mdgBookSVG2Kit

Here's an opportunity for one to "compose" double counterpoints of six measures (DCSM) and to author a Collection Book!!!

[Click on the image that appears on this page for an audio of the sample shown above.]

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This folder contains materials that allow the user to author a book containing a collection of Musical Dice Games (MDG) DCSM, generated based on the rules given in C.P.E. Bach's Einfall, einen doppelten Contrapunct in der Octave von sechs Tacten zu machen, ohne die Regeln davon zu wissen.

To creat a book, simply download (or clone: git clone https://github.com/justineuro/mdgBookSVG2Kit.git) this project to one's computer, unzip the downloaded archive, and at the command line inside the main folder (mdgBookSVG2Kit-main directory) issue the following command (pre-requisites: bash, abcmidi, abcm2ps, Ghostscript, Inkscape, and LaTeX):

bash HOWTO

Wait for a few minutes, i.e., until one gets the bash prompt again. The compiled book in PDF format (mdgBookSVG2v1.pdf), among other things, should be located in the res folder (subdirectory).

For the Impatient

To examine an example of a book (mdgBookSVG2v1.pdf) that was generated in a similar manner, simply left-click on the image below; to download a copy right-click (then "Save Link As ...") on the image:

(Note: To enable the MIDI audio links in the book, one should download mdgBookSVG2v1_1-midi.zip and unzip in the same directory in one's computer that contains the book, i.e., the book and midi files have to be in the same directory).

Important Parameters

To personalize one's generated book (in addition to the randomly generated DCMS), one may want to change some of the default parameters/values in the following (all three files are initially found in the main directory but are eventually moved into the res folder):

• mdgBookSVG2v1.tex - (main latex file) see lines 36-46; also, one may have to occassionally change the \topmargin and \textheight values on lines 298 and 299 of this file to ensure that each audio MIDI file will be on the same page as the corresponding musical score; these values affect the pages containing the 150 DCSMs and are different from the global values that appear on lines 30 and 31 near the top part of the file
• mdgBookSVG2v1-cover.tex- makes the cover of the book; see lines 36-46 of mdgBookSVG2v1.tex for default values
• hyperref.cfg - contains the \hypersetup keyvalues; one may wish to change the default value of pdfauthor, among other keyvalues; see the documentation for the TeX package hyperref for more information on these keyvalues

Once the desired changes have been made to the files above, one can then re-compile the book by issuing, in the res subdirectoy, the last set of commmands in the HOWTO file:

pdflatex -synctex=1 -interaction=nonstopmode -shell-escape mdgBookSVG2v1.tex
bibtex mdgBookSVG2v1.aux
pdflatex -synctex=1 -interaction=nonstopmode -shell-escape mdgBookSVG2v1.tex
pdflatex -synctex=1 -interaction=nonstopmode -shell-escape mdgBookSVG2v1.tex

Also, line 32 of the HOWTO is set by default so that each new book created contains 150 DCSMs. One may wish to change this number, as desired, to some other counting number. This has to be done before issuing the bash HOWTO command within the mdgBookSVG2Kit-main directory.

Similar Kits on GitHub

MDG Book kits similar to this may be found on related GitHub sites such as:

• mdgBookSVGKit - MDG based on Musikalisches Würferspiel, K. 516f, attributed to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• mdgBookSVG3Kit - One-Command Kit for Creating MDG (Kirnberger) Minuet-Trios Collection Book, the minuet-trios are generated based on the rules given in Der allezeit fertige Polonoisen- und Menuettencomponist (1757)
• mdgBookSVG4Kit - One-Command Kit for Creating MDG Minuet-Trios Collection Book, the minuet-trios are generated based on the rules given in Table pour composer des Minuets et des Trios à la infinie (also known as or Tabelle welcher aus man unzählige Menuetten und Trio für das Klavier herauswürfeln kann or Gioco Filarmonico o sia maniera facile per comporre un infinito numero di menuetti e trio, anche senza sapere il contrapunto)
• mdgBookSVG4itKit - MDG based on Gioco Filarmonico o sia maniera facile per comporre un infinito numero di menuetti e trio, anche senza sapere il contrapunto; similar to mdgBookSVG4Kit but arranged for three (3) instruments
• mdgBookSVG6Kit - One-Command Kit for Creating MDG Scottish Dances (Dance-Trios) Collection Book, each dance-trio is generated based on the rules given in Kunst, Schottische Taenze zu componiren, ohne musicalisch zu sein

Related Sites

• Opus Infinity - Collaborative work of Robbert Harms, Hein Moors, and Suus van Petegem whose goal is to unravel the mystery behind the tables used for generating MDGs. Site visitors can generate MDGs based on works of Kirnberger, Mozart, Stadler/Haydn, Bach, and Gerlach. Corresponding audio files (mid, ogg, and/or mp3) and image files (pdf or png) are also made available for listening, viewing, or downloading.
• Mozart - A site maintained by Marian Aldenhövel allows the visitor to generate a MDG (user-specified or randomly-generated) and the corresponding audio ( midi, wav) and image files (pdf, png) based on Musikalisches Würferspiel, K. 516f.
• Mozart - A site maintained by John Chuang that allows the site visitor to generate MDGs based on the work of Stadler/Haydn.
• mozart.zip - This is a Windows software (© 1995 VisionSoft) by John Chuang and Stephen Goodwin that generates MDG based on input from user and is available for free from Amaranth Publishing.
• Mozart - Musical Game in C K. 516f*, Mozart Studies Online - The site of Hideo Noguchi that offers an explanation linking Musikalisches Würferspiel, K. 516f and K. 294d (K. Anh. C 30.01).

Acknowledgements

My sincerest gratitude to E. Eugene Helm for the translation of Einfall; Chris Walshaw et al. for the ABC music notation; Jean-Francois Moine for abcm2ps and the accompanying examples, templates, and pointers for the appropriate use of these resources; Guido Gonzato for the ABC Plus Project and the abcmidi resources available there, more especially for the ABC resource book Making Music with ABC 2; James R. Allwright and Seymour Shlien for abcmidi source and binaries; Nils Liberg, Jan Wybren de Jong, Seymour Shlien et al. for EasyABC; Artifex, Inc. for Ghostscript v.10.00.0 (includes the ps2pdf converter); Inkscape v.1.2.2 for the tool for converting SVGs to PDFs for inclusion into LaTeX documents; Colomban Wendling et. al for Geany 2.0 IDE; and User:Martin H for his reply to a TeX/LaTeX Stack Exchange question on including SVGs into LaTeX documents. Special thanks also to JSTOR (in collaboration with Duke University Press and Yale University) and Opus Infinity and for making available the score for Einfall, International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) for making available Historisch-Kritische Beyträge zur Aufnahme der Musik Bd.3, and Amaranth Publishing for a copy of mozart.zip. Ditto to Machtelt Garrels for the book Bash Guide for Beginners, Vivek Gite for the book Linux Script Shell Tutorial, Steve Parker for the Unix/Linux Shell Cheatsheet. John Fogarty's GitHub Site: Latex CreateSpace BookCover and Peter Wilson's reply in TeX/LaTeX Stack Exchange on designing a book cover were sources of ideas, information, and materials for creating the book cover and title page, thanks to both of them. Many thanks to the Debian Project for the Debian 12 (Bookworm) GNU/Linux OS, TeXLive 2024 for the TeX distribution, to Brian Fox for Bash, and GitHub for its generosity in providing space for this project.

License

mdgBookSVG2Kit by Justine Leon A. Uro is marked with CC0 1.0 Universal