New free composition application: MusicDNA Composer

Hey all. I've been lurking on Young Composers for a while now.

I've just finished a beta version of a new and free web-based composition application called MusicDNA Composer, which I've been working on for 2 years. I invite everyone on Young Composers to check it out and hopefully get started using it.

If some of you do get started, I'd love to hear your feedback. I'll try and answer every question asked of me in here as promptly as I can.

It works a little differently from most composition software: you compose using a shorthand code based on the perl programming language, which is then compiled into a Lilypond score and MIDI file. For example, here is a song I wrote with it...

Song 001 in Cs Minor - MP3

Song 001: MIDI, MDNA Code, Sheet Music

Here's the site's main address, click Compose to get started:

http://www.MusicDNACentral.net

A tutorial / how-to

Help for all the commands in the language

That's a really cool idea Rienzi. As a programmer myself (it is my job), I often find parallels between musical thought and the thought needed to write code. Unfortunately my chosen method to compose is very old fashioned, otherwise I think I'd try your software.

Thanks for having a look, Derek!

You know how they say that inside every lawyer there's an author trying to break free? I think that inside every programmer there's a musician, most especially a composer. You and I are good examples of this, I think ;)

But you also pointed out the biggest problem that's emerged since I launched it -- composers already have their own method of composition, so it's hard to get them to try this new method. I think I'm going to start focusing more on programmers who don't know how to compose at all, so I can teach them from the start using MusicDNA.

Interesting. What instrument sounds are available?

I think you will need a programmer's guide to show how to effectively use your functions - two key ones being melody and harmony. I tried a simple tune with note() but then I am stalled facing the more complex functions.

This is an interesting experiment. For those of us who can program (I can) this may be a way to overcome composer's block by going to a different interface than what say Finale offers.

Hi Alex. It's MIDI, so you get the usual midi instruments:

MIDI Instruments

I personally just import the midi from MusicDNA into Reason 3.0 and assign instruments there.

Here's a song-in-progress with mult. MIDI instruments:

002.01.Web Services Anthem

Euler: To a programmer the interface should be very good for generating ideas, just like playing around with code for an app until something works.

Re: melody and harmony, I just finished part 2 of the tutorial, which should be just what you're looking for:

Tutorial II: Single Voice Composition

Enjoy!