Re: [microsound] Algorithmic Composition

[Frank Barknecht <fbar@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hallo,
Ghost Bunnies hat gesagt: // Ghost Bunnies wrote:
> I was wondering if anyone could suggest any good mailing lists and/or readings
> regarding computer-aided algorithmic composition?

E. Miranda "Composing Music with Computer" is a very nice introduction
to algorithmic composition. It's more "lightweight" than other books
in that area (e.g. the works by Robert Rowe).

> I'm an artist, not a professional musician, but I'm more and more
> interested in this particular subject (even started to learn
> SuperCollider recently), so any suggestions are welcome!

Learning a programming language sure is a nice thing. Which language
to learn is a very personal decision, though. Unlike the natural
language, you aren't born into one as a baby and should probably take
a look at several alternatives. 

If you're a visual artist, maybe something more visual would be good
as well. Max an Pd come to mind here. Personally I also do text
programming, but for "art work" I always come back to Pd, because
somehow I seem to think about art in two dimensions, not just in one
as with text languages. 

For text languages, maybe a general purpose languange instead of the
domain-specific SuperCollider would be worth a look, too. Lua would be
a good candidate: It's small, easy to learn and still very powerful.
It even comes with functional stuff that could rival the classical
standard language for algorithmic composition, which is LISP/Scheme.

"Beginning Lua Programming" by K. Jung/A. Brown would be a lightweight
introduction, also to programming in general, while "Programming in
Lua" is the deeper pro-version of that book, but it's best approached
if you already know some bits about programming. Lua can be used in Pd
as well as standalone, so Lua knowledge is knowledge that you could
use everywhere and the time learning Lua is well spent.

Ciao
-- 
 Frank Barknecht                                     _ ______footils.org__

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