Programming Music with Overtone - Sam Aaron

Can programming languages help us to free our creative potential? Formalised descriptions of data, events and process have been used to great effect within industrial settings but could they also be useful in artistic contexts? This presentation introduces Overtone - a Clojure front-end to the state-of-the-art realtime sound synthesis engine SuperCollider - currently being established as a music platform for both research and performance. Overtone facilitates a truly exciting high-level exploration of musical ideas such as the design and structure of sound, the coordination of multiple concurrent performers and even new forms of musical notation. Through live coding, monome button bashing and loud music performances such as synthesized dubstep, we'll dive into the architecture of the system and explore some of the deeper computational questions that working in a musical context forces you to answer. Ultimately we will see how Clojure can manage so much more than the representation of business logic or the construction of web apps. We will cover a lot of ground - so hold onto your ears!