Creating Melodies Software

This is software for the book Creating Melodies.

You can download the programs individually or as one zip file.

For Windows we have precompiled binaries.

The software is free and distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. It is written in ANSI C and should compile with any C compiler. Send questions or comments to:
Stefan (stefan at exstrom dot com)
Richard (richard at exstrom dot com).

autogen2.c
Generates all words of a given length accepted by an automaton. Result is printed to stdout.

Usage: autogen2 file.aut2 n s e1 e2 ...
  file.aut2  = automaton input file
  n = length of words
  s = start state
  ei = end state i

fsquare.c
Generates paths in a finite square lattice from (x,y) to (a,b). Result is printed to stdout.

Usage: fsquare nc nr x y a b n
  nc = number of columns
  nr = number of rows
  x = 0,1,...,nc-1
  y = 0,1,...,nr-1
  a = 0,1,...,nc-1
  b = 0,1,...,nr-1
  n = path length < 128

fsquare2.c
Generates paths in a finite square lattice from (x,y) to (a,b). fsquare2 does not allow the previous step to be retraced. Result is printed to stdout.

Usage: fsquare2 nc nr x y a b n
  nc = number of columns
  nr = number of rows
  x = 0,1,...,nc-1
  y = 0,1,...,nr-1
  a = 0,1,...,nc-1
  b = 0,1,...,nr-1
  n = path length < 128

fsquares.c
Generates paths in a finite square lattice from (x,y) to (a,b). Walk is allowed to stop at a point for a number of steps. Result is printed to stdout.

Usage: fsquares nc nr x y a b s n
  nc = number of columns
  nr = number of rows
  x = 0,1,...,nc-1
  y = 0,1,...,nr-1
  a = 0,1,...,nc-1
  b = 0,1,...,nr-1
  s = 0,1,... = number of stop steps allowed
  n = path length < 128

ftri.c
Generates paths in a finite triangular lattice from (x,y) to (a,b). Result is printed to stdout.

Usage: ftri nc nr x y a b n
  nc = number of columns
  nr = number of rows
  x = 0,1,...,nc-1
  y = 0,1,...,nr-1
  a = 0,1,...,nc-1
  b = 0,1,...,nr-1
  n = path length < 128

kdebruijn.c
Generates a de Bruijn sequence for k symbols of order n. A different sequence is generated for v = 0 to k^(n-1)-1.

Usage: kdebruijn k n v
  k  = number of symbols used
  n  = order of sequence (subsequence size)
  v  = unique sequence parameter: 0 to k^(n-1)-1

lat2abc.c
Converts walks on a square or triangular lattice to melodies in abc notation. Walks can be generated by program fsquare, fsquare2, fsquares or ftri. Input file specifies: lattice size, note mapping, and any number of lines containing starting point, walk, rhythm, repeats, and rest. Result is printed to stdout.
```
Usage: lat2abc inst key tempo file.lat
  inst  = MIDI instrument (program) number
  key  = musical key, e.g. C
  tempo  = beats per minute, e.g. 180
  file.lat  = name of lattice file
```

pautogen.c
Generates words of a given length accepted by a probabilistic automaton. Result is printed to stdout.

Usage: pautogen file.pat n s seed
  file.pat  = probabilistic automaton file
  n = length of words
  s = start state
  seed = random number seed [0..4294967295]

ssline.c
Prints a random subset of the first n lines read from stdin. The size of the subset is m. All subsets of size m have the same probability. Result is printed to stdout.
```
Usage: ssline n m
  n = number of lines to read from stdin
  m = subset size to sample
```

str2abc.c
Converts strings in a file into abc notation. Result is printed to stdout.

