Re: Unrivalled composition program for the Mac!

: "Bol Processor BP2" is a MacOS program for music composition in MIDI, QuickTime Music and Csound environments. In 1997 it stood first (ex aequo with "Cecilia") in the Bourges international music software competition.

: We are pleased to announce the release of version 2.9.3. Astonishing sound examples by Dutch composer Harm Visser demonstrate this version's ability to produce sophisticated musical structures with a very small set of comprehensive "find-and-replace" rules putting together a formal grammar.

: Since the programming style is more declarative than procedural, musicians may express purely musical intentions while BP2's inference engine is working out the maths to achieve the desired output. Listen for example to <http://perso.wanadoo.fr/bel/music/figs/waves.mid>.

: In Computer Music Journal 22 (2) page 63, Visser commented:

: > I think that the development of more and more visual stuff curtails the
: > possibility of "thinking in your chair." Sometimes I develop grammars,
: > not at the computer, but sitting with a pencil and paper. With programs
: > [other than BP2] this is not possible: you must sit in front of the
: > computer. The difference lies in the type of attention that each software
: > environment demands on the part of the composer, and indeed reflects on
: > the way s/he thinks about music.

: The present release features new tools for serial music and a high-level "_tempo" operator controlling the time scales of superimposed musical fragments.

: The shareware version of BP2 may be downloaded from Info-Mac mirror sites <ftp://ftp.amug.org/pub/mirrors/info-mac/gst/midi/> or from the Bol Processor site itself <http://perso.wanadoo.fr/bel/music/index.html>. It contains a detailed documentation, a "quickstart" tutorial and many examples in various musical styles ranging from Western contemporary to South Indian classical.

: Bernard Bel <bel@kagi.com> (CNRS, France)
: Srikumar Subramanian <srikumar@krdl.org.sg> (University of Singapore)