Making use of native MIDI libraries in Java, White Noise is an experimental system for generating "random"[citation needed] "music".[citation needed]
For an author with a passion for procedural generation and music theory, White Noise exists to express and practice concepts from both schools, with the interest of producing something that is pleasant and perhaps even interesting to listen to.
The program uses data structures of Time Signatures and Chords.
A time signature is used in White Noise to decide when to play notes.
We represent a time signature with a list of evenly-spaced segments of a bar.
Example:
_ _ _ _
In each entry, a non-zero value represents the possibility that a note can be played in that space of time.
Example: (Swing Feel)
■ _ ■ ■ _ ■ ■ _ ■ ■ _ ■
Finally each entry has a value indicating the likelihood that a note should be played in that space. (Lower values have a higher chance of being played.)
Example:
1 _ 3 1 _ 3 1 _ 3 1 _ 3
Chords in White Noise are a base (root) note, and a list of intervals which, from being offset from the root, can be interpreted as the remaining pitch classes to make up the chord.
Example: (C Major)
| Root | MIDI Value |
|---|---|
| C0 | 0 |
| E0 | 4 |
| G0 | 7 |
These notes are then offset by some number of octaves (multiples of twelve in MIDI) and played in time according to the Time Signature.
A single time signature for a piece is fine, but only one chord would be boring. White Noise uses Chord Progressions to change between chords and therefore available pitches. It plays through one iteration of the Time Signature bar, using notes from the first Chord in the progression, and then repeats the bar again with the next chord.
So finally we have a Piece which is composed of a Time Signature, some Chords and a Chord Progression.
1 8 4 8 2 8 4 8
| Label | Root | Interval 1 | Interval 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| DMaj | 2 | 4 | 7 |
| AMaj | 9 | 4 | 7 |
| Bmin | 11 | 3 | 7 |
| F#min | 6 | 3 | 7 |
| GMaj | 7 | 4 | 7 |
DMaj, AMaj, Bmin, F#min, GMaj, DMaj, GMaj, AMaj