hyperscore

I have been playing around with HyperScore for a few days, spending a few minutes each time, trying to make sense out of it


The application is driven out of a PhD project of an MIT Media Lab student. It's purpose is to help kids (and musically ignorant adults) to create music in an intuitive manner. Download it here

It lets you create MIDI files which can be emailed to mobile devices (in the US) for a small fee - you cannot make an MP3 out of it, that might be available in the paid version - however, if you are using WinXP, there is hack to do it - I wrote about it in a previous post

Hyperscore lets a user write music by painting squiggly (or straight) lines to denote music thingies like motifs & harmony - while painting in the Melody window tool (see the tut for details), you can select a variety of instruments from drums to flute to electric guitar

It's pretty confusing if, like me, you don't know a motif from a score - but this tutorial helps you make sense of it

The Hyperscore forums www.h-lounge.com lists users' tones - it also has a web-based player so you can sample the sounds without downloading the composition files

indian blogger in lahore

An Indian blogger managed to do what I could not, living in Pakistan - photographing Lahore - he visited the historic city as part of a TV news team and wrote about meeting the drum beating dervishes and cringing at the sight of stripped chickens

It's funny at times - if you are Lahore fan or just someone who would like to know how an Indian sees Pakistan, do read it... the article and pics on Cooco's cafe are particularly nice


Every Thursday afternoon, qawwali singers from around Pakistan gather at the shrine of Data Ganj Bakhsh Hajveri to perform. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan has performed here, and it is said to be quite an experience...... The dynamics within each group were fascinating: if one guy had energy and fire in his singing, another had a soothing voice – they would harmonise, play off each other, and move into impassioned choruses.

It's a wonder that the men in Pakistan are so big and the autos[rickshaws] are so small," remarked my friend and colleague Dileep Premachandran as we walked the streets of Lahore.

The roads are conducive to this speed. Everywhere in Lahore we have seen wide, smooth roads -- with no garbage anywhere to be seen, unless we are in a self-deprecatory mood. Last night, when we got in, we were stunned by the lights of Lahore