Bach, Mozart and Brahms walk into a bar...

 of music :) 

    That's all I wanted to create; a bar of music with a staff, a treble clef and some notes for good measure (ooh...that's a musical pun!)

    Working in Python/turtles and text-based coding was a good experience in literalism.  The program will run as coded.  Or will not, as I learned.  So much of the experience was about finding that one little thing that was not properly coded and making the change.  A few times it was an extra space between my turtle name and the command, other times it was forgetting to put in the period. Several times it was misspelling my turtles' names. (I gave all of my turtles names of composers.)  The work required multiple trials and runs and a concentration and focus that I usually reserve for writing music or lyrics.  It was somewhat all-consuming and it was extraordinary how quickly time flew by in an attempt to program just one little part of the desired image.

    I began with the staff. There were several ways to do this; by coding the horizontal line, then 90 degrees right or left which, when it was run, created a labyrinth of lines that I eventually capped at each end.  Then I tried coding it so that the turtle would backtrack over its lines, leaving the end bar as its final program.  I felt it looked more elegant that way when running.

    In an effort to use as little code as possible, I used a 'repeat' function so that the staff lines would repeat without having to code each command multiple times:

    To avoid having to watch the staff run over and over in order to begin another element, I created separate repls to work on the other elements.  The treble clef was the most difficult element. I was stuck in a visual of how I had always handwritten my treble clefs. It wasn't until I let go of the idea of creating that specific image and allowed myself to embrace the notion of a stylized treble clef, working within the lines and arcs in the program, that I began to have some fun with it:

    The next elements were the notes.  For this, I opened another repl and began experimenting with small dots, large dots, stems, braces, ties and other little keystrokes like making my turtle invisible. I ended up with some interesting results:

    With a bit of space left in the measure, I decided to add a rest.  While it would have been easiest to program a half or whole rest, as they are simply rectangles, I decided instead to open yet another repl and try the more difficult quarter rest in all of its squirmy glory. 

Some weird stuff, until I got it...

                                                                ...and then I had to lose the turtle who looked like he was "resting".

   

    The last effort was bringing the coding lists from my "treble clef", "notes"  and "quarter note" repls and adding them to the "staff" repl. This was a little daunting and I needed to tweak it quite a bit so that the elements arrived at their locations, keeping the final image neat and  balanced. I titled the work "A Musical Moment" and added # references to indicate which turtles represented which elements so as to make it easier to follow or edit.  

    I thought about using colors and tried it with a rainbow of hues but it looks more authentic in black.

    I think it's very pretty and I love to watch it run!

  

~ J