i’ve been thinking a bit about this comment by @apaleslimghost
in practice “let code die” often means “let someone from the ingroup kill your code”. if someone’s new at strudel/hydra and does something weird/unexpected/“wrong” it’ll get deleted by someone more experienced and they’re sitting there thinking “aww i was just playing around and now I can’t”. it comes across as “bad code only. no not like that”
i think a common misconception of #pastagang is that this experience changes once you somehow become part of the in-group.
this is very much my current experience too, and it always stings, which is why we say “let code die” - to numb the sting.
this is not a feeling that’s exclusive to beginners and this is not something that people try to avoid especially. rather they seek it out!
for sure, there was period of time where i hadn’t got used to it yet, and now i am more used to it, but the experience itself hasn’t changed.
i would say it is one of the more tell-tale signs that someone is new: if they don’t edit or touch or delete other people’s code at all, they’re often new (from my anecdotal experience) and it’s often characterised by someone making suggestions or requests nearby your code. it’s fun to be able to give them permission to “do it” themselves
for sure, different jammers have different ways of editing your code. some jammers, like eddyflux, tend to do the laser precise edit that has a large impact, like sticking one line on every pattern to change the pitch or tempo. other jammers are way more heavy handed and will come in and delete your entire block, and i remember switch angel being great at that. i’d look up in shock and she just gives me a cheeky/menacing smile lol
but yeah, either way, the point is not to make code!!! bad or otherwise, the point is not to make code: and i think that’s an interesting idea that can be shocking or off-putting at first
but also no one is in charge so that could change and pastagang could transform, and it could become about making code, and deleting other people’s code could become frowned upon
i think: in music, there’s often tension and/or dialogue between different parts of the piece. for example: call and response.
in pastagang jams, this is even more true, with different heads running different parts of the sound. one thing i like about pastacore music is that you can often hear that dialogue happening between two parts (two jammers). there’s often a bit of conflict(!) between them. one gets louder, then the other does, then the other does, and it all gets more and more BIG
depending on the jammers’ moods and tendencies, different things might happen.
one jammer might delete or temporarily mute their own sounds, or make em quieter. or they might go and delete the other person’s!
or some combination of these. or they delete everything if it gets too much. like tapping out: “okay okay let’s call it quits”
or one of my faves is when you go and make the other person’s pattern LOUDER. like “LET’S GO” “LET’S DANCE”
here are some things i often do:
if i notice someone trying to politely and cautiously quieten down my pattern or reduce its intensity, I’ll just go ahead and delete my entire pattern. like lol don’t worry it’s fine u can delete it
if i notice someone with a timid “gain(.3)” or equivalent on their own pattern i’ll switch it to like “gain(3)” and try to turn it into the solo that everything else is built around, and I’ll relentlessly delete other things to make it happen
i delete all commented out code to make space. if i want to temporarily mute one of my own patterns, i delete it instead of muting it. if i want to re-introduce it, i write it out again from scratch
i remove all names from patterns and replace them with dollar signs. a name limits what a pattern can become and makes people less eager to edit
if there’s a pattern that’s causing performance issues, i delete it immediately in its entirety. its important to make the jam run on slower laptops
if one of my patterns gets deleted, i try to immediately start typing something new again without thinking. i’ve learned that it’s okay and good to repeat yourself. if there’s some certain sound that i really feel i want to get out, i’ll write it out as many times as i have to: to prove it and to legitimise it. we love repetition!
one of the most common things i delete is when someone tries to pattern something that i’m manipulating by hand. eg: if I’m manually tweaking a low pass filter over time, jammers often swoop in and “help” me by automating exactly what i’m manually doing. i’ll delete that immediately because it’s (a) less fun (b) less personal / character-ful and (c) is better and (d) leads to less ephemeral code
i used to use variables a lot. eg: defining some chords or scales in a variable, and then using that variable in several other patterns. but i don’t do that anymore and i delete it when i see it because i think it leads to code that is less “near the floor”. it’s a bigger structure that remains static for longer: more like a constructed artifact than a live process. and it leads to things being in tune more, which i don’t like because i want things to be freeer than that
i like to have scales and stuff inlined because it means they can deviate and change independently from each other. and this lets you give the signal that its okay to deviate from this and do the “wrong” note because “scales aren’t real”
the key thing for me is that we’re not “working towards something”. we’re not getting to a destination / a final product or artifact. the artifact is already here. it’s the present moment.
when i make a change to some code, i notice some more hesitant jammers think that i’ve made that change “for good” and it’s stuck like that now, and they might not like that change, and they think they have to work with it
but that’s not true. i decided to make that change in that moment and that moment only. there is no changing that now: it’s in the past. but in this present moment, you can make any other change. you can revert the change to introduce repetition (which we love) or you can take it further and build on it, or can delete everything, or you can leave it as it is, AND THAT IS ALSO A DECISION. inaction is the decision you make by doing nothing, which can be as bad, or even worse, than deleting it all
to all newcomers to jamming and #pastagang, i recommend:
let code die, especially other people’s delete all code, start from scratch you must delete! kill your code and also other people’s. let go! forget everything! start from scratch
delete delete you must delete! set yourself free from attachment and loss you are not dead yet, so be alive and act!
we are not here to make code: we are here to make changes