Hacker News: jarth9

New comment by jarth9 in "Petri Nets as a Music Sequencer"

jarth9 — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 23:27:49 +0000

"Parallel levels" is a nice way to put it. On a daw or drum machine, you have some sequence of notes or drum hits, that's one layer. And then you apply, say, 50% swing, that's another layer.

The "petri net" or "rhythm necklace" can compact this into a single layer of information. I think something similar can be achieved by using compound meter -- 12/8 instead of "4/4 with swung 1/8th notes" in standard notation, or using something other than the standard 16 steps on a drum machine.

My brain has always struggled with compound meter, somehow I just see a fraction should just be reduced. Much easier for me to imagine a grid that needs different levels of resolution in order to describe certain patterns.

Trying to learn independently, I've found much more difficulty in articulating why a given rhythm is so good, compared to the wealth of theory for understanding great melodies and harmonies.

So it's great to see others building tools and ideas around rhythm, it's a very deep and fun topic to explore.

New comment by jarth9 in "Petri Nets as a Music Sequencer"

jarth9 — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 16:22:48 +0000

Compared to other ways of writing down musical rhythm, I've found this to be a very nice balance of simplicity and expressiveness. Standard notation and drum sequencers have a lot of ambiguity (at least to my non-expert ear) when it comes to swing, microtiming, groove, and the other little things that we think of that make a rhythm attractive. Godfried T. Toussaint has given this idea a full academic exploration. He calls these Petri nets "necklaces", a term borrowed from combinatorics.

New comment by jarth9 in "Learning Music with Strudel"

jarth9 — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 16:47:07 +0000

Strudel is my favorite music coding environment. I mostly play on acoustic instruments but coding music has been really helpful as I try to learn music theory. Being able to just play in the browser without setup helps me focus on the music and less on fiddling with the tool. And it supports vim key bindings!