For my ICM final project, which I am calling Text2Drum, I seek to explore the rhythmic qualities of language. Text2Drum will read text from a file, and convert each letter of the text to a drum/percussion that I will assign to correspond to each letter of the alphabet. Spaces and punctuation marks will be interpreted as a musical rest, that is to say a period of silence. The program will also display the text on screen while playing back the drum samples. In using Text2Drum to generate percussion patterns, I aim to translate text into a new musical language and seek to reclaim the rhythmic nature of language found in oral communication that is lost in written language.
I also hope to make a second version of Text2Drum which will be interactive, which will have an interface that will allow a user to type in text that Text2Drum will then convert into a rhythmic pattern.