Rick's b.log - entry 2024/11/28

On being a programmer

Now, you're probably thinking "hang on, I'm reading this on your blog aren't I?". Yes, you are. And I'm bashing this out while standing next to the air fryer as my battered cod cooks. Chips in soon.

You see, using SimpleSeq, I would put the highlight in the little box where I wanted a note to be. Then I would press Space to create the note. Then I would press C or M or whatever to set the desired note length (C for crotchet, or quarter note to Americans; M for mimim, and so on).
But this started to bother me. I mean, why can't I just press C dammit, and have it "do the right thing"?

Well, since I'm the idiot that wrote the software... clicky-clicky-tappedy-tap-tap and... yup, that looks good.

And while I'm at it, why don't I add something so if you're using a custom voice map (my PSR e333 supports XGLite which has some 400-odd voices, considerably more than the General MIDI default, and some of them sound quite a bit nicer too) then that can be associated with the music file and loaded automatically as the music is loaded to save having to do it manually... clicky-clicky-tappedy-tap-tap and... yup, that looks good.

So, music written? Practically nothing. Blog written? Just this thrown together as dinner cooks. Time spent in Zap staring at code? Uh-hu.

Such is the life of a programmer.

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Mr David J Pilling, 29th November 2024, 18:20

Could AI help...    Friday Fun and Fiddling  I sat down today intending to sort through some old files—always a thrilling way to spend an afternoon—but the plan derailed, as usual. I stumbled across an ancient piece of code I wrote years ago. Nostalgia kicked in, so naturally, I spent the next few hours tinkering with it instead of working.    By dinner, I had rewritten half of it, made some vital improvements nobody asked for, and nearly burned the potatoes. Ah well, progress, right? Here's to productive procrastination!    Saturday Shenanigans: Anime, Acorns, and Air Fryers  It’s funny how a day can spiral into chaos. This morning, I had one goal: clean my desk. Simple, right? But no. I got distracted by a stack of old Acorn user manuals and spent an hour reminiscing about my first BBC Micro projects. Then, a YouTube anime review popped up, and there went another two hours.    By evening, I was “experimenting” with my air fryer, wondering if Android-controlled devices could revolutionize dinner. Spoiler: crispy fries, but no epiphanies.    Another productive day? Maybe next time.

A tree-dwelling mammal, 1st December 2024, 19:50

Just curious. When you're writing music, do you do it the 'programmer' way, ie click the notes in on the sequencer grid, or do you do it the 'musician' way by just sitting at the keyboard and playing whatever comes to mind?    There's no right or wrong here of course. Although I'm a programmer, I personally find "programming" music to be an impossibility as all the coding (even with clicking the notes into the grid) gets in the way of creativity. I'd rather just sit down at the piano and start playing. Just whatever works for you I guess.

Rick, 1st December 2024, 20:25

My dyspraxia means I'll probably never be able to do it the musician's way. 😭    I do rough out ideas by playing some stuff (greatly slowed down) at the piano, and then I click the box in the grid and put in the notes, play it at real speed, see if it matches what I'd imagined.    The piece I composed this morning was "close enough" but still not as I had anticipated. But, then, I was doing something exceedingly weird.    As for creativity, I'm still not quite there at taking what's going on in my mind and making it real. But SimpleSeq allows me to think of pitches and time without all of the confusion of traditional notation.    I'd love to sit at the piano and bash out ideas, refine them, then say "okay, let's record this". But, you know, problems...

A tree-dwelling mammal, 1st December 2024, 23:39

I was playing a gig the other week and our bass player hadn't turned up. Not to be deterred, I was using a Roland stage piano for the piano part, but then set up my trusty Yamaha (PSR-282, bought off eBay for £40 about 12 years ago and used for many many gigs), pulled up a "fingered electric bass" patch on the Yamaha, turned off the touch response and played the bass part with my left hand and the piano part on the Roland with my right. Whilst adding vocals over the top.    Played entirely from memory, without the use of a chord chart or anything like that.    If it makes you feel any better, I never learnt to sight-read. I can read music, but not in real time. It's not the "parsing notation" either; even if I were to write out the note names above each of the notes, I'd still struggle to play a piece of music just from notation. I recall a few years ago someone wanted me to play a piece from "Miss Saigon", they'd got the sheet music, I spent ages struggling to figure out how the hell it was supposed to sound. Then they loaned me the CD. I'd picked up the song in about 10 minutes by listening and playing along.    I'd recommend sticking at trying to do it the "musician's way". Easiest way to start is by improvising a four-chord song - play the chord sequence C, G, Am, F, then just start improvising over the top of it. With practice it'll soon come. It's all about the muscle memory.

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