Another computer/web - based composition tool

Tune-lings,

I'm not sure how many of you would find this useful, but two things on the list recently reminded me of Nick Didkovsky's JMSL:

1. People have been talking about the preponderance of tools being on the Wintel platform (i.e. *not* cross-platform)

2. The Mode room project might find *something* useful here, since they are already talking Java.

Their description: "JMSL is an experimental music programming language by Nick Didkovsky and Phil Burk, which is based on Hierarchical Music Specification Language (HMSL). JSyn is Phil Burk's realtime music synthesis language. Both JSyn and JMSL are written in Java, which allows for pieces to be performed on the Web, as well as stand-alone applications."

So, first off, you can go to the main site at:
http://www.ingress.com/~drnerve/jmsl/

and note that there are demos. One that I didn't see recently, but had been posted in their own egroups section (http://www.egroups.com/group/jmsl) has the following description:

"What Sheep Herd (Why Don't You Write Me)" provides you with up to 8 voices of independently looping melody. The first 17 notes of "Why Don't You Write Me" are available to each voice, and they all start by repeating the first note of the melody very slowly.

The user can:
- turn a voice on or off,
- change its octave,
- adjust the probability that the beginning of the loop will advance through the melody,
- adjust the probability of the end of each loop will advance through the melody.

This compact set of choices is rich enough, in my view, to provide you with an instrument that takes practice... you get better after playing with it and figuring out various tricks.

As usual, this is in Gamelan Son Of Lion tuning."

The above example is still online (though wasn't working for me, as I may have change my computer config) at:
http://www.ingress.com/~drnerve/punos/whydontyouwriteme/index.html

Well, that last part got me interested. You have to fiddle a bit with your configuration (I have suggested that they make a downloadable package that is a little easier on installation), and this particular piece takes a moment to develop, but it was a nice, Eno-like widget that showed me the possibilities of cross-platform, potentially non-12tet work. JMSL evolved from a former language based on Forth, and Nick Didkovsky has had a number of his pieces performed by the 'downtown' crowds in NY (such as the Bang On A Can All-Stars).

The most recent development (the egroups section is definitely *not* high volume) has been Nick's impressive work with interactive online scoring functions. And, mind you, this is all in Java, so if you like the basics you can always write your own new functions and go to town. The combination of the programming (compositional) side of things along with sound creation (JSyn) side of things give one (I think) a flexible playground for developing new ideas.

Maybe.

In any event, yet another resource in this modern world.

Cheers,
Jon
`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`
Real Life: Orchestral Percussionist
Web Life: "Corporeal Meadows" - about Harry Partch
http://www.corporeal.com/

Oops!

On second thought, JMSL/JSyn would probably not be a good idea for the mode room, as it would require the user to download JSyn. I suppose MIDI support might work, but...

Sorry,
Jon

My recollection is that both are licensed and not free. I don't know about
JMSL, but JSyn requires you to download the Java Software Development Kit
(SDK) as well. I purchased JSyn, but I am not currently using it. The
current (Java 2 release 1.3) SDK takes up *way* too much disk space, space
that I'd like to have as working room for WAV files, which are IIRC 10 MB
per minute. There is a lot of really good music software out there in Java,
some free, some not free. Michael Gogins' excellent Silence IDE for CSound
is one (free) and JSyn is another (not free). But anything which requires
you to download and install the Java SDK is a non-starter as far as I'm
concerned.

The much-vaunted "write once, run anywhere" has in practical terms
translated to "develop with a bloated toolkit of roughly the same magnitude
as Microsoft's Visual Studio and run on Windows, Linux and Solaris." I was a
big fan of Java about two years ago; I did a project in it where I work,
downloaded the development kit (which was only 32 MB in those days including
the documentation) and bought a bunch of books on Java, intending to become
a Java geek. The lightness of the development tool set, the clean structure
of the language and of course "write once, run anywhere" appealed to me. I
finished the project at work; it was never used. I don't know if it was the
war between Sun and Microsoft, or the growth of Perl on the Windows platform
or the rise of Linux or what, but Sun dropped the ball on Java big time. If
imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Sun flatters Bill Gates
big-time!

I am currently using Sfront (free at
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~lazzaro/sa/index.html) and the GNU Compiler
Collection (gcc) for Windows (also free at http://www.mingw.org/) for my
synthesis work. GCC is about 35 megabytes and Sfront is about 29 megabytes.
The on-line textbook (free at
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~lazzaro/sa/book/index.html) takes up another 3.3
megabytes. Well, time for me to get off my soapbox and back to learning
MPEG-4 Structured Audio :-).

--
M. Edward Borasky
mailto:znmeb@teleport.com
http://www.borasky-research.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jonathan M. Szanto [mailto:JSZANTO@ADNC.COM]
> Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2000 12:20 PM
> To: tuning@egroups.com
> Subject: [tuning] Re: Another computer/web - based composition tool
>
>
> Oops!
>
> On second thought, JMSL/JSyn would probably not be a good idea
> for the mode
> room, as it would require the user to download JSyn. I suppose
> MIDI support
> might work, but...
>
> Sorry,
> Jon