/ j / 2016-07 / 05_r1206

Fish Calling

At the beginning of July 2016, I got an idea for random chords picked from the roll of dice. (Using the 6 most common chords for an instrument.) This turned in to "I'll write a template to make these things easier." Then, "between the dice, and template, I think I could write a script to produce a Lilypond file to do the heavy lifting."

Late on July 3rd, I was still working on the script and tweaking it. At 12:30am on July 4th, the script ran successfully and produced reasonable output for the first time.

The song was short, which could have been problem (fixed in a later version of the script), but on my list of things to write this 50/90 include "ringtones and alarms for phones", so it fits my theme. It was viable for my purposes.

I needed to try it out, so I loaded it in to my software. It was easy to use. Easier than the dice and template.

However, it was late when I was thinking of lyrics and my five year old son wanted some cuddles before he went to sleep. With his head resting in my lap, I had my laptop in front of my and was ready to write a song.

He loves fish, so I had my theme. I sang the chorus, and just before he fell asleep, he commented, "That sounds nice."

The thing is, since it produced a Lilypond file, I could then fold the lyrics back in to the file to get sheet music.

It needs tweaked, sure, but the notion that it might be possible to have output like this, complete with sheet music, in an hour or two... I mean, I with a little practice, I could do this on a skirmish timeframe...