‘Domifare sisidomi’ means ‘live code’ in solresol, which is the first ever ‘constructed language’. That is, it was the first ever language to be intentionally designed. And, as this was a new idea, the creator, François Sudre, apparently felt like new syllables were needed. He used musical tones.
This last weekend, I played at an algorave in Newcastle with tuba and algorithms. The idea was to use a foot pedal to control things, but (despite working perfectly at home), it was non-responsive when the gig started, so my set included some live coding. Live coding with one hand while holding a tuba is not terribly efficient and it’s impossible to live code and play tuba at the same time . . . unless, playing the tuba is the live coding.
And thus, I’ve now specified an ixi lang-like language, domifare sisidomi. It’s a bit sparse, but there’s only so much a player can be expected to remember.
All variables are loops. There are three built in: solfasire, solfasisol and soldosifa (low percussion, high percussion and bassline). These are entered by playing the name of the variable followed by a rhythm or melody. As there is more than one kind low or high percussion instruments, different ones can be specified by playing different pitches.
The full (rough, unimplemented) specification follows:
// Enter a loop
solfasire [rhythm] //kick & toms
solfasisol [rhythm] // higher drums
soldosifa [melody] // bassline
larelasi [4 notes = the name] [melody] // declare a new loop
// start stop and modify a loop
dolamido [name] -- silence loop
domilado [name] -- resume loop
mifasol [name] -- raise an octave
solfami [name] -- lower an octave
lamidore [name] [rhythm] -- add notes to the loop
dosolresi [name] -- randomise loop // shake in ixilang
// every time a loop is changed by playing in new notes, shaking or adding, it gets added to a list of rhythms
// moving between loops in the list
misisifa / fasisimi [optional name] - move to next or previous rhythms
misoldola [optional name] - move to a random rhythm
// if no name is given, applies to all playing loops
// control structures
refamido - die
sifala dofadore [number] [next/prev/rand/randomise/chance/octave shift] [optional name] -- repeat the command x times
larefami [number] [next/prev/rand/randomise/repeat/octave shift/die] [optional name] - x in 8 chance of doing the command
//numbers
redodo - 1
remimi - 2
refafa - 3
resolsol - 4
relala - 5
resisi - 6
mimido - 7
mimire - 8
