Computer music from 140 characters

Avant garde music mag The Wire posted a fascinating compilation of computer music pieces, each programed with a Tweet-length piece of code. The 22 artists from around the world wrote their pieces in SuperCollider, an open source programming language for audio synthesis that many laptop musicians use to compose live during performances. The compilation is titled "Supercollider 140" and is released under a Creative Commons license. From The Wire:

It started as a curious project, when live coding enthusiast and Toplap member Dan Stowell started tweeting tiny snippets of musical code using SuperCollider. Pleasantly surprised by the reaction, and "not wanting this stuff to vanish into the ether" he has recently collated the best pieces into a special download for The Wire's online readership...

Many of these pieces are actually generative, so if you re-run the source code (the track titles) you get a new piece of music.

SuperCollider 140 (SourceForge, via @chris_carter_)

"Best of Twitter tunes album released" (New Scientist)

• [Anonymous]

  Reminds me of the soundtrack to any valve game.

• [takeshi]

  Very interesting! Speaking of experimental audio, I’m surprised Bull of Heaven haven’t gotten a mention from the Wire or Boing Boing. http://bullofheaven.com

  They’ve produced the longest downloadable pieces of music in existence. Several works are longer than a week, with the longest one (so far) at two months. They might also hold the record on the most number of tracks ever produced, and they’ve only been around for a couple of years. It’s totally ridiculous.

• [EmperorNasiGoreng]

  Cool! Surprisingly listenable. Track 1 is good, very Plastikman, but 6 is the standout for me.

  Bull of heaven – ludicrous :) has anyone ever actually downloaded the 117G mp3?

• [Anonymous]

  Or, taking a more accessible approach to generative music in 140 characters, this was released yesterday..

  http://www.intermorphic.com/tools/mixtikl/index.html

• [morgaen]

  Right. Have to get supercolliding…
  That was just what I needed this morning.

• [Cowicide]

  11. MICROMOOG for the win

  • [Anonymous]

    Thanks a lot! That’s a big compliment, considering the roster of other folks on this thing.

    If you’d like to hear more from me, I released an album in February (incidentally, this track from sc140 is included): http://lawrencecrow.com .

    Cheers!
    micromoog / Lawrence Crow