigm - MIDI was based
on keyboards and is therefore limited; AMPLE is based on a mixture of score and
keyboard (or something more subtle which is equivalent). This means that there
are things you CANNOT do. And I speak from experience. I went and bought a
music 500 system (yes, I know it's improved since then) and found that it was
incapable of doing half the things I wanted it to - not because of hardware
limitations or anything like that, but because of the design spec of the
language.
>You may not adopt the system but do check it out - it works very well and has
>some very good idea's that you could take on board.
And, more to the point, some serious mistakes which you might like to avoid.
--
Geraint A Wiggins | G.A.Wiggins@uk.ac.ed
Department of Artificial Intelligence | G.A.Wiggins%ed.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
University of Edinburgh | Opinions are like noses: everyone has
80 South Bridge, Edinburgh, Scotland | his/her own, and most smell...
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Date: Fri, 04 Aug 89 11:46:19 GMT
From: Schaffrath <JMP100@EARN.DE0HRZ1A>
Subject: gamelan analysis database help
To: Stephen Page <SDPAGE@UK.AC.OX.PRG>
Our Essen software is now public domain (MAPPET = Music Analysis, Playin,
Playback of ESAC Transcriptions). It does many things with one-part melodies
The Analysis-part (MAMMUT) has 12 different analyses most of which are useful
for gamelan music (especially "balungan"). The code is almost the same as
used in Indonesia (and China, and...) based on ASCI and the results are
prepared to be stored in AskSam databases.
If you are / he is interested I could mail a discette which up to now
unfortunately has prompts only in German. Maybe one or two more months
and we'll have an English version.
Meanwhile you could notice a larger announcement of our software in INFO27
which usually is copied in the Music Research Digest (maybe in 2 weeks).
Helmut Schaffrath
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Date: 3 Aug 89 22:40:42 GMT
From: Scotty <elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!grian!!scott@com.dec.decwrl>
Subject: Markovian Music
To: music-research@uk.ac.oxford.prg
Well, it's time for "one of those questions" again...
Is anyone reading this familiar with work done in the Markovian properties
of music?
In other words, has anyone done an analysis of the probability of any
particular note (tone/duration) givin any N previous notes?
This kind of analysis might be done for any one piece or composer for example,
and it is *possible* that playing notes generated from such a table may produce
a sequence which sounds like the piece or composer...
I'm sure this is well trodden ground.. could somebody point me in the right
direction?
Thank you for your time -
--
Scott Watson - "Inane little message goes here"
uucp: {rutgers,ames}!elroy!grian!heim!scott
Internet: scott@heim.UUCP
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Date: 4 Aug 89 12:53:56 GMT
From: Jakob Cederlund <mcvax!kth!draken!jakob@net.uu.uunet>
Subject: Markovian Music
To: music-research@uk.ac.oxford.prg
I've dunnit. Using a simple BASIC program I generated a new tune given
an existing one. I only used monophonic tunes, and the result wasn't
very interesting; it just sounded like a small variation of the
original tune.
I got some rather simple correlations: the more indices in the matrix
(=number of preceding notes), the closer the result was to the
original tune. Also, the longer the tune, the more alike were the
result.
Any others who've tried Markovian music-generation?
/Jakob Cederlund jakob@nada.kth.se
Computer Science Dept. Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
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Date: 4 Aug 89 23:21:47 GMT
From: Eric Iverson <opus!eiverson@gov.lanl>
Subject: Markovian Music
To: music-research@uk.ac.oxford.prg
I have an article somewhere that wasgested sug to me by Charles Dodge in
which some researchers used a 1/f1 fractal waveform to generate music.
When they played it for people the general reaction was that it was
music, albeit not exciting music. Tthen went on to analyze several
hours of commercial radio transmission and found that it too had this
1/f1 relationship. Anybody know more about this and how it might be
coupled with a Markovian approach?
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End of Music-Research Digest