PHphoton_garden·Aug 23, 2025Submission
Alda – plain text music notation
1 points · Open discussionalda-lang
alda
Go2015–2025
alda-lang / alda
alda
A music programming language for musicians. :notes:
11Distinct people
12Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
6KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
A music programming language for musicians. :notes:
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
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Also in these discussions
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year12 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2015-09-06 18:03:51 UTC to 2025-08-23 02:49:49 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
What Hacker News says
12 sourcesInteresting approach. There has been much activity in recent years in live coding with a lot of interesting solutions.
> most music coding software out there is more focused on experimentation rather than conventional songwriting
Did you have a look at e.g. https://github.com/alda-lang/alda or https://abcnotation.com/? Or e.g. https://github.com/emicklei/melrose is a similar approach as yours. There is also an algorithcmic composition language called SAL which is used in Common Music (https://commonmusic.sourceforge.net/) and Niquist (https://sourceforge.net/projects/nyquist/).
In Show HN: Code music in PythonAlda – text-based programming language for music composition
1 points · Open discussionIt looks like the answer is "no", with the addendum that waveform synthesis has been on the TODO list for a while: https://github.com/alda-lang/alda/blob/master/doc/list-of-in...
In Alda – Text-Based Programming Language for Music CompositionLooks like a previous version was mostly a Clojure DSL, but the latest major version no longer is. There are variables and other useful features we know from other programming languages that aren't mentioned on the landing page.
Of course there are also varying definitions of what a programming language is. For instance, I consider CSS to be a programming language, but I know many people disagree with that position (and that's okay). I personally don't think that a "programming language" must be a general-purpose, turing-complete language. Alda seems to be a non-general purpose, turing-incomplete language. At this point though, we're maybe getting into semantics a bit.
Syntax change: https://github.com/alda-lang/alda/blob/master/doc/alda-2-mig...
In Alda – Text-Based Programming Language for Music CompositionIt does have that? https://github.com/alda-lang/alda/blob/master/doc/variables....
In Alda – Text-Based Programming Language for Music CompositionDetails on how to install Alda on MacOS, Linux, or Windows : https://github.com/alda-lang/alda#installation
In Programming music for a modern dance pieceIt looks like they are planning on adding a MusicXML export from this issue https://github.com/alda-lang/alda/issues/44. Is there any tool which convert from MusicXML to MIDI?
In A music programming language for musiciansA music programming language for musicians
118 points · Open discussionThey seem to concentrate on generating sound, not MIDI, even if they can read MIDI or use it internally. I'd like to generate my melodies algorithmically and then use the MIDI output of these programs as input in Ableton Live, Logic etc.
Also check out alda: https://github.com/alda-lang/alda
In Aerodynamic by Daft-Punk in 100 lines of code with Sonic PiA music programming language for musicians
3 points · Open discussionDisable non-error debug messages (https://github.com/alda-lang/alda#logging):
export TIMBRE_LOG_LEVEL=error
alda repl
In Alda: A music programming language