This presentation explores the relationship between languages, notation and interface design for computer music.

1. Interface as Score
Jamie Bullock
Birmingham Conservatoire

7. Simon Emmerson Sentences (1991)

8. Simon Emmerson Sentences (1991)

9. Jean-Claude Risset Mutations (1969)

10. Jean-Claude Risset Mutations (1969)

13. “One of my early desires as a musician was to
sculpt and organize directly the sound material,
so as to extend compositional control to the
sonic level - to compose the sound itself, instead
of merely composing with sounds”
Jean-Claude Risset

14. Music N (1957 - )

15. Music N (1957 - )
UNIT GENERATORS

16. Music N (1957 - )
UNIT GENERATORS
CONNECT THEM UP

17. Music N (1957 - )
UNIT GENERATORS
CONNECT THEM UP
CONTROL PARAMETERS

18. Max (1988 - )

19. Max (1988 - )

20. Max (1988 - )

27. The Challenge

28. The Challenge
Functionality of Max

29. The Challenge
Functionality of Max
Musician-Centred Design

30. System Model

31. System Model

32. System Model
User Model

33. “If your program model is nontrivial,
it's probably not the user model.”
Joel Spolsky

34. “A learnable UI is one where users
can make a mental model of it easily”
Dan Saffer

35. “Beware the Turing Tar Pit where
everything is possible, but nothing of
interest is easy”
Alan Perlis

36. What do musicians think?

37. “The more constraints one imposes,
the more one frees one’s self”
Stravinsky

38. “Making the simple complicated is
commonplace. Making the
complicated simple, awesomely
simple, that's creativity”
Mingus

39. Notation has evolved...

44. Which of these is adequate?

45. Which of these is adequate?

46. Which of these is adequate?

47. Which of these is adequate?

48. Uh?!

49. Solutions...

50. Ladder of Abstraction

51. Ladder of Abstraction

52. Abstract common use cases

53. Abstract common use cases
Top-down approach

54. Abstract Sound
00110100110100100101001111101011010101

55. Abstract Sound
00110100110100100101001111101011010101

56. Abstract Sound
00110100110100100101001111101011010101

57. Abstract Sound
00110100110100100101001111101011010101

58. Abstract Sound
00110100110100100101001111101011010101

59. Abstract Semantics

60. Abstract Semantics

61. Abstract Notation

62. Abstract Notation

63. Abstract Structure

64. Abstract Structure

65. IanniX

66. IanniX

71. AudioMulch

72. AudioMulch

73. Integra Live

74. Integra Live

76. Long way to go...

77. Long way to go...
Notation

78. Long way to go...
Notation
Score

79. Long way to go...
Notation
Program
Score

80. Long way to go...
Interface
Notation
Program
Score

81. Long way to go...
Language
Interface
Notation
Program
Score

82. Long way to go...
Language
Interface
Notation
Program
Score
Semantics

83. Long way to go...
Language
Visualisation
Interface
Notation
Program
Score
Semantics

84. Long way to go...
Language
Visualisation
Interface
Notation
Program
Score
Semantics

85. Thanks!
Jamie Bullock
http://integralive.org/software
http://jamiebullock.com
@jamiebullock