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It was amazing to watch him write the flawless LISP code.

The project itself is interesting, but very niche.




For the purpose of the video, it was probably transcribed from existing code.


I practiced writing that code for about a day before I could write it flawlessly in one take. I guess, in a similar fashion to how a musician will practice using an instrument before going on stage.


And in a similar fashion, after a musician/coder practices enough, improvisation will come naturally. Thanks again for putting this together.


That only holds for some kinds of playing. How is your experience with improvisation? Can you manage quick changes? Or does it always tend to be a slow buildup of rythms harmonics and melodies?


Improvisation requires plenty of practice - http://www.amazon.com/Improvisation-Its-Nature-Practice-Musi...


Apparently my question is not clear. I'm asking this as a musician who does a lot of improvisation. The question is wether livecode improvisation is comparable.

The most enjoyable thing in improvisation, are sudden changes that can emerge in a good session. You typically have less than a second to react to such things. That is, less than a second to change rythm/feel, tempo, harmonics, volume, etc. More often than not all at the same time. Playing like that makes you feel part of the organism from which the music emerges, rather than a thinking actor in a rehearsed play. A feeling that I only find in dancing and other things I do with my wife.

I would really like to get into this livecoding stuff, and have tried ChuCK and SuperCollider. Clearly I never practiced enough to improvise in the live, but I'm wondering if it is at all possible in the sense I described above.




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