Live Interactive Computer Music in HMSL, 1984-1992
Larry Polansky · Computer Music Journal · 1994
This is a historical document of my work with live interactive computers and performers in the computer music language Hierarchical Music Specification Language (HMSL) from 1984 to 1992. In this article, I describe eight pieces that were experiments in live interactive computer music, each of which was performed at least several times. The pieces described here are: n'iw~ar (B'rey'sheet); 17 Simple Melodies of the Same Length; Simple Actions; Cocks crow ...; Horn; 3 Studies ...; Slippers of Steel ...; and The World's Longest Melody. Recent commercial and user-friendly real-time object-oriented music programming environments like the popular Max have helped to make interactive environments more accessible. I hope that the descriptions of my earlier works in this article will give composers and performers ideas for possible experimentation.