Performing with Patterns of Time

Music is a time-based art form often characterized by patternings; manipulations of sequences over time. Composers and performers may think in terms of patterns, although the structure of patterned sequences is often not made explicit in musical notation. This chapter explores how musical sequences can be created and transformed in real-time performance through patterning functions. Topics related to the use of algorithms for pattern making are discussed, and two systems are introduced—ixi lang and TidalCycles, as high-level and expressive minilanguages for musical pattern. These two systems are constrained, purpose-built live coding systems, and with such systems has come rethinking about the computer language design and purpose, where performance and the conception of the code as something that be sculpted in real time is given a high priority.