OpenMusic

For other uses, see OpenMusic (disambiguation).

OpenMusic logo.

OpenMusic (OM) is an object-oriented visual programming environment for musical composition based on Common Lisp. It may also be used as an all-purpose visual interface to Lisp programming.

History

OpenMusic is a descendant of PatchWork, a computer-assisted composition environment for the Macintosh first developed at IRCAM in the early 1990s. Versions of OpenMusic are currently available for Mac OS X (PowerPC and Intel), Windows. The source code has been released under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).

A typical OM program or 'patch'.

Programming in OpenMusic

Programs in OpenMusic are created by connecting together (a process known as 'patching') either pre-defined or user-defined modules, in a similar manner to graphical signal-processing environments such as Max/MSP or Pd. Unlike such environments, however, the result of an OpenMusic computation will typically be displayed in conventional music notation, which can then be directly manipulated, if so required, via an editor. A substantial body of specialized libraries has been contributed by users, which extends OpenMusic's functionality into such areas as constraint programming, aleatoric composition, spectral music, minimalist music, music theory, fractals, music information retrieval, sound synthesis etc.

A few Composers using OpenMusic

• Alain Bancquart
• Brian Ferneyhough
• Joshua Fineberg
• Karim Haddad
• Eres Holz
• Michael Jarrel
• Fabien Lévy
• Fang Man
• Philippe Manoury
• Tristan Murail
• Kaija Saariaho

References

• OpenMusic : Un langage visuel pour la composition musicale assistée par ordinateur, Carlos Agon, PhD Thesis, IRCAM -- Univ. Paris 6.
• The OM Composer's Book 1, ed. Carlos Agon, Gérard Assayag and Jean Bresson, 2006, Editions Delatour/IRCAM; ISBN 2-7521-0027-2.
• The OM Composer's Book 2, ed. Jean Bresson, Carlos Agon and Gérard Assayag, 2008, Editions Delatour/IRCAM.
• Fabio Selvafiorita's Thesis in Italian, Selvafiorita, Fabio, http://www.fabioselvafiorita.com/research.htm.

External links

• OpenMusic Homepage, with full OM class and function reference, tutorials and instructions on building OM from source.
• IRCAM