A symbolic, Lisp-based composition language powered by Csound.
Bogu is a micro-scale language designed for algorithmic and structural music composition.
As conceived, Bogu is primarily a tool for composition. Its conception was inspired by a desire to think about music in different ways, and Lisp provided a fascinating structure by which to do so. While its motivation was primarily theoretical and cognitive, I hope it can be a useful tool for making interesting music as well! It has some live-coding capability, and I'm personally interested in the unexpected behaviors its symbolic and combinatoric nature might lead to as it grows.
;; Load the 'saw' synthesizer into instrument slot 1
synth 1 saw
;; Reboot the audio engine to apply the new instrument
reboot
;; Define a raw data pool of pitch symbols
def my-arp [ eb2 eb3 bb3 eb4 f4 g4 c5 d5 a5 ]
;; Generate a structure (sarp - sustained arpeggio) with rhythmic values (st - sixteenth triplet; w - whole)
def my-sarp [ sarp st w my-arp ]
;; Test the structure in real-time with automated envelopes
i 1
live-loop my-loop [
sweep pan 0 100 [ sweep flt 75 30 [ my-sarp ] ]
sweep pan 100 0 [ sweep flt 30 75 [ transpose -2 [ my-sarp ] ] ]
]Bogu is lightweight and runs entirely locally.
1. Prerequisites (System Setup): Before running Bogu, you will need to install a few standard tools:
- SBCL: (Steel Bank Common Lisp) The core compiler.
- Csound: The DSP audio engine.
- Quicklisp: The library manager for Lisp (Bogu uses this to fetch external dependencies, in this case the regex library cl-ppcre).
- LilyPond (Optional): Required only if you want to use Bogu to generate PDF sheet music.
2. Clone: git clone https://github.com/goobhog/bogu.git
3. Boot: Open your terminal, navigate to the bogu folder, and run your Lisp compiler (sbcl).
4. Load: Type (load "boot.lisp") to spin up the Csound server, fetch required Lisp libraries, and drop into the Bogu prompt (bogu).
Bogu is still in an early stage. If you love Lisp, Csound, or generative music, check out the good first issue tags in the tracker. See CONTRIBUTING.md for details on how to run the test harness.