I enjoy writing programs that output
Csound scores.  Recently, I have been
struggling with the idea of allowing
smooth tempo transition to occur in
an otherwise steady stream of events.

By *smooth* I mean intuitively, musically
smooth.  

I can get nice sounding changes in tempo
with simple linear changes in speed, but
the tough part is being able to specify
exact tempos at exact times.

I want to be able to specify for instance,
that a 10 seconds, the tempo will be 60Bpm,
and at 20 seconds, the tempo will be 120Bpm,
and in-between some magical interpretation makes
the whole thing sound as though a musician 
had performed it.  

I envision a model mass in space, whose
position denotes the current tempo.  I can
use code to exert forces on the mass up or
down, to start the thing accellerating in 
one direction or the other, and then anticipating
its need to have force exerted in the opposite
direction in order to make a nice 'lunar landing'
to the other tempo.  Does this make sense?

Does anybody have any thoughts on this
seemingly simple idea which is starting
to perplex me?

Thanx

Toby

	-There otta be a law-


Version 1.02 of drumachine:
http://www.fishnet.net/~willis/drumachine/drumachine.html