Programming for Musicians and Digital Artists: Creating music with ChucK

Summary

Programming for Musicians and Digital Artists: Creating Music with ChucK offers a complete introduction to programming in the open source music language ChucK. In it, you’ll learn the basics of digital sound creation and manipulation while you discover the ChucK language. As you move example-by-example through this easy-to-follow book, you’ll create meaningful and rewarding digital compositions and “instruments” that make sound and music in direct response to program logic, scores, gestures, and other systems connected via MIDI or the network.

Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications.

About this Book

A digital musician must manipulate sound precisely. ChucK is an audio-centric programming language that provides precise control over time, audio computation, and user interface elements like track pads and joysticks. Because it uses the vocabulary of sound, ChucK is easy to learn even for artists with little or no exposure to computer programming.

Programming for Musicians and Digital Artists offers a complete introduction to music programming. In it, you’ll learn the basics of digital sound manipulation while you learn to program using ChucK. Example-by-example, you’ll create meaningful digital compositions and “instruments” that respond to program logic, scores, gestures, and other systems connected via MIDI or the network. You’ll also experience how ChucK enables the on-the-fly musical improvisation practiced by communities of “live music coders” around the world.

Written for readers familiar with the vocabulary of sound and music. No experience with computer programming is required.

What’s Inside

• Learn ChucK and digital music creation side-by-side
• Invent new sounds, instruments, and modes of performance
• Written by the creators of the ChucK language

About the Authors

Perry Cook, Ajay Kapur, Spencer Salazar, and Ge Wang are pioneers in the area of teaching and programming digital music. Ge is the creator and chief architect of the ChucK language.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Introduction: ChucK programming for artists

PART 1 INTRODUCTION TO PROGRAMMING IN CHUCK
Chapter 2. Basics: sound, waves, and ChucK programming
Chapter 3. Libraries: ChucK’s built-in tools
Chapter 4. Arrays: arranging and accessing your compositional data
Chapter 5. Sound files and sound manipulation
Chapter 6. Functions: making your own tools

PART 2 NOW IT GETS REALLY INTERESTING!
Chapter 7. Unit generators: ChucK objects for sound synthesis and processing
Chapter 8. Synthesis ToolKit instruments
Chapter 9. Multithreading and concurrency: running many programs at once
Chapter 10. Objects and classes: making your own ChucK power tools
Chapter 11. Events: signaling between shreds and syncing to the outside world
Chapter 12. Integrating with other systems via MIDI, OSC, serial, and more