![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Jono's music composer thingie
Aug. 27th, 2009 07:50 pmSo when I was off in Colorado, Jono created a web interface for his music composing program! Jono's showing it off at labs night right now, so I guess it's "public", so I can pimp it, too.
It's at: http://www.evilbrainjono.net/music/
Basically, you can create your own midi file by choosing an instrument, selecting a scale, octave, tempo (higher number = slower) etc, and then entering numbers. For example, if you enter "3 2 1 2 3 3 3 2 2 2 3 5 5" that's the beginning of "Mary Had a Little Lamb". To go up an octave, you just add 7. So 8 is one octave up from 1. 15 is two octaves up, etc. Same for going down an octave. -6 is one octave down. # and b works, too. Oh, rests are periods: "."
To have notes that aren't just quarter notes, you add duration qualifiers, like so: 3:1 is a whole note. 4:2 is a half note. 3:4 is a quarter note. 7:8 is an eighth note, etc. The fun thing is that this was calculated mathematically. So you can totally play something like: "1 1 5:8 5:8 6:7 6:13 5:7 4 4 3:5 3:3 2:15 2:18 1:2" (which is, incidentally, twinkle twinkle little star with random durations added.) So eighth-note triplets are :12, sixteenth note triplets are :24, etc. To do a dotted note, you can also use the period: "3:8." would be a dotted eighth note. Don't get it confused with a rest "." though!
Anyway, more explanation comes in the help links. For example, it supports chords!? I suppose that's for advanced users. In the mean time, I highly suggest putting in some random numbers, because then you can...
A) Hit "Play"! When you press "Play", Jono's server processes your code into a midi file that will automatically load onto the page and start playing, so you get near-instant feedback on whatever weird stuff you've inputted. It's pretty empowering to have your random noodlings turn into music. Even us laypeople who can't decipher GarageBand or play an instrument* can now make music! The save function is a basic right-click-save. What I really wish it had was a good way to export/save the original input numbers and settings. (Maybe later?)
B) Fiddle and do crazy stuff! Like me changing twinkle twinkle little star into this weird thing. Plus you can change instruments and change scales. Try the "twinkle twinkle" in, say e_ ("e flat) minor, on a steel guitar. Or in a pentatonic robovoice...
Hours of fun.
And then you start wanting to transcribe music into the player so that you can fiddle with it.
For example, I made: http://www.sushux.net/misc/mario-ocarina.mid and http://www.sushux.net/misc/mario-ebminor.mid
( my 'code' )
One problem I ran into while transcribing was that you can't enter chords or other things where you want multiple notes happening on the same beat unless you add another instrument track. For example, if I had this song that was mostly one note at a time, but then I suddenly wanted 1/3/4 played together followed by 2/4/5 played together, then I'd have to create 2 new instrument tracks just so that I can but . 4 3 . in one and . 5 4 . in another. But otherwise it's pretty awesome. :)
It's at: http://www.evilbrainjono.net/music/
Basically, you can create your own midi file by choosing an instrument, selecting a scale, octave, tempo (higher number = slower) etc, and then entering numbers. For example, if you enter "3 2 1 2 3 3 3 2 2 2 3 5 5" that's the beginning of "Mary Had a Little Lamb". To go up an octave, you just add 7. So 8 is one octave up from 1. 15 is two octaves up, etc. Same for going down an octave. -6 is one octave down. # and b works, too. Oh, rests are periods: "."
To have notes that aren't just quarter notes, you add duration qualifiers, like so: 3:1 is a whole note. 4:2 is a half note. 3:4 is a quarter note. 7:8 is an eighth note, etc. The fun thing is that this was calculated mathematically. So you can totally play something like: "1 1 5:8 5:8 6:7 6:13 5:7 4 4 3:5 3:3 2:15 2:18 1:2" (which is, incidentally, twinkle twinkle little star with random durations added.) So eighth-note triplets are :12, sixteenth note triplets are :24, etc. To do a dotted note, you can also use the period: "3:8." would be a dotted eighth note. Don't get it confused with a rest "." though!
Anyway, more explanation comes in the help links. For example, it supports chords!? I suppose that's for advanced users. In the mean time, I highly suggest putting in some random numbers, because then you can...
A) Hit "Play"! When you press "Play", Jono's server processes your code into a midi file that will automatically load onto the page and start playing, so you get near-instant feedback on whatever weird stuff you've inputted. It's pretty empowering to have your random noodlings turn into music. Even us laypeople who can't decipher GarageBand or play an instrument* can now make music! The save function is a basic right-click-save. What I really wish it had was a good way to export/save the original input numbers and settings. (Maybe later?)
B) Fiddle and do crazy stuff! Like me changing twinkle twinkle little star into this weird thing. Plus you can change instruments and change scales. Try the "twinkle twinkle" in, say e_ ("e flat) minor, on a steel guitar. Or in a pentatonic robovoice...
Hours of fun.
And then you start wanting to transcribe music into the player so that you can fiddle with it.
For example, I made: http://www.sushux.net/misc/mario-ocarina.mid and http://www.sushux.net/misc/mario-ebminor.mid
( my 'code' )
One problem I ran into while transcribing was that you can't enter chords or other things where you want multiple notes happening on the same beat unless you add another instrument track. For example, if I had this song that was mostly one note at a time, but then I suddenly wanted 1/3/4 played together followed by 2/4/5 played together, then I'd have to create 2 new instrument tracks just so that I can but . 4 3 . in one and . 5 4 . in another. But otherwise it's pretty awesome. :)