Usage: str2abc file.str inst key tempo unit
  file.str = input file
  inst = MIDI instrument (program) number
  key = musical key, e.g. C
  tempo = beats per minute, e.g. 180
  unit = unit note length, e.g. 1/4 is a
         quarter note

Input file formats

Examples of these files from the book can be found here.

autogen2 input file format (.aut2)

FORMAT:
  ns
  0 (sn00,sym00) (sn01,sym01) ...
  1 (sn10,sym10) (sn11,sym11) ...
  ...

ns = number of states
Subsequent lines describe states starting with state number and
followed by transitions. States are numbered consecutively from 0 to
ns-1. A transition is specified as (sn,sym) where sn is the number of
the state to transition to and sym is the output for the transition.

lat2abc input file format (.lat)

FORMAT:
  nc nr
  note(0,0) note(1,0) ... note(nc-1,0)
  note(0,1) note(1,1) ... note(nc-1,1)
  ...
  note(0,nr-1) note(1,nr-1) ... note(nc-1,nr-1)
  sc1 sr1 pathString1 rhythmString1 repeat1 endnote1
  sc2 sr2 pathString2 rhythmString2 repeat2 endnote2
  ...

nc = number of columns in the lattice.
nr = number of rows in the lattice.

The next nr lines assign notes to the lattice points. Notes are
specified in abc notation. Each following line has the starting column
and row number of a path followed by the path string, a rhythm string,
number of repeats and end note.

The letters l, r, u, and d indicate left, right, up, and down,
respectively for a square lattice path string. For a triangular
lattice, there are two additional letters, v, which indicates up and
to the right, and e, which indicates down and to the left. Lastly, the
letter s indicates to stay where we are for the current step.

The rhythm string must be 1 character longer than the path string
because the first character is used for the starting point.

The end note can be any note or chord in abc notation.

pautogen input file format (.pat)

File format is the same as that of autogen2, except that each transition has
a probability term following the output for the transition.

str2abc input file format (.str)

FORMAT:
  title (T: field in abc notation)
  composer (C: field in abc notation)
  transcriber (Z: field in abc notation)
  nn = number of notes or chords used
  note1 note2 ... noten
  noteString1 rhythmString1 repeats1
  noteString2 rhythmString2 repeats2
  ...

First three lines of the file are just documentation strings.  The
next line indicates number of notes or chords listed on the following
line. This is followed by a line giving the notes or chords in abc
notation separated by spaces. Following lines have a note string, a
rhythm string and number of repeats.  Note string and rhythm string
can each be up to 128 characters long.

The note string cannot contain spaces, only digits 0 through 9, and
lower case letters. The note string is translated to notes/chords
according to the list of notes/chords on the fifth line of the
file. All 0's in the note string are translated to the first
note/chord of the note/chord list.  All 1's are translated to the
second note/chord, and so on, so that all 9's are translated to the
tenth note/chord. If there are lower case letters in the note string,
all a's are translated to the eleventh note/chord, all b's are
translated to the twelfth note/chord, and so on, so that all z's are
translated to the 36th note/chord. If there are fewer notes/chords on
the fifth line of the file than is required by the digits and letters
of the note string, then the translation is done modulo the number of
notes/chords.  That is, if there are only three notes or chords
specified, then the digit 4 will be translated to the second
note/chord.

The rhythm string cannot contain spaces, only digits 0 through 9, and
lower case letters. The rhythm string is translated to a rhythm
according to the unit note length specified in the last input to the
str2abc program. For example, if the unit note length is specified as
1/4, then a 1 in the rhythm string is translated to a quarter note, a
2 is translated to a half note, a 3 is translated to a dotted half
note, a 4 is translated to a whole note, and so on.

Following the rhythm string is the number of repeats of that line,
that is, how many times the melody of the line is to be repeated. It
can be any positive integer.

Additional Software

This is additional software that you'll need to get the most out of the book.

An ANSI C compiler like gcc
The abc2midi program. This program is part of a package called abcMIDI and can be downloaded from
https://ifdo.ca/~seymour/runabc/top.html
or
https://sourceforge.net/projects/abc/
A MIDI player like TiMidity++ available at
https://sourceforge.net/projects/timidity/

Send comments to: Richard Hollos (richard[AT]exstrom DOT com)
Copyright 2018 by Exstrom Laboratories LLC