# Week 4 lesson 2 - random marathon: rand, irand, mininotation randomness, scramble, shuffle, choose + more

**URL:** <https://uzu.lurk.org/t/week-4-lesson-2-random-marathon-rand-irand-mininotation-randomness-scramble-shuffle-choose-more/685>\
**Category:** Week 4 - waveforms, randomness\
**Created:** [8 May 2020 09:20 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/week-4-lesson-2-random-marathon-rand-irand-mininotation-randomness-scramble-shuffle-choose-more/685 "2020-05-08T09:20:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 6

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tedthetrumpet](https://uzu.lurk.org/user_avatar/uzu.lurk.org/tedthetrumpet/32/39_2.png) [@tedthetrumpet](https://uzu.lurk.org/u/tedthetrumpet)\
**Post date:** [9 May 2020 13:17 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/week-4-lesson-2-random-marathon-rand-irand-mininotation-randomness-scramble-shuffle-choose-more/685/6 "2020-05-09T13:17:23Z")

</div>

The thoughts on randomness in this video were very interesting, thanks. I have to confess I was slighly dreading watching it, as I also have strong ideas about this area. To me, being able to ask the machine to make arbitrary decisions – agreed, let's not call them random – is _fundamental_ to the business of algorithmic composition. I like to be able to create a high level structure and let the computer fill in the details: I see that as a fascinating way to discover 'what works' in music. James McCartney talks this somewhere, sorry I can't find the exact reference, as being able to create a class of compositions and then listen to various instances of the class.

To take an rather wonderful example from your worksheet:

`d1 $ sound "bd*8? clap:4"`

To me, this is asks and answers an interesting musical question, something like: 'What about… half a bar of arbitrarily syncopated kick drum hits followed by an offbeat clap? Would that work?' And yes, it does.

---

_[View the full topic](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/week-4-lesson-2-random-marathon-rand-irand-mininotation-randomness-scramble-shuffle-choose-more/685)._