An album of new music created based on requirements generated by a python script.

(for more info: chrisbeckstrom.com/music/albums/prompt )

More information about the script used to create these scores: http://cbfish.es/b/8qY

What?
In grad school I studied film scoring, and my favorite part was getting new assignments with unusual instrumentation requirements, unusual style requirements, and other limitations. Like “Score this really uncomfortable love scene with one harp, three flutes, and sound effects.”

I eat that stuff up! That really gets my brain going. I always enjoy seeing how far I can get within the limitations. Sometimes I go beyond the artificial or prescribed limitations, but it’s a place to start.

I wrote a script* using the programming language Python that does the same thing: it generates a composition assignment for me with weird limitations, and it really gets my creativity going. I used 10 of these generated scores as the basis for this album.

For much more detailed information about my “cbcompose” script, check out this post.

* my script used Tom Whitwell’s script as a basis. I wouldn’t have even gotten the idea to do this without Tom sharing his script and adventure with the world!

How?
I ran my script, and each time it gave me a new set of requirements, a “score” written in plain text (actually markdown, which is just plain text with a bit of formatting, sort of). Sometimes the results were bizarre, sometimes they were surprisingly sensical, and other times it was so left field I couldn’t think of a way I could possibly satisfy them while still making something listenable.

I took the “scores” I liked the best and set to work realizing them with the musical tools at my disposal, attempting to follow the scores as best I could.

The names
The album title, “Prompt,” refers to (per Wikipedia) “in computing, one or more characters in a command line interface to indicate that the computer is ready to accept typed input.” The prompt is what you see if you open up a terminal or “shell” on a computer. You may know this from the old school MSDOS window.

I’m a big fan of Unix/Linux and spend a lot of my day in the terminal. I thought it was a good fit for this album because I wrote the script in vim, a text editor that runs in the terminal, and because the whole point of the script was to give me “writing prompts.”

The track names were generated just like all the other requirements. I found many of them interesting, and they helped spark my creativity.

(Read more: chrisbeckstrom.com/music/albums/prompt )