Rubato

A Music Input and Performance System

Chris Tham
Computer Science Honours
Honours Thesis 1987


Basser Department of Computer Science
Madsen Building F09, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia

Click here for the entire thesis formatted as a single document.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgements
• Rubato
• 1 PRELUDE AND OVERTURE
  • 1.1 The Problem of Music Representation and Music Performance on Computers
  • 1.2 A brief overview of the Rubato system
    • 1.2.1 The Language
    • 1.2.2 The performance system
  • 1.3 The Rubato Programming Environment
    • 1.3.1 Compiler
    • 1.3.2 Assembler
    • 1.3.3 Linker
    • 1.3.4 Interpreter
    • 1.3.5 Debugger
    • 1.3.6 Player
• 2 GENESIS AND METAMORPHOSIS
  • 2.1 Goals
  • 2.2 Assumptions
    • 2.2.1 Locality and Homogeneity
    • 2.2.2 Repetition and Hierarchy
    • 2.2.3 Algorithms and Execution Flow
    • 2.2.4 Alternative representations
  • 2.3 The Approach
    • 2.3.1 Concept of a note with attributes
    • 2.3.2 Default attributes
    • 2.3.3 Grouping of notes into phrases and chords
    • 2.3.4 Algorithmic control flow
• 3 LITERATURE REVIEW
  • 3.1 A Comparative Survey of Music Input Languages and Computer-based Music Performance Systems
  • 3.2 Music N
    • 3.2.1 Music V
    • 3.2.2 Summary
  • 3.3 MUSPEC
    • 3.3.1 Stylistic Control Information Block
      • 3.3.1.1 Tonal System
      • 3.3.1.2 Root Tone Scale
      • 3.3.1.3 Root Tone Cycles
      • 3.3.1.4 Harmonic Structure
      • 3.3.1.5 Harmonic Continuity
      • 3.3.1.6 Rhythmic Groupings
      • 3.3.1.7 Melody
    • 3.3.2 Selector Control Function Block
    • 3.3.3 Summary
  • 3.4 MIR
    • 3.4.1 Note attributes
    • 3.4.2 MIR instructions
    • 3.4.3 Summary
  • 3.5 PILE
    • 3.5.1 PILE instructions
    • 3.5.2 Summary
  • 3.6 SSSP Score Editing Tools
    • 3.6.1 ludwig
    • 3.6.2 Scored
    • 3.6.3 sced
    • 3.6.4 scriva
    • 3.6.5 Summary
  • 3.7 INV
    • 3.7.1 INV Programming
    • 3.7.2 Summary
  • 3.8 Play
    • 3.8.1 PLAY Components
    • 3.8.2 Summary
  • 3.9 Ford-Columbia Input Language
    • 3.9.1 Elements of FCL
    • 3.9.2 Summary
  • 3.10 Plaine and Easie & ALMA
    • 3.10.1 Plain & Easie
    • 3.10.2 ALMA
    • 3.10.3 Summary
  • 3.11 Adagio
  • 3.12 Conclusions
• 4 A TUTORIAL TO THE RUBATO LANGUAGE
  • 4.1 INTRODUCTION
  • 4.2 STARTING OUT
  • 4.3 A SIMPLE EXAMPLE
  • 4.4 JAZZING IT UP
  • 4.5 DELAYS AND DURATIONS
    • 4.5.1 Delays
    • 4.5.2 Arithmetical expressions
    • 4.5.3 Duration
    • 4.5.4 Delays and Tempos
  • 4.6 LOUDNESS (or VELOCITY)
  • 4.7 SOME OTHER ATTRIBUTES
  • 4.8 CHANGING DEFAULT ATTRIBUTES
  • 4.9 WAYS OF COMBINING NOTES
    • 4.9.1 Phrases
    • 4.9.2 Chords
  • 4.10 NAMING THINGS
  • 4.11 VARIABLES AND CONTROL FLOW
    • 4.11.1 Variables
    • 4.11.2 Control Flow
      • 4.11.2.1 if-then-else
      • 4.11.2.2 while-do
      • 4.11.2.3 do-while
      • 4.11.2.4 repeat
    • 4.11.3 A control flow example
  • 4.12 PROCEDURES & TEMPLATES
    • 4.12.1 Procedures
    • 4.12.2 Templates
  • 4.13 TYING IT ALL TOGETHER
• 5 A SPECIFICATION OF THE RUBATO LANGUAGE
  • 5.1 Fundamental objects (types) of the language
    • 5.1.1 Number
    • 5.1.2 Note
    • 5.1.3 Phrase
