… Songs.hz / In C

Songs.hz . Algorithmic
Hz.Plugins . 3rd Party Plugins
Audio IO . MIDI . MusicAPI

home . Topics . Interface . Reference . Examples

Examples can be imported into the workspace via its panel menu.

This song is a transcription of Terry Riley's seminal minimalist composition.

To Launch

Open in-c.hz in the code editor by clicking on the file in your workspace. Now right-click and select Simple Hz Runner.

The song: in-c.hz

This song comprises six Voices and six Tracks. Each voice selects a an instrument plugin via its its AnodeInit request.

Each voice performs a random number of repetitions of each of 54 predetermined patterns in sequence (v0-v53). Here are two of them:

v0 = <z>*RandRange(2,16)
v1 = <<c e@7>*3>@3*RandRange(5,10)

We can see that the first pattern, v0, is a random number of rests (z) between 2 and 16. This provides each voice with a random initial delay. Similarly the next pattern, v1, repeats the a stretched (@) group of 3 repeats (!) of c and e betweeen 5 and 10 times.

Here's an example track:

Track(Id:"Track1", Mute:0)
{
  VoiceRef = "v1"
  // no $<v0> which is just random rest, so we're first.
  $<v1> $<v2> $<v3> $<v4>
  $<v5> $<v6> $<v7> $<v8> $<v9>
  $<v10> $<v11> $<v12> $<v13> $<v14>
  $<v15> $<v16> $<v17> $<v18> $<v19>
  $<v20> $<v21> $<v22> $<v23> $<v24>
  $<v25> $<v26> $<v27> $<v28> $<v29>
  $<v30> $<v31> $<v32> $<v33> $<v34>
  $<v35> $<v36> $<v37> $<v38> $<v39>
  $<v40> $<v41> $<v42> $<v43> $<v44>
  $<v45> $<v46> $<v47> $<v48> $<v49>
  $<v50> $<v51> $<v52> $<v53>
}

It simply enumerates all the patterns in order (though Track1 doesn't perform v0). Each track shares this same structure but since randomness is introduced each track (and each overall performance) is unique.

More details on the musical machinery behind this piece can be found in its comments.

To see a mixing console for each voice in the song, the HzPlugins Tab shows this:

To see a piano-roll visualization of the song, select Toggle Previewer revealing something like this:

… Songs.hz / In C

To Launch

The song: in-c.hz

See Also