krähenlied
a poetry sequencer for crow, just friends, and w/tape
“What is a poet? A poet is an unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and the cries escape them, they sound like beautiful music.”
-Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or
one year ago, in my very first post on lines, I asked if anyone had created a script for crow that interpreted user-input plain text as musical information. No one had. So I made it. This is that script.
I had to learn a lot to make this, and many, many people have helped me along the way and deserve my thanks here. So: thanks @Galapagoose, for being the first person to reply to me on lines, for pointing me in the direction of the Lua string library, and for helping me through some thorny w/2 issues when I was about ready to give up. Thanks @okyeron for making the tt-busboard-jr that powers my i2c setup, and thanks @license for helping me navigate the complexities of i2c. Thanks @dan_derks for helping me get a rough-&-ready early version of this script ready for a performance last spring. Thanks @tyleretters for Flash Crash, which provided just enough loving and supportive pressure to get the version of the script available here across the finish line. Thanks @walker for taking some time to chat and patch with me in Michigan over the summer and for getting me thinking about w/tape and just friends a little differently; that thinking is reflected in this version of the script. Thanks @jaseknighter for norns/habitus, which inspired me to share this script here by making me feel much more like a contributing member of this community, rather than someone on the outside looking in. Thanks @vagueintl for asking some questions about sequencing with crow that helped me sort out my own thinking on that subject. And thanks, finally, to @alanza, for your friendship, support, and guidance, which have meant the world to me.
Requirements
- crow
- druid
Recommended
- just friends
- w/
Documentation
–input 1: clock
–outputs 1 & 3: v/8
–outputs 2 & 4: AR envelopes
–begin by giving your poem a title in druid using the title function (i.e., typing title followed by your title in quotes), like so: title "Christabel"
–this will start the clocks running and create an initial sequence
–continue by updating the sequence in druid by typing text followed by a new line of poetry in quotes — e.g., text "'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,"
–each new line will determine the following:
- pitch (v/8) from crow outputs 1 & 3
- slew time between pitches from outputs 1 & 3
- AR envelope shapes from outputs 2 & 4
- sequences for 6 Just Friends synth voices
- level for each note event on Just Friends in synthesis mode
- repeats and divisions for Just Friends geode rhythms
- quantization value for Just Friends in geode mode
- virtual voltages to be sent to the run jack on Just Friends
- playback speed and direction for w/tape
- creation, activation, and deactivation of loops on w/tape
- playhead position on w/tape
- clock synch divisions for all of the above
–note: it’s probably best to reset crow after using this script and before using another one or using this one again. Not doing so can lead to crashes
Download
v1.0.0 - now available in bowery