    • 5.1.4 Chord
    • 5.1.5 Envelope
    • 5.1.6 Variable
    • 5.1.7 Procedure
    • 5.1.8 Function
    • 5.1.9 Template
    • 5.1.10 Expression
    • 5.1.11 Statement
  • 5.2 Lexical conventions
    • 5.2.1 Identifiers (Names)
    • 5.2.2 Keywords
    • 5.2.3 Constants
    • 5.2.4 Pitch Values
    • 5.2.5 Special characters
  • 5.3 Arithmetical expressions
  • 5.4 The Specification of A Note
  • 5.5 Statements
    • 5.5.1 if-then-else
    • 5.5.2 repeat-do
    • 5.5.3 while-do
    • 5.5.4 do-while
    • 5.5.5 tempo
    • 5.5.6 default
    • 5.5.7 Assignment
    • 5.5.8 Template and Procedure Calls
    • 5.5.9 return
  • 5.6 Identifiers and Definitions
  • 5.7 Scoping rules
    • 5.7.1 Global definitions
    • 5.7.2 External definitions
  • 5.8 conductor
  • 5.9 Compiler control lines or pragmas
    • 5.9.1 $key
    • 5.9.2 $default
  • 5.10 Format of a source file
• 6 A SPECIFICATION OF THE RUBATO MACHINE
  • 6.1 Introduction
  • 6.2 Rubato Machine Organization
    • 6.2.1 The Code and Data stores
    • 6.2.2 Data types
    • 6.2.3 The Stacks
      • 6.2.3.1 The expression stack
      • 6.2.3.2 The environment stack
      • 6.2.3.3 The activation stack
      • 6.2.3.4 The envelope stack
      • 6.2.3.5 Implementation of the stacks
    • 6.2.4 Attribute registers
    • 6.2.5 The Instruction Execution Unit(s)
    • 6.2.6 The MIDI queue
  • 6.3 Rubato Machine Instructions
    • 6.3.1 Relative Procedure Level
    • 6.3.2 Object addressing
    • 6.3.3 Procedure or function calling
    • 6.3.4 Procedure or function calling
    • 6.3.5 Notes and chords
• 7 THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE RUBATO SYSTEM
  • 7.1 The rc compiler
  • 7.2 The rx executor
  • 7.3 Note generation
• 8 FINALE: A ROOM WITH A VIEU
• A1 EBNF GRAMMAR OF THE Rubato LANGUAGE
• A2 INSTRUCTION SET REFERENCE
• A3 Summary and Description of MIDI
  • A3.1 INTRODUCTION TO MIDI
  • A3.2 MIDI NETWORK ARCHITECTURE
    • A3.2.1 The Physical Interconnection
    • A3.2.2 The Code Specification
    • A3.2.3 MIDI Command Types
    • A3.2.4 Format of MIDI commands
• A4 SAMPLE PROGRAMS
• Footnotes
• References

List of Figures

1. example1.r - a simple example
2. Another version of example1.r
3. example2.r - the C major scale
4. example3.r - Jumping up octaves
5. example4.r - the A major scale
6. example5.r - the A major scale
7. example6.r - Notes with delays
8. example7.r - Specifying velocities
9. example8.r - Patch and channels
10. Changing Default Attributes
11. Changing Pitch defaults
12. example9.r - Chords and Phrases
13. example10.r - Namings and block structuring
14. example11.r - Variable declarations and assignments
15. example12.r - Control flow
16. over.r - Over The Rainbow
17. MIDI Status Byte Format

    List of Tables

    1. CHANNEL COMMANDS
    2. SYSTEM EXCLUSIVE COMMAND
    3. SYSTEM COMMON COMMANDS
    4. REAL TIME COMMANDS

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       Next: Acknowledgments
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       Created on Sat Feb 21 20:21:24 1998 using a perl script called m2h from original troff mm document.
       Click here to download a copy of m2h.
       
       Author: Chris Tham
       Email: Chris_Tham@hp.com