Very basic introduction to how to create MIDI files using Python. Used in a London Python Code Dojo and all the teams created different programs.

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MIDI Madness
Carles Pina
carles@pina.cat
April 2013, Python Code Dojo

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Story
● Hackday at Mendeley
● Classic “hack”:
– data -> graphic (bars, maps, animation)
● My idea: play with some other sense
– data -> sound
● (so this time is not smelly like the “USB
Olfactory Notifications”)

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Problem
● IANAM
● Anagram of “mania”
● Acronym of:
– I Am Not A Musician
● I didn't do any nice music

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Story of that day
● 10:00: I'll do the “The Music of your Library”
● 11:30: I'll do “The Sound of your Library”
● 13:00: I've done “The Noise of your library”

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What is MIDI (from Wikipedia)
● MIDI (Music Instrument Digital Interface) is a
technical standard that describes a protocol,
digital interface and connectors and allows a
wide variety of electronic musical instruments,
computers and other related devices to
connect and communicate with one another.

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What MIDI (casual definition)

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Which data I could have used in my
experiment
● Documents Readership
● Each user's library document has:
– Number of readers
– Number of different countries

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Idea
Readers
Countries
Document 1
Document 2
Document 3
Document 2
Document 3

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● It has two dimensions
● Sounds:
– pitch
– duration
– rythm
– instruments?

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Idea
Note pitch
Note
duration
Document 1
(high duration, low pitch)
Document 2
(low duration,
low pitch)
Document 3
(high pitch, low duration)

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Demo(s)

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Prior art
● Always investigate the prior art after resolving
the problem :-)
● Youtube video
● Vi Art

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Ideas... represent in music:
● PI/e digits
● Fractals
● Fibonacci/...
● Any CSV file to sound
● y=f(x) and create... music (*)
● Text to sound! (enter a phrase, listen the
music of it)
● Play! (how different languages sound?
Different functions? Different numbers?)

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y=f(x)
● (Too difficult for a Dojo?)
● Enter a seed
● Power/root: accelerates/deaccelerates
● Add/rest: higher/lower pitch
● etc.

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Possible implementation
● https://github.com/cpina/LondonPythonCodeDojo-music
or
● http://pinux.info/DojoMidi
● On Linux: timidity to play .mid files
● On Mac: Quicktime7 (someone told me today)
● On Windows: Winamp