I am wondering about how best to help a non-programmer, professional composer, 
learn and use csound, in order to compose either fully electronic music or "tape 
pieces" that combine electronics and instruments?

- are there any well-organized and comprehensive books about csound aimed at 
beginners? I know there are tutorials on the web, but I'm not sure if they are 
"comprehensive"

- what about the idea that a non-programmer read something about a more 
conventional programming language like Python (for which there are many 
well-organized and comprehensive resources) as an indirect way of learning to 
think like a programmer? Then csound may be easier to acquire.

- or, perhaps it would be better to skip learning csound altogether, and instead 
use tools like blue and AlgoScore together with pre-canned instruments?

thanks,
Mike

I've often thought that there is a big "hole" in the learning material
available for csound. The tutorials are great for getting you started
and The Csound Book and Virtual Sound have a wealth of advanced
information. There just isn't anything to guide you through the chasm
in between. One of the problems is the fact that there are so many
ways to "do" csound. Ask 10 advanced users to design a particular
instrument for you and you will get 10 very different csd files.

As far as learning another programming language to help, I haven't
come across any other languages that are structured like csound.
However, understanding basic programming concepts will help a lot.

If you're using Windows, I would suggest trying WinXound as a csd
editor. You'll see the text files color coded in a way that helps the
eye process what's going on. There are other programs for Mac and
Linux that do the same but I don't know what they are. blue is a great
program but not where I would suggest you start until you really
understand a basic csd file.

On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 1:57 AM, Brent Boylan  wrote:
> As far as learning another programming language to help, I haven't
> come across any other languages that are structured like csound.
> However, understanding basic programming concepts will help a lot.

Definitely.

> If you're using Windows, I would suggest trying WinXound as a csd
> editor. You'll see the text files color coded in a way that helps the
> eye process what's going on. There are other programs for Mac and
> Linux that do the same but I don't know what they are. blue is a great
> program but not where I would suggest you start until you really
> understand a basic csd file.

I use emacs, a text editor with all kinds of bells and whistles, used
by lots of programmers.

Another way to bridge this chasm could be to learn about digital
signal processing, synthesis, vocoding, etc., to learn the theory and
stuff of the things you want to do with Csound, because ultimately
it's just one of the possible tools for any of those things, and if
you have some background with them, Csound can make a lot more sense.

-Chuckk

-- 
http://www.badmuthahubbard.com

I had some interesting discussions about learning Csound and computer
music in general at the LAC with a couple people there.  I don't know
what's an ideal solution, but I guess it heavily depends on what the
focus is, whether it is composition on a higher level moving into
computer music or learning the fundamentals of computer music, or
specifically learning Csound. It's not they are all separate issues
either but rather sort of points on a range of possibilities.

For me, I think about more commercial type of environments that
involve sequencers, instruments, effects, and a mixer system.
Learning a system like that, it seems the process is usually done at a
higher level moving to lower level.  So the process of learning can be
to start with a pre-made song and to see how adjustments to objects on
a timeline affect the piece, then adjusting parameters on pre-made
instruments affect the sound.  Slowly, feature by feature a user can
learn details in an organic way, and have a somewhat baseline on which
to enter into learning that environment.

I have plans for after the blue2 rewrite I'm currently doing to have
this kind of learning process be more possible.  I think it'd be ideal
that one can start working as quickly as possible, then as the need
and desire to understand and customize the work evolves, that those
possibilities are accessible. It's a matter of making easy things easy
and the hard things possible.

For a long time I thought one should always start from learning how a
CSD works, then come to blue.  I still see value in this, but at the
same time, I don't often see people recommend one first learn how MIDI
note data and controller messages work before starting to work with
MIDI in sequencers.

Again, I don't know the answer, but it's an interesting question.  I
do plan to start an effort for a more beginner-friendly set of
tutorials for blue once blue2 work is complete.  I'm interested to
hear others' thoughts on this as I would like to take it into account
when writing tutorials myself.

Thanks!
steven


On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 4:06 PM, Chuckk Hubbard
 wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 1:57 AM, Brent Boylan  wrote:
>> As far as learning another programming language to help, I haven't
>> come across any other languages that are structured like csound.
>> However, understanding basic programming concepts will help a lot.
>
> Definitely.
>
>> If you're using Windows, I would suggest trying WinXound as a csd
>> editor. You'll see the text files color coded in a way that helps the
>> eye process what's going on. There are other programs for Mac and
>> Linux that do the same but I don't know what they are. blue is a great
>> program but not where I would suggest you start until you really
>> understand a basic csd file.
>
> I use emacs, a text editor with all kinds of bells and whistles, used
> by lots of programmers.
>
> Another way to bridge this chasm could be to learn about digital
> signal processing, synthesis, vocoding, etc., to learn the theory and
> stuff of the things you want to do with Csound, because ultimately
> it's just one of the possible tools for any of those things, and if
> you have some background with them, Csound can make a lot more sense.
>
> -Chuckk
>
> --
> http://www.badmuthahubbard.com
>
>
> Send bugs reports to this list.
> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe csound"
>

A key statement in your request here, to me, is that you may wish to combine electronic pieces with "instruments." Does this mean with recorded instruments in the analog domain? Which recording applications are you already familiar with?



----- Original Message ----
From: Michael P Mossey 
To: csound@lists.bath.ac.uk
Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 5:33:19 PM
Subject: [Csnd] how should a beginner learn csound?

I am wondering about how best to help a non-programmer, professional composer, learn and use csound, in order to compose either fully electronic music or "tape pieces" that combine electronics and instruments?

- are there any well-organized and comprehensive books about csound aimed at beginners? I know there are tutorials on the web, but I'm not sure if they are "comprehensive"

- what about the idea that a non-programmer read something about a more conventional programming language like Python (for which there are many well-organized and comprehensive resources) as an indirect way of learning to think like a programmer? Then csound may be easier to acquire.

- or, perhaps it would be better to skip learning csound altogether, and instead use tools like blue and AlgoScore together with pre-canned instruments?

thanks,
Mike


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