New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: Billard – Generate music from ball collisions in 2D space

Show HN: Billard – Generate music from ball collisions in 2D space
34 by bambax | 5 comments on Hacker News.
Hello HN! Here's Billard. It combines music and physics into a unique creative tool, as I explore various unconventional methods for generating music. Most traditional music composition tools revolve around the idea of a repeatable pattern. Billard is a webapp that never repeats itself. It generates music automatically based on the collisions of balls in a 2D space. Collisions trigger notes (or chords) in a given key. One can add balls or move them (y-position is pitch); the app remembers its state between reloads; or it can be reset with the 'init' button on the top left. Gravity can be adjusted in real time to change the behavior of the balls. It owes a lot of inspiration to Brian Eno and Erik Satie (inventor of musique d'ameublement , or "furniture music"). Some may think the lack of pattern makes it not musical enough -- but this lets it be listened to —and watched— for a while without boredom. The webapp is made using plain JavaScript. (All SVG icons were made 'by hand'.) It uses Tone.js only for triggering piano samples. Beyond piano, it's MIDI-enabled and works well at slow speed with haunting, dark synth sounds. Hope you like it!

• Tweet
• Share
• Share
• Share
• Share