I was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Coming from an artistic family, I grew up learning about music production and image manipulation. And as an internet child (I was born in this millennium), I grew up chronically attached to the computer. I’ve developed most of my musical knowledge as a Hip-Hop producer and as a musical omnivore. However, nowadays, I’ve grown away from Hip-Hop to dive into UK Garage and Chicago Footwork specifically.
aking patterns and drum loops are my favorite things! I had a non-western percussion background,and using TidalCycles feels like wielding an algorithmic percussion instrument / sample chopper hybrid with a lot of space for surprises and ✨randomness✨, tickling my brain in all the right ways.
For me, Tidal is a super-fun environment that affords many possibilities and surprises, right from the outset of starting as a beginner. I enjoy the feeling of being able to make changes with intention and the musical surprises that arise from unexpected interactions with functions, misunderstandings and errors. I also like that it’s relatively easy to start making music even with limited experience of different functions and syntax.
For me TidalCycles is a compositional tool because it allows me to make the complex music I’ve always dreamed of and do it very quickly, and more importantly, it allows me to perform it by myself in any circumstance. I’m particularly interested in the ability to create complex iterative structures and the flexibility it gives you to manipulate the sound. Sometimes, when I finish writing one of my endless scripts, I’ll run it and spend some time listening to what Tidal comes up with. I’m fascinated by the code’s ability to generate unexpected structures all the time.
I’m Lina, I’m a composer and live coder, I see myself as a long-distance runner in live coding. I’m not a fast learner, but I’ve always been enthusiastic to see and to analyse other live coders’ techniques, especially in live sessions (it’s not the same to see a streamed or pre-recorded session, than to feel the space and share it with the live coder), that’s probably why I’ve organised many performances, workshops, Algoraves and projects around live coding and Tidal.
I think the main thing that I like about Tidal for me is working, transforming, shaping and shifting patterns, and listening to the changes in real time. I recently co-ran a workshop with Iván Paz, Alex McLean and Dave Griffiths in Sheffield and at Hangar in Barcelona (we did it remotely at the same time- thanks to On The Fly for having us :) ). We talked a lot about patterns in the context of other traditions, like weaving. To me, it’s interesting to think about computer music in this way.
I love the community around live coding and TidalCycles. What inspires me is how welcoming the community is and how simple it is to become involved. If you’re new to TidalCycles there’s a large community keen to help. In terms of TidalCycles itself I really enjoy the interactive aspect of the language, something that traditional DAWs lack. Live coding allows me to express myself musically much faster than a DAW can offer. I also find it easier to make creative decisions with Tidal whereas using a DAW often leads to overthinking and never actually finishing any projects.
What I like about live coding with TidalCycles is that I can improvise and change the pattern flexibly per-part basis (connections, d1, d2, d3). It also combines musical and coding ideas at a high level.
There are many things that inspire me.. I generally like the minimalistic, text-based approach to music making, where everything is visible at all times on one screen. When I started making music with an MPC1000, menu-diving was a key part of the process. A similar thing can be said about DAWs like Ableton (and Push), where there are many different UI layers and hidden items. Combining Tidal’s simplistic interface with a terse and nestable syntax, it becomes a powerful tool full of rabbit holes to explore. Also, I like the fact that it is open source and thus hackable + the community around it is really refreshing.
I find the way Tidal allows me to approach music in a structural way fascinating. I like it’s concise but still verbose syntax, especially combined with the mini-syntax. When I make music on my own, I like to start out with simple rhythmic patterns and start to layer them with different versions of themselves (slower & lower / faster & higher / ..). Now apply the MI clouds effect and you can have fun for hours adjusting the parameters! I also like to use a traditional game controller and map the controls to conditional functions or effects in the code. For example, playing a drum pattern twice as fast when I press the ‘A’ button, or adjust the pan according to a joystick. I like the thought that I am programming the functionality of a game live, while I am also playing it.
Although I am not a developer and have no knowledge of programming at all, I was able to get into TC very quickly and find the approach very intuitive. In particular, I now find it easy to create complete rhythmic structures. Sometimes I don’t know exactly what I’m doing, but some results speak for themselves. This fascinates and motivates me, even after three years. Tidal never gets boring. Besides, I have always been interested in new approaches and new musical territory. Live coding offers a great and ever-expandable field of experimentation.
When I met it for the first time everything was a wow, the cycle concept, function composition, mini-notation, patternization… Nowadays I’m still able to find inspiration watching other people livecoding or reading the posts on tidal club, especially when there are custom functions listed.
TidalCycles taught me a lot about music and improvisation. I used not to care too much about rhythm and structures when improvising. The emphasis that Tidal is putting on rhythm can actually be beneficial. It pushes you to explore some aspects of music you might be neglecting: complex time signatures, intriguing rhythms, etc… I also like the fact that it feels like a “metaphoric” language to talk about music that ends up taking shape while typing on the keyboard. Making music with Tidal, you quickly start to put a name on specific patterning concepts.
I have no background in computer science, but I find the syntax [of Tidal] suprisingly intuitive. Also, by comparison with SuperCollider, you can get a lot of music going with very little typing.
The [Tidal] community is lovely, they give/have given me a lot and I like to return that where I can. The project allows for such vast and varied possibilities in learning and creation, and that’s what keeps me interested. The focus on inclusivity, sharing and generally “anti-gatekeeping” is a huge drawcard for me too.
