Hey all, I've been wondering this for the longest time.
Do you think part of the responsibility of any modern composer is to learn programming? (Graphic Design is quickly heading this way) Has programming become what sight reading was in the past in relation to music?
There is a lot of smart people around here. Most of you talk about programming and code like it's common every day intellect, which in all honesty completely evades my level of comprehension. I'm wondering if learning this language will help me be more compositional as technology changes, or is it still relatively not a required skill set?
Would tracking itself be considered a marriage between programming and composing?
What can someone like me, who doesn't particularly find the thought of programming very rewarding or stimulating act, do if this is the case?
I find a lot of trackers are programmers on the side or vise versa. I must have missed the boat because I generally find programming a bore.
I've been programming for over 8 years. It doesn't really seem to help my tracking skills at all. Oh well...
I've been proggie-ing for about hmm 6 years, and thats why my tracks are so simple and mechanical, because I am used to programming. So it has an opposite effect on me
I do program, but I think both tracking and programming are the result of the same -> logical thinking. Both require you to do so in order to get something done by the program you use for it.
Eg. For programming you need to write a script that do tasks in a logical way. Eg. If you want to write a variable and print it out, you both need to declare this variable and then print it.
In tracking this is kind of the same. In the pattern editor, each row is being played behind eachother. Not only the notes, but also the pauses between them is the logical thinking.
I've let my nephew played with MPT for some time. He uses midi equipment to play around with at home, and was amased with all the songs I've made. So I though lets show him around. He couldn't understand a think about the spacing thing. Perhaps programming stimulates the logical thinking which makes you able to track faster?
Maybe programming knowledge can help understanding or learning tracking better, but I don't see them so related, however. There are, if not infinite, at least so many 'variables' affecting the result of the composition that programming skill, or lack of it, can be just a drop in the ocean.
i think the further technology develops, the more programming knowledge gives you more creative flexibility.
I started programming in machinecode for the 6502 and the Z80. So I agree with LPChip about the need for 'logical thinking'.
So probably this, later, caused my choice for the tracker-concept to construct my compo's on a Pc.
Transparant control.
I don't see this gap between Programmer - Musician, related to electronic sound.
In fact, strictly spoken, as soon as you use a program, you are programming. Changing variables for the output.
Surely programming sometimes is a bore, but isn't it to play on an instrument the same phrase for 16 times ?
Learning the codes just expands the language of the compo, so not a matter of 'effects' but of 'expression'.
I think that the problem is what do you consider a programming language. In a certain way, even the traditional pentagram CAN be considered a program. Look careful: that is not music, just a set of instructions to make music. The use of trackers, midi and so on are similar. The only difference that I think that really matters is the level of the language. You can program in a low level language or in a high level. In fact, there are a lot of levels in the middle. I think that, as technology develops, there is less need to know low level languages to program, so I think that, for a composer, only high level languages will be important. And, may be, these high level languages will be even in an higher level than now...
I guess it must be annoying to those who really only want to make music using a tracker, but I think that the music-making software that fails to support a kind of free coding element is stupidifying.
The idea that composing generally is all about writing down music that sounds good, not anything to do with the means this is done; programming on the other hand is a world where you can cause anything a computer is capable of doing to happen. So I agree that tracking is a marriage between programming and composing.
The wonderful thing about this is that in tracking you are not limited by existing instruments, existing sounds, other people's work, etc. Generally you want to make music, yes, but when you come accross an obstacle that normal composing cannot overcome, you have the elemental signal processing tools under control and by manipulating those into some kind of code, you can produce just the sounds you had in mind.
Taking this to diffirent extreemes is what diffirent trackers do.
I am a programmer, yes, all my life. My favorites are low-level programming tools. I've been a tracker for quite a while now. My music is primarily remixes of other people's tracked work, where I thought I could improove the code. Atho commonly accused of, I do not intentionally stick around low-quality samples.
Quote from: "DustWolf"My music is primarily remixes of other people's tracked work, where I thought I could improve the code.
A use I didn't much thought of before, but with rather fascinating aspects.
