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MIDI Madness

Carles Pinacarles@pina.cat

April 2013, Python Code Dojo

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Story

● Hackday at Mendeley● Classic “hack”:

– data -> graphic (bars, maps, animation)

● My idea: play with some other sense– data -> sound

● (so this time is not smelly like the “USB Olfactory Notifications”)

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Problem

● IANAM● Anagram of “mania”● Acronym of:

– I Am Not A Musician

● I didn't do any nice music

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Story of that day

● 10:00: I'll do the “The Music of your Library”● 11:30: I'll do “The Sound of your Library”● 13:00: I've done “The Noise of your library”

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What is MIDI (from Wikipedia)

● MIDI (Music Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a protocol, digital interface and connectors and allows a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers and other related devices to connect and communicate with one another.

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What MIDI (casual definition)

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Which data I could have used in my experiment

● Documents Readership● Each user's library document has:

– Number of readers

– Number of different countries

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Idea

Readers

Countries

Document 1

Document 2

Document 3

Document 2

Document 3

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● It has two dimensions● Sounds:

– pitch

– duration

– rythm

– instruments?

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Idea

Note pitch

Noteduration

Document 1(high duration, low pitch)

Document 2(low duration,low pitch) Document 3

(high pitch, low duration)

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Demo(s)

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Prior art

● Always investigate the prior art after resolving the problem :-)

● Youtube video● Vi Art

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Ideas... represent in music:

● PI/e digits● Fractals● Fibonacci/...● Any CSV file to sound● y=f(x) and create... music (*)● Text to sound! (enter a phrase, listen the

music of it)● Play! (how different languages sound?

Different functions? Different numbers?)

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y=f(x)

● (Too difficult for a Dojo?)● Enter a seed● Power/root: accelerates/deaccelerates● Add/rest: higher/lower pitch● etc.

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Possible implementation

● https://github.com/cpina/LondonPythonCodeDojo-music

or

● http://pinux.info/DojoMidi● On Linux: timidity to play .mid files● On Mac: Quicktime7 (someone told me today)● On Windows: Winamp