no_organs is a patch for performance of Steve Reich's Four Organs on laptops or other systems using computer keyboard input. Audio is produced by a phasor using the frequencies of the four selectable organ pitch sets. I've used it on OS X; unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to get Windows to accept keyboard input with [hidin]. A readme with instructions is included, since I hadn't figured out a good startup process for the patch.

no_organs.zip

@mckenj This pretty cool! How come some notes are intentionally left silent?

Thanks! It turns out that two of the parts in Four Organs only use 7 notes and two use 5 notes, so not all are used. I started with two banks of four keys for my fingers and liked the locations of these eight. In the end, my arbitrary system just didn't need them all. The pitch sets can be changed, so if anyone needs all 8 notes, the keys are ready to go!

One of my group's members switched a key to spacebar as it was more comfortable in her hands.

As a side note, I ended up using the shifts because I couldn't get 8 keys to fire at the same time without using shift. I believe this is due to how qwerty is wired...the shifts modify the other keys so it worked out. A happy accident, I suppose, to have a little more room on the sides.

• James