RE: "Dragging Instruments Around" meets "laptop live"...

["Tim Thompson" <tjt@nosuch.com>]

> I have been waiting for a QWERTY virtuoso to pop up, but haven't found
> him/her yet.  Write a program to map your computer keyboard keys to MIDI
> notes.

I enjoy looping and playing with a qwerty keyboard,
using the keys for playing notes/phrases as well
as invoking a variety of control functions.  With "chording"
(detecting several keys pressed simultaneously),
the number of features you can access quickly is
quite large, while still playing notes/phrases in parallel.
Being able to associate letters with the features 
makes things easy to remember.  (e.g. holding down
"up-arrow" and "f" simultaneously increases the "fracticality")
See http://nosuch.com/keykit/doc/lib/typo.html for
a description (outdated, but gives you the jist)
of the keyboard commands for my software.

I'll be using this as my primary instrument when I play 
a set at 26mix in San Francisco next Tuesday, Mar 25.
If things go as planned, I'll be typing on a wireless
qwerty keyboard while dancing (well, plodding, actually)
about on a playstation dance pad which also triggers notes/phrases.
Visual enough?  :-)  Wish me luck.
 
    ...Tim...