compositional tools for generating LilyPond data and rendering MIDI
soma-cli is a Node.js-based CLI, providing compositional tools for generating PDF scores and MIDI files of musical material.
Despite the abundance of emerging music projects taking advantage of the Web Audio API, few, if any, offer exportability to formats supported by modern Digital Audio Workstations. This seems to limit their application to that of novelty -- undoubtedly creative in exploring modern web technologies, but ultimately impractical for use in the workflow of professional musicians and digital composers.
The existing LilyPond project is already excellent at what it does: generating PDFs of musical scores and optionally, MIDI files of the output score. However, the syntax can be tedious for those who don't want to have to write markup language just to generate music.
soma-cli aims to provide a set of modular, declarative tools for generating musical
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material that can then be immediately integrated into a musician's mature process. It abstracts away common musical conventions and choices a musician may make, quickly providing raw materials to later be developed as the user sees fit. The intention is not to realize a system that writes music for you, but rather one that hopefully takes some of the tedious busy work out of making music.
The soma-cli chordGen minor eb 4 sort 6 command above, will generate the PDF below (or 6 other random 4-note chords from the Eb minor scale):
as well as an accompanying MIDI file of the exact same musical material.
The soma-cli printScale major all 16 fold command above, will generate the PDF output below:
as well as an accompanying MIDI file of the exact same musical material.
npm i -g soma-cliNote: you will also need to install LilyPond. soma-cli uses this for automatically compiling the output .ly files into .pdf and .midi.
Install LilyPond via Homebrew:
brew cask install lilypondsoma-cli currently only offers support for macOS. Extending support to Linux and Windows is relatively trivial, and will be added in future releases.
If you are receving a Cannot find module error upon installing and running soma-cli, you likely need to point your NODE_PATH to the correct directory. You can do so by adding the following line to your .bashrc or .zshrc, depending on your shell:
export NODE_PATH=/usr/local/lib/node_modulesUpon first running, soma-cli will create a soma-output directory in your Home directory (~). All output will be saved there.
Each rendering of music material will be saved as unique files (in .ly, .pdf and .midi formats), timestamped with the time of its rendering (in YYYYMMDD-HH-MM-SS format).
Prints a scale (or multiple scales), with several different parameters
soma-cli printScale <sType> <key> <quant> <tail>| Scale type | Argument |
|---|---|
| Major | major |
| Minor | minor |
| Key | Argument |
|---|---|
| C | c |
| Db | db |
| D | d |
| Eb | eb |
| E | e |
| F | f |
| Gb | gb |
| G | g |
| Ab | ab |
| A | a |
| Bb | bb |
| B | b |
| All keys (from C - B) | all |
soma-cli also accepts a user-defined sequence of keys, provided as a String, as its <key> argument. For example, 'c db e f' will print the keys C, Db, E and F, in that order. The key sequence can be of any length.
| Quantization | Argument |
|---|---|
| Whole note (1/1) | 1 |
| Half note (1/2) | 2 |
| Quarter note (1/4) | 4 |
| Eighth note (1/8) | 8 |
| Sixteenth note (1/16) | 16 |
| Thirty-second note (1/32) | 32 |
| Sixty-fourth note (1/64) | 64 |
| Hundred twenty-eighth note (1/128) | 128 |
Dotted notes can be indicated by adding a . after the integer argument (i.e. 8.)
| "Tail" | Argument |
|---|---|
| Rest | rest |
| Add the second to last note | fold |
| Add the first note (up an octave) | turnup |
Generate chords within a given key
soma-cli chordGen <type> <key> <count> <order> <num>Same scales are available as in the printScale command
Same keys are available as in the printScale command
An integer from 1 - the selected scale length. Unique chord permutations are limited based on the total number of notes in the selected scale, and number of notes selected per chord.
| Ordering | Argument |
|---|---|
| Sort notes alphabetically | sort |
| Sort notes in the order they were generated (i.e. random) | unsort |
A number from 1 - ∞. Unique chord permutations are limited based on the total number of notes in the selected scale.
See CHANGELOG for full details
Still in early gestation, the project will primarily be cared for and developed by its original maintainer (me). If you are interested in getting involved in the project, have issues or feedback, please reach out to me directly -- morera.computer@gmail.com
MIT © 2018 Nicholas Morera