Keynote - A Language and Extensible Graphics Editor for Music

Keynote is a programming language for manipulating and generating music with MIDI-compatible equipment. It was designed for and in the style of the UNIX software system, as an application-specifrc "little language" and interactive shell. Most obviously used for algorithmic music composition, Keynote also serves as a more general utility for non-realtime and realtime MIDI data manipulation. By adding only a few functions to the language, a graphic interface was recently added. This built-in graphic interface did not, however , build-in any particular user interface. All the nested pop-up menus and operations of a graphical music editor have been implemented in the Keynote language itself. The result is an extensible tool, similar in spirit to the Lisp-based extensibility of emacs, easily modified and enhanced by end users.