Re: yapc::Europe, "Art of Perl"

On Wed, 5 Jul 2000, Sean M. Burke wrote:
> I don't know when YAPC Europe will happen

I believe it's scheduled for 22-24 September, but things might have
changed.

> If I were a musician (and it'd help if I lived in Europe), I'd submit
> an abstract for a talk that needn't be much more than a walk-thru of a
> few basic ideas of algorithmic music

I've submitted an abstract on Perl music, and I think I'm already a named
speaker.  Unfortunately due to various lifestyle changes I can't afford to
fly over to the o'reilly conference, so have had to cancel my talk there.

The nature of my work requires realtime feedback, so I use MIDI::Realtime
rather than Sean's far better developed MIDI file manipulation suite.

If anyone else is thinking of talking at the conference then I'd be happy
to adapt to minimise any overlap.

Anyway, here's the abstract.  I'd be grateful of ideas and criticisms.

I'd like to spend 30-45 minutes demonstrating and talking about making
generative music with Perl.  This will draw heavily of the generative
music pieces myself and fellow generative musician Adrian Ward have been
creating.

I enjoy the technicalities of programming but don't enjoy talking about
them, so I will focus instead on the ideas behind what myself and Ade do.  
This would probably include things like:

o Exploration of polyrhythms -- demonstrating how good very simple
  algorithms can sound, particularly to the ear of a programmer.

o Demonstration of transforming 'natural' sources such as birdsong and
  mailing list archives into electronic music.  Talking about how, in
  contrast to popular opinion, computers can bring music closer to the
  outside world.

o Process-based music.  How music can live in the totally abstract
  environment hosted by a computer, with the musician/programmer in total
  control.  How pseudo-randomness can result in ever-changing musical
  pieces, taking the programmer and listener to worlds seperated from
  our own.

o To conclude, I'll talk about Perl.  Why I gave up using sequencers many
  months ago and now write all my music in Perl.

Supporting material: http://www.generative.net



Alex