hi everybody,

i used my lunch breaks this week to look up the topic 'markov chain'. it seems
that both m and tango use these thingies to do (some) of their tricks.

i used something like a mrkov chain in the conditional function. this is great
for generating melodies but quite a lot of work to edit all the params. start in
the make module and set the function to 'conditional'. then click 'edit
probabs'. an elliptical shape of buttons, containing note numbers, appears. they
are not (yet) interconnected.

there is a parameter file 'cminor.tbn' included. perhaps you would like to load
it to take a look. if you do so, you see that a lot of lines appear between the
buttons. you can draw a line clicking on the start button and then drag the line
end to the destination button. what does that mean? you connect note values with
threads. if, say, c4 is connected with d4, e4, and c5, the following will
happen. the first generated note happens to be the c4, the next will be d4, e4,
or c5 - the notes c4 'points at'. if the second note is a d4, this will happen
to point to other notes and so on.

now press the control key and click on a button. a table appears where you can
edit sources and destinations. if we want e4 in the example appear more often as
follower of c4, we would rise the value of that thread.

the only way to delete a thread is to set its value to zero.

however, you have to be cautious not to edit a loose end, a note that msg can
reach but with no follow-ups. msg will prompt you about such mistakes and show
you where the problem is.

as an example, you will find cond.msm, the parameter file, and cond.mid, an
example of a melody of 256 notes (1/4 and 1/8) uploaded.

have fun experimenting,

hellmuth