If you talk about improving the code, it would mean that you work with the original trackerfile, not with the saved result as a wav, mp3 or ogg. Somewhat similar of editing the source code of an open source application.
A matter of performance of the same composition, like playing opus 33 of Liszt with one's own interpretatation.
A tracker can be performed very precisely according to the 'personal touch'. Balance between channels, number of pattern-loops, pan-envelopes of instruments, macro-settings. Even adding a certain extra instrument score in a section created for a 'solo' upon the basic is possible.
Quote from: "Sam_Zen"A use I didn't much thought of before, but with rather fascinating aspects.
If you talk about improving the code, it would mean that you work with the original trackerfile, not with the saved result as a wav, mp3 or ogg. Somewhat similar of editing the source code of an open source application.
Perhaps we trackers should, in the interest of maintaing our heritage, call ourselves "
open source musicians"?
Quote from: "Sam_Zen"A matter of performance of the same composition, like playing opus 33 of Liszt with one's own interpretatation.
A tracker can be performed very precisely according to the 'personal touch'. Balance between channels, number of pattern-loops, pan-envelopes of instruments, macro-settings. Even adding a certain extra instrument score in a section created for a 'solo' upon the basic is possible.
Yes... sometimes so much can be achieved by changing an instrument somewhere (tho I usually don't change the source selection of samples for more than one sample), and using a diffirent instrument with the same melody in a part of the song to add to the content. Also sometimes songs seem to lack a more powerfull atmosphere or a deeper base.
Again, this is a matter of taste of course, which is why people are always encuraged to listen to both the original and the remix to see which they preffer.
Actually there is some intersting depth behind this as well, as people are accostum to certian themes and view them as beautyfull as opposed to others, which are really no less random, but are simply not what people are accostum to. In reworking the code, I maintain the theme, which provides the song with beauty and then place this theme in a diffirent atmosphere, an atmosphere which I think conveys the message I wanted it to convey.
In short, the programming element also represents content in a track as well as the purely musical element.
Quote from: "DustWolf"Perhaps we trackers should, in the interest of maintaing our heritage, call ourselves "open source musicians"?
A nice one. In fact, as soon as I publish some piece in the original tracker-format, instead of some compressed wavfile, I have to accept, that others can change the song, because it is still 'codable'. Nothing wrong with that, as long as normal civilised behaviour is at stake, meaning that the author of the original is mentioned in the credits.
In the case of commercial purposes, e.g. for a game, asking the author for permission to use it is the default.
By the way, the opposition 'programmer-musician' is only valid from a traditional musical view.
In the real tracker-world there isn't much difference between programmer, composer or musician.
Mostly tracker-modules are made by a one man's band, so . .
Quote from: "DustWolf"Perhaps we trackers should, in the interest of maintaing our heritage, call ourselves "open source musicians"?
Amen to that.
I've started programing in C64 basic, moved to Amiga and used Amos, then AmigaE and some MC680x0 assembly language. Now I programm in C (not C++). I guess I have been programming since 1989 and I remember how "programmish" it felt making music in SoundTracker, NoiseTracker, ProTracker.
When I do music I often tries to avoid using "programming tricks" like looping patterns etc... In most of my tunes not one single pattern is equal. This can be quite "limiting" but also rewarding. However thinking to logical might not always be smart in music imho since music is about feelings and feelings are not always logical (...it seems) :)
So I think the benefits of beeing a programmer using a tracker is that you probably figure out how to use it faster than other folks. You also "understand" better how stuff works since you think of it in a logical way. The drawbacks are possibly that your music can suffer from beeing to logical also :)
Quote from: "Waxhead"I've started programing in C64 basic, moved to Amiga and used Amos, then AmigaE and some MC680x0 assembly language. Now I programm in C (not C++). I guess I have been programming since 1989 and I remember how "programmish" it felt making music in SoundTracker, NoiseTracker, ProTracker.
When I do music I often tries to avoid using "programming tricks" like looping patterns etc... In most of my tunes not one single pattern is equal. This can be quite "limiting" but also rewarding. However thinking to logical might not always be smart in music imho since music is about feelings and feelings are not always logical (...it seems) :)
So I think the benefits of being a programmer using a tracker is that you probably figure out how to use it faster than other folks. You also "understand" better how stuff works since you think of it in a logical way. The drawbacks are possibly that your music can suffer from being to logical also :)
Awesome response Waxhead. Well thought out.
