Many computer scientists and mathematicians have a serious interest in music, and it seems that those with a strong affinity or acuity in one of these disciplines is often strong in the other as well. It is quite natural then to consider how the two might interact. In fact, there is a long history of interactions between music and mathematics, dating back to the Greeks’ construction of musical scales based on arithmetic relationships, and including many classical composers use of mathematical structures, the formal harmonic analysis of music, and many modern music composition techniques. Advanced music theory uses ideas from diverse branches of mathematics such as number theory, abstract algebra, topology, category theory, calculus, and so on.
There is also a long history of efforts to combine computers and music. Most consumer electronics today are digital, as are most forms of audio processing and recording. But, in addition, digital musical instruments provide new modes of expression, notation software and sequencers have become standard tools for the working musician, and those with the most computer science savvy use computers to explore new modes of composition, transformation, performance, and analysis.
This textbook explores the fundamentals of computer music using a programming-language-centric approach. In particular, the functional programming language Haskell is used to express all of the computer music concepts. Thus, a by-product of learning computer music concepts will be learning how to program in Haskell. The core musical ideas are collected into a Haskell library called Euterpea. The name “Euterpea” is derived from Euterpe, who was one of the nine Greek muses, or goddesses of the arts, specifically the muse of music.
The Note versus Signal Dichotomy […]
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There is a certain mind-set, a certain Viewpoint of the world, and a certain approach to problem solving that collectively work best when programming in Haskell (this is true for any programming paradigm). If you teach only Haskell language details to a C programmer, he or she is likely to write ugly, incomprehensible functional programs. But if you teach how to think differently, how to see problems in a different light, functional solutions will come easily, and elegant Haskell programs will result.
Music seems to be a direct connect to emotions of all types. Social movements have been moved by music. We should always match music to mind and body, science and work, invention and resistance. Isabella, Inder-Metta and Kerry have a sense for this. Of course I will always want my little graphs. But I do want music first and pictures (painting as photographs) next then graphs, then words, then action.