OpenMusic Reference
Chapter 7. Rhythm Trees
Table of Contents
Rhythm trees are a special type of nested list used to represent rhythmic structures, primarily for use in the Voice object. They are an alternative to traditional music notation. The rhythm tree is inspired by the structure of LISP itself, a series of nested lists. The advantage of a rhythm tree is that it represents the totality of the hierarchical relationship of traditional rhythmic notation (measures divided in to groups divided into beats divided into notes) in a numeric form, unlike the simple lists of durations and onsets of the Chord-seq object, for instance. The disadvantage of the rhythmic tree is that the symbolic form, while very convenient for computers, is somewhat less convenient for human beings. They can contain ridiculous numbers of parentheses that will test the eyesight of even the most assiduous user. Making sense of rhythm trees requires a complete understanding of their structure. Users are therefore advised to complete the tutorial on rhythm trees and then come back to this section for the most complete picture possible.
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