I agree, music should be about feelings and expressing ones inner self. However, music can carry over a lot of feelings, even sequential, non emotional feelings if that makes sense?
I've been frequenting these boards recently and I've noticed a lot of programming lingo and jargon. More so than questions and comments about actually composing music. I understand the nature of the beast here, we are tracking and a tracker is a perfectly technical commodity, granted.
However, I think there's a simplicity that gets lost with trackers from all backgrounds. Most in my experience and even with myself, tend to get wrapped up in the technical aspects of tracking, rather than learning how to transcribe music itself into this form of fashioning it. I see far more emphasis on code than music. This left me thinking that I may be missing something, or vise versa, maybe a lot of trackers are missing the point?It's a good question to ask ones self at any rate.
Quote from: "Matt Hartman"
maybe a lot of trackers are missing the point?It's a good question to ask ones self at any rate.
Many "proffesionals" have also "missed the point" at least the way I se it. To much music made today is sometimes composed in a certain way to imitate whatever is top of the list. This makes ofcource more money but it doesn't neccesary boost creativity for either the composer or the listener. Perhaps a bit sad but it makes it even cooler to be "underground" :)
Quote from: "Waxhead"Too much music made today is sometimes composed in a certain way to imitate whatever is top of the list. .. Perhaps a bit sad but it makes it even cooler to be "underground"
Right on, this observation. But in the meantime "underground" has become a label or category too, with its own charts.
So far, I prefer the distinction between making pieces for the Musical Industrial Complex, or for art.
Quote from: "Matt Hartman"However, I think there's a simplicity that gets lost with trackers from all backgrounds. Most in my experience and even with myself, tend to get wrapped up in the technical aspects of tracking, rather than learning how to transcribe music itself into this form of fashioning it. I see far more emphasis on code than music. This left me thinking that I may be missing something, or vise versa, maybe a lot of trackers are missing the point?It's a good question to ask ones self at any rate.
IMHO, programming can be described, but music itself is best heard.
Since making the music is all about transfering that idea from your mind into a form that can be heard, it would be unnecesary overhead to attempt to describe it in words too... well at least for those of us who have no musical education whatsoever, other than working it out with immagination and a tracker program.
I don't know what's the general idea with learning any other means of making music (for example mastering physical musical instruments), but it seems with tracking the hard part are the technical parts, the point that you are capable of figuring out how use your immagination to make music sound musical is taken for granted as... why would you want to be involved in making music if you can't?
Just my 2 cents.
I don't think programming is something useful for a musician, unless this musician makes a kind of experimental electronic music that requires him to make software to implement his composition techniques (for example: algorithmic composition, making your own synths, etc). This kind of music is a very small subset of all music.
So, if you find programming a bore, don't bother. You can make excellent music with the newest technology without programming at all. Moreover, programming technology develops in such a way that programming is getting easier as time goes by. Common operations are pre-programmed and embedded in the languages so that they can be reused and programmers love these languages. Technology is not heading to a point where you will have to have programming skills to deal with it. Rather, it will evolve so that people who do not have prograving skills or who have little programming skills will be able to make things that only programmers were capable of doing before.
I'm a programmer, so you can trust me.
Quote from: "PPH"I'm a programmer, so you can trust me.
Me too, but I don't like so called "High Level" languages. Other than scripting languages, C is as high level as I go. I prefer to do things the hard way, it's more fun. I had to spend years learning how to program, and thanks to "languages" such as DarkBASIC, game programming is too easy that the people who have no experience are getting the jobs! I have tried game programming in C, and would like to try again, but I make old skool 2D games, then some joe nobody makes the next UT in some high level language and no one cares about what I do.
Can you tell im just a little bit bitter? :lol:
Maybe one could see "programming" in a broader perspective. If I'm editing a pattern of a tracker module, strictly spoken I am programming, because I add some codes to a file. While reading that file, the interpretation of it is leading to some commands, causing some sounds to be heard.