Working in CSound
Using python to create a sound file (Via Nicolás E.)
Ok, so I use it from the terminal. I have my orc and sco files (orchestra and score) and I use the csound command. It's something like this: csound blah.orc blah.sco -o foo.wav (where -o is for specifying the output).
The other option is to do everything on the csound "app" The .csd files are kinda formatted like html, so it's easy to see the different parts. You have the <CsInstruments> for the instruments, the <CsScore> for the score. What Luke always does in class, is create the instruments, then runs a code to create the score, and he pastes it on that section...
His scripts print everything to the terminal, so you need to tell it to take all those logs and put them in a file. You do that with ">". So, if your script is "score.js", you'd do: node score.js > output.txt (or output.sco if you want to run csound later from the command line) (I do it that way)
Other resources:
An Instrument Design TOOTorial
http://www.csounds.com/journal/issue14/realtimeCsoundPython.html
I had to miss class today because I was worried I was coming down with something, but I am spending the afternoon trying to get at least *1* composition working in Csound. Yesterday I sat with a classmate for a while and, with the help of Nicolás above, we figured out more how to navigate the way that Csound works using the terminal to save and render files. At first Csound felt very unintuitive and impenetrable but I am starting to understand the incredible potential it has for creating complex instruments and scores. The next few weeks for me will be about just generating some stuff, to see what happens, starting with today. More in a bit.
Update 2/19:
Nicolás E. and Katya R. and I are working together, which is very helpful because I am totally lost in terms of how to get the code to function properly for this (!), but I think we are all learning. We decided to go with a MIDI file of Norwegian Wood (based on Luke's joke from class which includes how it is #45's favorite song to karaoke to...) and made a markov chain to randomize the "voice" track (flute lead) and remix the notes within the notes that are originally in the song. We also extracted the guitar notes and play them in order.
Our next step is to take comments made on the YouTube video for Norwegian Wood and insert them all as sounds that play along with the song, interrupting it, possibly with sentiment analysis controlling how they sound (probably just positive vs negative vs neutral, high to middle to low or something like that) if we can figure that out by Wednesday... : ) We had some help and advice also from the resident Hannah, who does work with generative music and sentiment analysis. It is fun to work in a group for this, and also to combine (possibly also just learn to compromise) our lofty concepts with also just learning how these generative processes can work and learning about the code needed to get there, at least using Csound...
Our group's project on GitHub: https://github.com/nicolaspe/comment_me
Audio from the first stage...