JMSL Tutorial: Hierarchies

Java Music Specification Language (JMSL) is a Java API for making music. At its heart is a polymorphic hierarchical scheduler, which allows software objects to be scheduled over time. Even though they might be very different from one another in function, these objects share a common Java interface. This interface is called "Composable". JMSL can schedule complex trees of Composables by passing timestamps through a network of parent/child relationships.

A song form provides a simple example of a parent/child hierarchy:

           mySong

    __________|____________

    |       |     |       |

 verse1  chorus verse2 chorus

The example above shows a parent called mySong with four children: verse1, chorus, verse2, chorus. In JMSL, mySong would be a SequentialCollection, which launches its children in sequential order. The parent and its children are all "Composables" in JMSL.

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JMSL (c) Nick Didkovsky, Phil Burk. JMSL is based upon HMSL (c) Phil Burk, Larry Polansky and David Rosenboom.