Uzulangs: a Community of Musical Pattern Languages

Alex McLean; Felix Roos; Matthew Kaney; Martin Gius; Diego Villaseñor; Dagur Kristinn Sigurðsson Björnsson; Jack Armitage; Julian Rohrhuber

Image credit: Alex McLean; Felix Roos; Matthew Kaney; Martin Gius; Diego Villaseñor; Dagur Kristinn Sigurðsson Björnsson; Jack Armitage; Julian Rohrhuber

• oral
• Paper PDF link
• Presence: in person
• Duration: 16
• Type: long
• Session: Creative Coding

Abstract:

The family of Uzulangs are introduced, being the family of free/open source live coding environments that have grown around TidalCycles. The question of what makes an Uzulang is raised, and addressed in terms of the representation of pattern as pure functions of rational time, expressive ‘mini-notation’ short-hand for rhythm, combinator libraries of functions for transforming pattern, in-code visualisations for live feedback, and monadic and monad-like means of aligning combining patterns. Existing Uzulangs are enumerated, with the aims and peculiarities of a few of them explained. The relation between Uzulangs and the communities of practice growing around them is then reflected upon.