Actually, I think the issue is that music is a very broad term and it is not clear exactly how narrow use of it is in this case.
22 pieces in 140 characters sounds amazing, because people imagine that the result is a selection of existing recognizable music from across different genres, when it fact these are pieces written in a such a way that take advantage of supercollider's strengths.
Number 6, for example, appears to be a minimalist phase-shift piece[1]. There are two or three small musical ideas that are of slightly different lengths and repeated for several minutes. The result is the musical equivalent of watching windshield wipers that are slightly out of sync. It can be hypnotic and interesting. It's also incredibly difficult to PERFORM, and part of the enjoyment of hearing a piece like Steve Reich's "Violin Phase" is knowing that these are real humans with real violins doing this[2].
But it's known as minimalist for a reason-- it's music created with an extreme economy of musical ideas. That nearly 10 minutes of Violin Phasing can be described succinctly (in English) with much greater technical accuracy than one could describe the final movement of Brahms Piano Concerto Number 1 [3], which is only slightly longer.
Thus, minimalist music lends itself very well to a succinct description in code as well. So, while "music" is a term that includes everything from Brahms and Reich to Miley Cyrus, it's not clear whether supercollider could actually describe pieces like that so succinctly without obvious cheating [4].
Comments
Actually, I think the issue is that music is a very broad term and it is not clear exactly how narrow use of it is in this case.
22 pieces in 140 characters sounds amazing, because people imagine that the result is a selection of existing recognizable music from across different genres, when it fact these are pieces written in a such a way that take advantage of supercollider's strengths.
Number 6, for example, appears to be a minimalist phase-shift piece[1]. There are two or three small musical ideas that are of slightly different lengths and repeated for several minutes. The result is the musical equivalent of watching windshield wipers that are slightly out of sync. It can be hypnotic and interesting. It's also incredibly difficult to PERFORM, and part of the enjoyment of hearing a piece like Steve Reich's "Violin Phase" is knowing that these are real humans with real violins doing this[2].
But it's known as minimalist for a reason-- it's music created with an extreme economy of musical ideas. That nearly 10 minutes of Violin Phasing can be described succinctly (in English) with much greater technical accuracy than one could describe the final movement of Brahms Piano Concerto Number 1 [3], which is only slightly longer.
Thus, minimalist music lends itself very well to a succinct description in code as well. So, while "music" is a term that includes everything from Brahms and Reich to Miley Cyrus, it's not clear whether supercollider could actually describe pieces like that so succinctly without obvious cheating [4].
[1] Wiki article on phasing in music: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phasing
[2] Live performance of Reich's Violin Phase: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su1OvwR3wB4
[3] Brahms Piano cto #1 mvt 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfs1X2-lEhU (pt 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF5IyHls560 (pt 2)
[4] eg something like Buffer.read("brahms.wav").play.