FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Java
Music Specification Language v103 available now
Download at www.algomusic.com
New Features
This new version of JMSL offers many new features and
enhancements. For example, JMSL users can now easily import custom JSyn instruments into JScore, JMSL’s notation editor, with just a few clicks of the
mouse. Doing so requires no Java programming at all. Other new features include
a plug-in API allowing programmers and third party developers to add
algorithmic extensions to JScore (examples include
melodic morphing, rhythmic transformations, hocketing,
scrambling, etc). JMSL’s new Transcriber notates
algorithmically generated music and can be customized to ignore or include
complex tuplets. JMSL can export MusicXML,
so Finale users can load scores created in JMSL. Tighter integration with JSyn offers note-by-note timbral control of user-designed patches, and JMSL’s new signal processing instruments provide polyphonic
signal processing at the Instrument level. Also included are examples of how to
integrate JMSL with Max/MSP, including a tool that notates music made by Max.
The new PortView package allows programmers to create
GUI’s that switch easily between AWT and Swing.
Composition, Performance, and Music Education
JMSL has been used to create a wide variety of music including online
interactive musical instruments, interactive concert hall performances,
traditionally notated works, improvisational
instruments, musical puzzles, self-modifying notated scores, musical illusions,
and mathematical sonifications. JMSL is also being
used at colleges and universities to teach composition.
Interactive Music on the Web
An example of an interactive JMSL application is “The Virtual Rhythmicon”, a software recreation of an instrument built
by Leon Theremin in 1931 at the request of composer/theorist Henry Cowell. This rich and complex early electronic musical
machine was modeled in JMSL, and is available on the web for anyone to play.
The Virtual Rhythmicon was commissioned by Minnesota
Public Radio for their Music Mavericks website, and can be performed at http://musicmavericks.publicradio.org/rhythmicon/.
Interactive Music in the Concert Hall
An example of a live JMSL piece is “Zero Waste”, for sight-reading pianist and
computer-generated score. Zero Waste challenges the performer to sight-read a
score that is being created in real-time. Listening to the pianist’s
performance, JMSL continuously transcribes and notates, resulting in a new
score created interactively during the performance. Zero Waste was composed for
world reknown pianist Kathleen Supové.
More about Zero Waste can be found at http://www.punosmusic.com/pages/zerowaste/.
The JMSL package includes a software development kit for programmers,
applet demos, a tutorial, example scores, documentation, and source code for
numerous programming examples.
JMSL is available from algomusic.com
About AlgoMusic.com
AlgoMusic.com is the home of Java Music Specification Language. JMSL was
created by Nick Didkovsky and Phil Burk. A composer,
guitarist, and programmer, Nick Didkovsky is known
for his work with his own ensemble Doctor Nerve (www.doctornerve.org), the Fred
Frith Guitar Quartet, Meridian Arts Ensemble, Sirius
String Quartet, and the Bang On A Can All-Stars. He is
director of bioinformatics for the GENSAT Project at The Rockefeller University
(www.gensat.org). Phil Burk is a computer programmer and designer who specializes in interactive and experimental music systems.
He is the creator of JSyn (Java Synthesizer,
http://www.softsynth.com/jsyn ), and with Larry Polansky and David Rosenboom
created the computer music language HMSL, upon which JMSL is based.
For further information please contact:
Nick Didkovsky, AlgoMusic.com
Tel (212) 369-1733
http://www.algomusic.com
© 2005 AlgoMusic.com All Rights Reserved