MUSICOL(ID:5887/mus022)for MUSical Instruction Composition Oriented Language References: MUSICOL, a computer language for composing music, was originally developed for composers with no previous knowledge of computer programming. A thorough description of the language and its use is found in MUSICOL Manual, Version 1. To facilitate the reader's understanding of the body of this paper, a sample MUSICOL program has been included in the appendix. The mnemonics table consists of conventional musical terms of up to ten characters (for example, VIOLA, FLUTE, D, G, PIZZ, MF, QUARTER, SULPONT, REST, 8VE4), and common punctuation marks that serve as non-arithmetic expressions (for example, / ( ) * - . +). Only zero and positive integer constants are used as operands after expressions. MUSICOL statements (instructions) have a free format, and columns 2 to 72 of each card may contain as many of them as desired by the programmer. An incomplete statement continues on the next card providing no operation code is split. Expressions and blanks are recognized as delimiters. Any character in the first column of a card will allow fields 1 to 72 to be treated as comments. Similarly, the use of a comma in any column will render the remainder of the card free from compilation. Columns 73 to 80, which are ignored by the compiler, serve as the identification field. The MUSICOL user has the flexibility to determine the process for choosing among strings of musical parameters (pitch, duration, range, attack, timbre, dynamics, and texture) in successive blocks of time, the lengths of which are variable. A total of sixteen different instruments can be used simultaneously. These are chosen from a list of common instruments stored in the mnemonics table (such as VIOLIN, FLUTE, PIANO, VIBRAPHONE), including non-pitched percussion. In addition, there are extra codes (INSTRI, INSTR2, etc.) available for assigning instruments not included in the table, or others (XTRAI, XTRA2, etc.) for timbres and attacks not contained. The contents for the strings of the individual parametric elements to be used in the compositional process can be declared by the composer, or generated by special routines. If no parameter string is indicated by the user, elements are randomly chosen from the appropriate collection in the mnemonics table. All of these features can be selected, changed, respecified, or eliminated at any point in the user's MUSICOL program. External link: Online copy at GenaWeb in Serge Lusignan and John North, editors, "Proc., Third International Conf on Computing in the Humanities", The University of Waterloo Press, 1977 view details Resources
|