what i like about nudel.cc

Some members of pastagang (like me) are posting about nudel.cc in some of their social media channels.

And I’ll tell you why. For me, it’s my main way to experience live coding as a social activity.

nudel.cc is a continuous jam

What I like about nudel in particular is that it’s a continuous jam: you come there at any time, it is already in some state where it produces mostly nice sounds and with that, there is an invitation to be part of that and change things.

people are helping each other

The people who are around are very helpful e.g. with fixing code that doesn’t work, but generally respect when someone is working on something. While ‘let them cook’ is not a mantra, this statement fits well when it comes to accepting changes by other people. This doesn’t mean I can’t take your tomato sauce and mix it with my potatoes later though.

you can learn by watching others

It’s good way to learn about strudel: See what is possible to do in strudel, explore new sounds, get to know new functions. Learn more about what works for you in a musical context, and what doesn’t. Watch what other people are doing and take notes (or ns) of things you enjoy to hear.

contributing is easy

You can have a big impact even if you only change small things. It’s very easy to feel that you are contributing and really are part of the whole thing. For instance, playing with the kick (going from a four to the floor to a more sparse pattern and/or changing the bank) is something you know how to do pretty early your strudel learning curve and it can have a big impact on the whole room. Also it’s fun to do.

Other changes which are easy to do but can change a lot include:

introduce a speech sample
change a scale
hush something with _
change the cpm
make space
introduce a pause by breaking something (which is an essential subcategory of making space)

it’s not only sound

The hydra visualizations are also a nice source of inspiration. One time, pastagang got lost in space because the hydra was giving starfield vibes.

the jam goes on

Also, finally, back to the continuous jamming aspect: nudel is often not about a fixed state it is in right now or wants to arrive at, but more about how things change over time.

To get into cliches, it’s more about the journey than about the destination. The journey has some amazing viewpoints along the way.

Recently, someone left a comment that it’s sad (?) that nudel is oriented towards shorter arrangements, but I disagree: While the code/snapshots might be written with a shorter repetition time, a major part of the dynamics come from people changing that code. So it’s more about what happens between two of these shorter arrangements and how they change each other. The permanent links to a particular state are like taking pictures. It’s not the same as the journey, but they are important reminders of the things you experienced.