Formula (Forth Music Language) by David Anderson (review)

centered on the reinvention of musical form by a close study of the material and, in a sense, the technology of music (in the sense of techne:art, skill, craft in work, or system thereof, not in the sense of upto-the-minute machinery).There is a concomitant undercurrent of social critique in much of this work (of Cage and Partch most obviously), for to compose is to make an order, which implies a critique of other orders. For me, the highlights of Sounding Press’scareer are the Nancarrow stuFORMULA (FORTHMUSIC LANGUAGE) by David Anderson and Ron Kuivila. Bradley Forthware, P. 0.Box 444, Mountain View, CA 94040, U.S.A. $85.00. Reviewed Way, #I, Berkeley, CA 94704, U.S.A. FORMULA is designed for three basic but overlapping applications: programmed score interpretation, algorithmic composition and real-time interactive performance. FORMULA is built on the Forth programming language and runs on Atari ST and Macintosh personal computers . Forth is a compact, efficient and extensible language that is well suited for music programming. FORMULA adds many new functions and control structures to Forth, most notably event scheduling and concurrency . FORMULA typically controls an external synthesizer via Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI). FORMULA views music as a system of multiple concurrent processes. These are implemented by a software technique called multi-tasking. The computer switchesquickly among different processes to give the effect that they are all running simultaneously . There are (1) background processes such as the Forth interpreter , (2) input processes that parse and respond to MIDI input, keyboard and mouse actions, (3)note-playing processes that compute and play sequences of pitches and (4) auxiliary processes that are attached to noteplaying processes in order to generate duration, amplitude, articulation and tempo variations. These processes can easily express concurrent musical voices, and paramJim Horton, 1914 Channing dies; Garland’s own book of essays, Ama’cas (now out of print); and Soundings13,a 30Gpageissue devoted to the music ofJames Tenney,which is still the single most valuable resource on this important composer and his work. Alas, Soundings 16 is the last volume. Garland will stop publishing after two more books: his own In Search o f SilvestreRevueltas:Essays 19781990and Heny Cowell: Songs.A recent issue of Soundings carries a poem by Leone1Rugama, a Sandinista leader IV.Software eters can be handled independently. For example, one can write a repeating rhythm as a loop, even if its pitches do not repeat. to play notes and chords. A single word starts a MIDI note, computers the ‘time-advance’to the next note and then ends the note. Other note parameters are obtained from local variables and auxiliary processes. ‘$ words’ also call FORMULA’Ssynthesizer managers in order to allocate notes to MIDI channels, based on priorities supplied by the user. This can ensure, for example, that melody notes are not preempted by accompaniment notes. Note-playing processes can be collected into groups. Any of these groups or processes can be controlled (e.g. killed, suspended or resumed) or given values for parameters such as tempo or volume. The user can supply values through the interpreter while processes are playing music. All note-playing and group processes have ‘slots’,each of which can contain an auxiliary process. These are attached to a note-playing process either by embedded definitions at compile time or by interactive assignment (or deletion) from the interpreter in real-time. There are three types of auxiliary processes: 1. Sequence generators supply a sequence of note durations. 2. Shapes supply volume control and articulation, and are defined as functions that evolve from an initial level to a final level over an interval of time. Larger shapes can be made by concatenating smaller shapes. Since shapes are procedures, they can compute their own parameters, use control structures and call other funcNote -playingprocesses use ‘$words’ and poet cut down in his 20s by SOmoza ’s National Guard. Rugama’s last words were adopted by Garland as a motto: “Surrender?Me? Up yours!” No one is shooting bullets at composers in the United States, but the financial and cultural pressures toward various types of conformity arejust as threatening to creative life. On the back of Amm...