music project

Author: bowbahdoe

src/SUMMARY.md

@@ -834,7 +834,7 @@ Make them do one. -->
 # Projects
 
 <!-- Make a WAV file that plays hot cross buns -->
-- [Hot Cross Buns]()
+- [Music Maker](./projects/music_maker.md)
 
 # Code Structure VIII
 

src/projects/music_maker.md

@@ -0,0 +1,56 @@
+# Music Maker
+
+## Problem Statement
+
+Recordings of audio predate the invention of the modern computer.
+
+The first of recording was done [in 1860 in Paris by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville](https://www.firstsounds.org/sounds/scott.php). He would later have his glory stolen by Thomas Edison; a common occurrence for the time.
+
+But just as black and white movies don't mean that the past lacked color, people
+have been making sounds and composing those sounds into music [probably the entire history of our species](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KElPnD-dbkk).
+
+Computers are generally more convenient for sharing music and recordings than other
+methods we have tried in the past, such as paper and stone tablets, if sometimes
+of lower quality than something like a [vinyl record](https://victrola.com/blogs/articles/does-music-really-sound-better-on-vinyl)[^debate].
+
+Sounds are formed by waves propagating through the air
+at various frequencies. When sound enters your ear [it vibrates your eardrum](https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/how-do-we-hear) which in turn vibrates other parts of your ear ultimately culminating
+in your brain perceiving a sound. The frequencies
+of sound determine in what way your eardrum will vibrate and therefore are what determine how you
+will percieve any given sound.
+
+Storing audio on a computer requires translating audio information into a form
+that a computer can store. We call this translation step "digitization."
+It requires in some manner storing what frequencies of sounds
+and in what proportion need to be produced to "play back" a sound.
+
+One of the file formats used to store such audio is a "[WAV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAV)"
+file.
+
+
+## Your Goal
+
+Make a program that produces a WAV file that, when played,
+will sound like an instrumental version of [Three Blind Mice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Blind_Mice)[^haloreach].
+
+As a hint: `byte` and `short` can be helpful when representing "binary formats" like WAV.
+Reading comprehension as well as reading stamina will also be useful for figuring out
+how a WAV file works.
+
+## Future Goals
+
+When you learn enough to do the following, come back to this project and expand it.
+
+* Make the program produce other songs.
+* Expand the program to take as input a text file that in some way describes a song and produce a WAV file
+in turn.
+* Make a "virtual keyboard" where somebody can play notes by typing and whatever they played can
+be "exported" as a WAV file.
+* Support a file format other than WAV as the output.
+
+[^debate]: This is a subject of much debate.
+
+[^haloreach]: When Halo Reach came out there was a lot of internet fighting about the "reticle bloom"
+on a weapon called the DMR. This meant that if you fired it too quickly it would get
+less and less accurate. The advice I heard around that time was to pull the trigger to the tune
+of "three blind mice" and that would be about the right timing.