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Videos

Video tutorials on slippery chicken are hosted on the slipperychickenvids YouTube channel and are embedded below.

01. Intro to algorithmic composition and slippery chicken

In this first online video tutorial, Michael Edwards provides a background to algorithmic composition in general and discusses slippery chicken's fundamental features in this context.

The music from the opening is taken from the work "altogether disproportionate", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2010.

02. Starting up slippery chicken

This tutorial covers the basics of starting slippery chicken from the Lisp prompt, focusing on the use of Emacs and SLIME.

The music from the opening is taken from the work "who says this, saying it's me", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2009.

03. The "mini" - Making a Piece with Minimal Code

This tutorial covers the core parameters of the make-slippery-chicken function and shows how to produce a complete piece with minimal code.

The Lisp code seen in this tutorial can be downloaded in the following files:

The music from the opening is taken from the work "tramontana", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2002-2004.

04. Pitches

This tutorial covers the global tuning options and note-naming conventions in slippery chicken.

The Lisp code seen in this tutorial can be downloaded in the following files:

The music from the opening is taken from the work "don't flinch", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2010-2011.

05. Rhythms

This tutorial covers how to indicate rhythms in slippery chicken, including the symbols used for basic durations, rests, dots, ties, and beams, as well as how to create tuplets.

The Lisp code seen in this tutorial can be downloaded in the following files:

The music from the opening is taken from the work "for Magda Cordell, if she'll have it", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2007.

06. The rthm-seq object

This tutorial gets into more detail about how to construct a rthm-seq object, the primary building-block in the slippery chicken approach. It addresses measures and time signatures as well as assigning pitch curves and articulations/dynamics etc. to individual rhythm sequences.

The Lisp code seen in this tutorial can be downloaded in the following files:

The music from the opening is taken from the work "altogether disproportionate", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2010.

07. Other core features

This tutorial addresses a few of the remaining core features in slippery chicken, including the addition of titles and time signatures to scores, creating staff groupings in the printable output, adding multiple pitch sets and multiple sections to a piece, and specifying the names and paths of output files.

The Lisp code seen in this tutorial can be downloaded in the following files:

The music from the opening is taken from the work "who says this, saying it's me", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2009.

08. set-limits-high and set-limits-low

This tutorial demonstrates the use of the set-limits- parameters within the make-slippery-chicken function for confining and shaping the pitch registers of individual instruments as well as of the ensemble as a whole ("tessitura shaping") over the course of the piece.

The Lisp code seen in this tutorial can be downloaded in the following files:

The music from the opening is taken from the work "tramontana", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2002-2004.

09. Chords

This tutorial covers how to indicate where chords are to be placed in the piece, and discusses a number of the predefined chord functions in slippery chicken.

The Lisp code seen in this tutorial can be downloaded in the following files:

The music from the opening is taken from the work "don't flinch", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2010-2011.

10. The fibonacci-transitions and remix-in functions

This tutorial covers the features of the fibonacci-transition, fibonacci-transitions (plural), and remix-in functions, and demonstrates their use as algorithms to generate the set- and rthm-seq-maps.

The Lisp code seen in this tutorial can be downloaded in the following files:

The music from the opening is taken from the work "for Magda Cordell, if she'll have it", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2007.

11. slippery chicken and CLM - Basics

This tutorial introduces the clm-play method, which is used to create sound files from the data of a given slippery-chicken object.

The Lisp code seen in this tutorial can be downloaded in the following files:

The music from the opening is taken from the work "altogether disproportionate", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2010.

12. sc and CLM - Frequently used arguments

This video addresses some of the more frequently used arguments to clm-play, including those which affect incremental starting points, start and end points within a sound file, reverb amount, and sample-rate conversion quality.

The Lisp code seen in this tutorial can be downloaded in the following files:

The music from the opening is taken from the work "who says this, saying it's me", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2009.

13. sc and CLM - Output format arguments

This tutorial covers the most useful output format arguments available to the clm-play method, including the number of channels, header and data types, and sample rate.

The Lisp code seen in this tutorial can be downloaded in the following files:

The music from the opening is taken from the work "tramontana", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2002-2004.

14. sc and CLM - Independent tape parts

This video covers how to create independent tape parts using sc and CLM, including options for excluding tape parts from MIDI and score output.

The Lisp code seen in this tutorial can be downloaded in the following files:

The music from the opening is taken from the work "don't flinch", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2010-2011.

15. What slippery chicken does and how it does it.

This more informative than demonstrative video gets into some of the inner workings of the slippery chicken software itself.

The music from the opening is taken from the work "for Magda Cordell, if she'll have it", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2007.

16. The note-selection algorithm

In this presentation, Michael explains in more detail the inner-workings of slippery chicken's automatic pitch selection and distribution algorithm.

The music from the opening is taken from the work "altogether disproportionate", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2010.

17. Output

This brief informative tutorial covers the basics of the four output methods: midi-play, cmn-display, write-lp-data-for-all, and clm-play.

The music from the opening is taken from the work "who says this, saying it's me", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2009.

18. chop

This video discusses slippery chicken's chop method, which is used as part of the technique of intraphrasal looping.

The Lisp code seen in this tutorial can be downloaded in the following files:

The music from the opening is taken from the work "tramontana", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2002-2004.

19. Intraphrasal Looping

In this brief video, Michael describes how to combine use of the "chop" and "fibonacci-transitions" methods to create "intraphrasal looping", a slippery technique for generating musical structures that gradually progress while looping short fragments locally.

The Lisp code seen in this tutorial can be downloaded in the following files:

The music from the opening is taken from the work "don't flinch", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2010-2011.

20. L-systems

This video offers a background to Lindenmayer systems in general and introduces the l-for-lookup class, which allows the use of Lindenmayer systems as a compositional process in slippery chicken.

The Lisp code seen in this tutorial can be downloaded in the following files:

The music from the opening is taken from the work "for Magda Cordell, if she'll have it", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2007.

21. Post-Generation Data Editing

In this video, Michael explains the basics of slippery chicken's numerous post-generation data editing methods and gives examples of a few of these in use.

The Lisp code seen in this tutorial can be downloaded in the following files:

The music from the opening is taken from the work "altogether disproportionate", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2010.

22. Rhythm Chains

This video provides a basic introduction to slippery chicken's very powerful "rthm-chain" class, which provides a fully algorithmic means of generating musical compositions.

The Lisp code seen in this tutorial can be downloaded in the following files:

The music from the opening is taken from the work "who says this, saying it's me", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2009.

23. Permutations

In this video, Michael explores a number of the methods available for generating permutations of data lists, and uses these to create mini compositions.

The Lisp code seen in this tutorial can be downloaded in the following files:

The music from the opening is taken from the work "tramontana", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2002-2004.

24. Score Layout I

This is the first of two videos that present the most common aspects of score layout available in slippery chicken. In this video, Michael covers adding titles, the composer, and rehearsal letters, and indicating instrument order and staff groups.

The Lisp code seen in this tutorial can be downloaded in the following files:

The music from the opening is taken from the work "don't flinch", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2010-2011.

25. Score Layout II

This is the second of two videos addressing various functions available in slippery chicken for specifying score layout.

The Lisp code seen in this tutorial can be downloaded in the following files:

The music from the opening is taken from the work "for Magda Cordell, if she'll have it", composed by Michael Edwards using slippery chicken in 2007.