Roadmap

Done

September 1995–September 1998 I do a Ph.D. at Cardiff University (then called University of Wales, College Cardiff) involving the design of an OOCL for representing the ideas of music and music theory. Much of it informs the later work.

2014 I write the core of the orchestra, including the fuzzy logic system that interprets scores into human gestures, the adaptive tuning system, the formant filters, the spatialization output routines (Ambisonic and binaural), etc.

2017–19 I finish version 1.0 of the orchestra with the sounding instruments and take it on a shakedown run.

2020–21 I write the first two "chapters" of Advanced Music for Beginners—the Preface and Introduction, which outlines the music theory system and the associated software that will automate it.

2021 I begin working on version 2.0 of the orchestra. Mainly I want to add a new, automated expressive timing system that can do meter, groove, tempo curves, soundtrack timing, etc., but first, dissatisfied with my sound quality, I seek to overhaul the instruments using linear phase methods and to rewrite the output routines. This leads to months of studying concert hall acoustics to design a new sound-in-space system.

2022 I put up this website, hoping to find like-minded parties. Or good parties, at any rate.

Yet To Do

Orchestra 2.0

• New output routines (Ambisonic and binaural) integrated by the new sound-in-space system. The goal now is not realism, but beauty.
• Overhaul all filters and other sound processing for clarity (linear or minimal phase filters and whatever else it takes). I want to eliminate diffuse sound.
• Write the new expressive timing system.
• Other minor fixes (eg. the bug in getSD).
• Maybe add a chorus effect.
• Write a new user's manual for the orchestra—friendlier to other users.

The Largest Compositional Program

• Write the harmony-counterpoint programs (in Python, probably): HW and HC.
• This will entail something to load lots of chords and adaptive tunings into an orchestra. I must write that too (in Csound).
• Write the scale/tuning and harmony chapters of the book.

Smaller Compositional Programs

• Write the rhythm editor and the chapter on rhythm.
• Write the basic melody generator and the chapter on melody and melodic mode.
• Write a tonal harmony generator.
• Write minor tuning programs (tuning given spectra, spectra given tuning, Schwebungsdiaphonie tuning, hypertonal polychorme temprement editor, etc.).
• Write minor melody programs (canon generator, variation program, Markov chain analyzer, etc.).

The Final Stages

• The chapters and programs for texture (arranging) and form (and maybe a GUI score editor using box notation).