The Hierarchical Music Specification Language (HMSL) is a

music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Programming languages are described in terms of their Syntax (programming languages), syntax (form) and semantics (computer science), semantics (meaning), usually def ...

written in the 1980s by

Larry Polansky Larry Polansky (October 16, 1954 – May 9, 2024) was an American composer, guitarist, mandolinist, and academic. Biography The brother of the writer Steven Polansky, Polansky read mathematics and music at the University of California, Santa C ...

, Phil Burk, and

David Rosenboom David Rosenboom (born 1947 in Fairfield, Iowa) is a composer, performer, interdisciplinary artist, author, and educator known for his work in American experimental music. Rosenboom has explored various forms of music, languages for improvisation, ...

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University in Oakland, California is part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was relocated to Oakland in ...

. Written on top of

Forth Forth or FORTH may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''forth'' magazine, an Internet magazine * ''Forth'' (album), by The Verve, 2008 * ''Forth'', a 2011 album by Proto-Kaw * Radio Forth, a group of independent local radio stations in Scotl ...

, it allowed for the creation of real-time interactive music performance systems,

algorithmic composition Algorithmic composition is the technique of using algorithms to create music. Algorithms (or, at the very least, formal sets of rules) have been used to compose music for centuries; the procedures used to plot voice-leading in Western counterpo ...

software, and any other kind of program that requires a high degree of musical

informatics Informatics is the study of computational systems. According to the Association for Computing Machinery, ACM Europe Council and Informatics Europe, informatics is synonymous with computer science and computing as a profession, in which the centra ...

. It was distributed by Frog Peak Music, and runs with a very light

memory footprint Memory footprint refers to the amount of main memory that a program uses or references while running. The word footprint generally refers to the extent of physical dimensions that an object occupies, giving a sense of its size. In computing, t ...

(~1

megabyte The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Its recommended unit symbol is MB. The unit prefix ''mega'' is a multiplier of (106) in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one megabyte is one million bytes ...

) on

Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

and

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...

systems. Unlike

CSound Csound is a domain-specific computer programming language for audio programming. It is named Csound because it is written in the language C, in contrast to some of its predecessors. It is free and open-source software, released under the GNU Les ...

and other languages for audio

synthesis Synthesis or synthesize may refer to: Science Chemistry and biochemistry *Chemical synthesis, the execution of chemical reactions to form a more complex molecule from chemical precursors **Organic synthesis, the chemical synthesis of organi ...

, HMSL is primarily a language for making ''music''. As such, it interfaces with sound-making devices through built-in

MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface (; MIDI) is an American-Japanese technical standard that describes a communication protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, ...

classes. However, it has a high degree of built-in understanding of music performance practice,

tuning systems In music, there are two common meanings for tuning: * Tuning practice, the act of tuning an instrument or voice. * Tuning systems, the various systems of pitches used to tune an instrument, and their theoretical bases. Tuning practice Tun ...

, and

score SCORE may refer to: *SCORE (software), a music scorewriter program * SCORE (television), a weekend sports service of the defunct Financial News Network *SCORE! Educational Centers *SCORE International, an offroad racing organization *Sarawak Corrido ...

reading. Its main interface for the manipulation of musical

parameter A parameter (), generally, is any characteristic that can help in defining or classifying a particular system (meaning an event, project, object, situation, etc.). That is, a parameter is an element of a system that is useful, or critical, when ...

s is through the metaphor of

shape A shape is a graphics, graphical representation of an object's form or its external boundary, outline, or external Surface (mathematics), surface. It is distinct from other object properties, such as color, Surface texture, texture, or material ...

s, which can be created, altered, and combined to create a musical

texture Texture may refer to: Science and technology * Image texture, the spatial arrangement of color or intensities in an image * Surface texture, the smoothness, roughness, or bumpiness of the surface of an object * Texture (roads), road surface c ...

, either by themselves or in response to real-time or scheduled events in a score. HMSL has been widely used by composers working in algorithmic composition for over twenty years. In addition to the authors (who are also composers), HMSL has been used in pieces by

Nick Didkovsky Nick Didkovsky (born 22 November 1958) is a composer, guitarist, computer music programmer, and leader of the band Doctor Nerve.Dorsch He is a former student of Christian Wolff, Pauline Oliveros and Gerald Shapiro. Career Didkovsky formed Docto ...

The Hub The Hub may refer to: Places * The Hub, Bronx, an area of the South Bronx, New York, known for its convergence of subway and bus lines * The Hub (Edinburgh), former church in Edinburgh that is now home to the Edinburgh International Festival * T ...

James Tenney James Tenney (August 10, 1934 – August 24, 2006) was an American composer and music theorist. He made significant early musical contributions to plunderphonics, sound synthesis, algorithmic composition, process music, spectral music, microt ...

Tom Erbe Tom or TOM may refer to: * Tom (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name. Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Tom'' (1973 film), or ''The Bad Bunch'', a blaxploitation film * ''Tom'' (2002 film) ...

, and

Pauline Oliveros Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music. She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Center ...

. A

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

port of HMSL was developed by

under the name JMSL, and is designed to interface to the

JSyn JSyn ("Java Synthesis") is a free API for developing interactive sound applications in Java. Developed by Phil Burk and others, it is available on GitHub. JSyn has a flexible, unit generator-based synthesis and DSP architecture that allows dev ...

API. HMSL is licensed under the free

Apache License V2 The Apache License is a permissive free software license written by the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). It allows users to use the software for any purpose, to distribute it, to modify it, and to distribute modified versions of the software u ...

References

External links

HMSL Home PageHMSL source on GitHub
{{Computer music Audio programming languages