I think Mike indirectly addresses a great point that may be of interest for new users getting started with Csound. This is mainly the concept of the Environment Variables that has emerged in version 5 of the language which is quite crucial to running Csound with all of its optional plugin libraries and is a common concept used throughout Unix shell scripting environments, the Mac OSX Aqua interface, and Windows XP. Maybe just write in your article that they can see what their environment variables are by pressing Windows Logo + Pause/Break > Advanced Tab > Environment Variables A short section describing the etymology and purpose of this concept will likely bridge the gap between those who rely on the GUI interface and those who are using whatever console/command interpreter/CLI on whatever OS. It seems like one of those very important concepts from computer science courses but also accessible to the casual user. -David On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 8:36 AM, Michael Gogins wrote: > Thanks for you feedback. My comments follow. > >>> "A Csound Tutorial" by me on Csounds.com has an introduction to Python >>> scripting for Csound. >> >>Yes, I've downloaded that and skimmed it. It has some very good information, >>but as with other tutorials, it seems to make certain invisible assumptions >>(and I'm not even sure what they are). > > I would sure like to know -- I would fix them. > >> >>A little while ago I loaded Koch.py into SciTE. When I issue the Run command >>from SciTE, the output window says this: >> >>>pythonw -u "Koch.py" >>>The system cannot find the file specified. > > Not what happens with me... > >> >>Now, my best guess is that I need to set a path somewhere. But where? In >>Csound, in SciTE, or in Python? And how would I do it? When I look in the >>big fat Python tutorial, it provides no concrete information about exactly >>how one would set paths. It mumbles a bit about what you would need to do in >>Unix, but those paragraphs are obviously written for Unix professionals, not >>for Windows amateurs like me. So I can't run Koch.py. >> >>This is the kind of logjam I'm talking about. > > Might be more foolproof to run "set PYTHONPATH=c:\csound\bin;python examples\koch.py" from c:\csound, assuming that's where you have installed Csound. > >> >>> The advantage of Python is in using Python scripts as a concise form of >>> music notation. You use Python to generate the score, and feed notes to >>> Csound. There is a further advantage in that Python enables the use of >>> fractals, mathematical music theory, and so forth to generate scores, or >>> transform scores, in ways that are not necessarily easy to imagine. >> >>Ah, but my job as a journalist is _precisely_ to make them easy to imagine! >>That's why I'm hoping for some specific information on this point. > > This is hard to convey without some experience. I repeat, the whole point of using the computer to compose is to come up with stuff that you think might be cool, but that you CAN'T imagine in detail. If you could imagine it in detail, you could just play it in or write it out, and the computer would just be getting in the way. This is related to "process music" and ideas going back to Cage and Stockhausen. A simple example could illustrate this, I think: a Lindenmayer system or chaotic dynamical system in a short Python script, where you make very simple changes to the script and get back big changes in the music. It's a kind of "active shorthand" for musical ideas. > >> >>> AthenaCL, by Christopher Ariza, is a whole toolkit of operations and >>> classes >>> for doing score generation and score manipulation. CsoundAC, by me, which >>> is >>> part of Csound, is another such toolkit. >> >>Yes, I've looked briefly at the documentation on both of those. Sad to say, >>I can't make heads nor tails of either of them. > > Yes, I'm quite aware that the CsoundAC system has no entry point at this time. Writing a tutorial for the system is on my agenda. The existing documentation is purely a reference manual that I use myself to remind myself of details that I have forgotten since I wrote the system. > > For what it's worth, I've composed 4 finished CDs and dozens if not hundreds of hours of candidate music using the system. You can find 2 of my CDs on iTunes and some other pieces (and other writings) at my page on www.ruccas.org. > >> >>I plan to keep plugging away at it, and eventually the clouds should start >>to clear away. I'm already a halfway decent hobbyist programmer, so there's >>hope. But I can't help wishing I could find some resources that provided >>more in the way of introductory information for people who have never taken >>a university-level course in computer science. >> >>--JA >> >> >> >>-- >>View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Newbie-%28sort-of%29-Questions-tp17593144p17593998.html >>Sent from the Csound - General mailing list archive at Nabble.com. >> >> >> >>Send bugs reports to this list. >>To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe csound" > > > > > > Send bugs reports to this list. > To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe csound" >