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It is a very interesting way of making music. That being said I think something needs to be highlighted. For some reason, it sees itself as "low barrier to ent
by bossyTeacher 1y ago
It is a very interesting way of making music.
That being said I think something needs to be highlighted. For some reason, it sees itself as "low barrier to entry" relative to traditional ways of making music (ie partiture or an actual music instrument). How is possessing a phone, ability to read English and knowing how to program lower barrier to entry than picking an instrument like a piano and playing some music?
Clearly, Strudel assumes some knowledge of basic music theory (melody, rhythm and harmony) so having that, what is it exactly that makes Strudel lower barrier to entry.
Is Strudel assuming that learning to program is inherently easier than learning to play any instrument?
It would be nice if whatever assumptions it has could be made explicit as it's not the first time that I see [insert here software tool to make music] claim that it's a lower barrier to entry to make music without saying why.
Obviously, this being HN people will likely prefer software and algorithmic approaches to making music in your room as opposed to the traditional and more social way of learning with a teacher and a cohort of students.
- dhagz 1y agoReally, you don't need to know how to program to do Strudel. Like, yeah, it's a programming language - but it's not like you need to know the fundamentals of software engineering to write something with Strudel. You just start typing and keep what sounds good. There is no difference between figuring out the melody and harmony and all the other parts of the song - you just type and edit until it sounds good. You get immediate feedback since it's constantly looping and trivial to work in your changes. Compare that to piano: sure, you can walk up to a piano and plunk out a melody easy enough - but once you start venturing towards harmony and song the skill required ramps up exponentially. Suddenly you need to have both hands doing independent things, know where to place your fingers so that you can comfortably play the notes for the current beat and future beats (there's a ton of technique here and it's not the most intuitive thing ever - entire books are written to drill it), the list goes on.
- dist-epoch 1y agoThe lowest barrier to entry in music is something like GarageBand or FL Studio, not picking a piano.
- bossyTeacher 1y agoLowest barrier for who? Younger folks sure, older people not sure. Unless we assume we are all tech literate
- yaxu 1y agoI've worked with groups of 8 year olds and got them performing music together in less than an hour with tidal (strudel's older sibling). It's not easier than learning to play a drum but it's not really harder either. It's nothing like trying to teach kids an imperative programming language, it's not really in the same category as general purpose programming. It's designed for music making and you can make complex rhythms very quickly out of very simple parts.