I went to an algorave, and it was a blast!
I first heard about live coding from somewhere on the internet. I never really got into music theory, but I do like to code. I looked at a few videos online and even at some of the tools (I can’t remember which now).
Somewhere in early summer 2024 todepond tooted about using strudel. Then I saw them using it in the reaction reaction lifestream again.
Later that summer I actually had the time to play around with it on a summer camp! Jamming on it together with students, while trying to make some chill beats. My first ever hydra and strudel performance was meer days after I tried it out. I don’t think I have a recoding I can share, but here is the strudel code! I played it by commenting out code, and other people played live instruments to it! We even had a projector with the code on the wall!
ok im doing all my strudeling in flok.cc/s/todepond from now on. if anyone stumbles across me theyre lucky/unlucky
I immediately went in and kept coming back. I remember not being brave enough to change the code, so I copied it to my own hydra in a new tab, changed it a bit and then recreated it the flok room. I was more drawn to Hydra and the visuals, kept coming back and changing stuff here and there. In the beginning it was mostly smaller stuff to see what it does, but without realizing it at the time, I picked it up quite fast.
Soon I had the tap open most days in the background while working, evolving the visuals over hours and enjoying when someone joined and we could jam a bit. I rallied in the first shows pastagang did, joining from my couch and pushing flok to its limits sometimes.
In the last days of 2024 froos started what would ultimately become the new home for pastagang: nudel.cc. I had some time during the holidays, and so I joined in on the fun and started to add hydra support to nudel. We had some great meta-jamming sessions hanging out and fixing bugs while also enjoying the jam in the room. It became a pastagang staple to hang out in the jam while working on nudel.
Having seen the uptick in meetings in the London area, with pastagang attendance, I was rejoiced when I saw that toplap was organizing an algorave in Karlsruhe! The moment I found out that other pastagang people would also join, I knew I needed to go!
When froos and osc()_peterson asked me if I wanted to join them on stage, I of course had to say yes! It was amazing!
Seeing all the other people getting lost in their code and tools was so cool.
I cannot wait for the next one!