How would I go about doing this?

[Bushfire]

This is a question for the computer people 'round here!

See, here's the thing. When I write songs my usual modus operandi is to start off by writing down the feeling I want to express in that song; it might be something a simple as love, or worship, or maybe something like trying to understand someone. Then in a sort of spider diagram I will branch off with similar words. I will then write down a bunch of verbs and nouns in seperate lists that relate to the core 6-7 words I wrote down initially in the hope that they will spark a line of a new song in my head.

Now I've been doing this manually, but I had a thought: this could be automated via computer (the generation of verbs and nouns, not the thinking bit. ) The trouble is, I don't know where to start (I am of course assuming that no application currently exists like this, if you know of one please speak up!) some kind of database programme? I don't mind delving into computer programming, just so long as it isn't too deep.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. Is this viable at all? Thanks for any replies.

[morf]

Its viable, but will take time and energy. You can try a HTML based one for something basic, or get into Visual Basic and push it a bit further.

[Diggler]

Like a thesaurus?

[superbassman2000]

Originally Posted by Diggler

Like a thesaurus?

thats what i was thinking

[Bushfire]

Originally Posted by Diggler

Like a thesaurus?

Kind of. But like a thesaurus thats contents are triggered by a few key words, rather than just the one comparison. A thesaurus would be doing it manually.

[Bushfire]

Originally Posted by morf

Its viable, but will take time and energy. You can try a HTML based one for something basic, or get into Visual Basic and push it a bit further.

Visual Basic looks quite suitable, but does anyone have any comments on the versatility of the (free) express edition?

[jive1]

Originally Posted by morf

Its viable, but will take time and energy. You can try a HTML based one for something basic, or get into Visual Basic and push it a bit further.

HTML will do no good. It's merely a markup language for formatting text, images, etc. It doesn't accomodate real programming logic.

[jive1]

The main programming part is coming up with the logic. You'll need to manually map words to concepts, and generate the logic to create these relationships.

You may be able to save on some data entry by finding a thesaurus in a format that can be imported into a database (CSV, XML, text, etc.). It probably exists somewhere, but I don't know where.

The main usefulness of an application like this is to be able to recreate your thought patterns in future songwriting endeavors. If you introduce logic into the scheme it will produce the same results each time. If you add in randomization, some of the results will be goofy.

In the end, the amount of time learning a computer language, establishing logic, and entering in data, you could have probably written a couple albums worth of tunes. Interesting idea though. You may want to search around to see if there are any similar components already written that you can integrate into your application.

[Bushfire]

Originally Posted by jive1

The main programming part is coming up with the logic. You'll need to manually map words to concepts, and generate the logic to create these relationships.

You may be able to save on some data entry by finding a thesaurus in a format that can be imported into a database (CSV, XML, text, etc.). It probably exists somewhere, but I don't know where.

The main usefulness of an application like this is to be able to recreate your thought patterns in future songwriting endeavors. If you introduce logic into the scheme it will produce the same results each time. If you add in randomization, some of the results will be goofy.

In the end, the amount of time learning a computer language, establishing logic, and entering in data, you could have probably written a couple albums worth of tunes. Interesting idea though. You may want to search around to see if there are any similar components already written that you can integrate into your application.

Thanks for your thoughts. I know that the entering of data would be the major time sink. I could build up a database as I go along, but that would obviously create a less useful programme straight from the get-go. I guess the decision I gotta make is: will the time invested in this outweigh the results?

[Bushfire]

Originally Posted by mb1

Step 1. see what already exists that may be close. For example, see (caveat: The are NOT recommendations - just possible avenues of exploration.):

http://www.brainstormsw.com

http://sommestad.com/lm.htm

http://creative-writing-software-rev...enreviews.com/

http://www.paramind.net/

http://www.conceptdraw.com/en/produc...orming.php?bru

http://www.mbaware.com/insof.html

http://www.ideacenter.com/testimonials.html

http://www.cognitive-tools.de/brains...e_english.html

http://www.creativethinkersoftware.com/

http://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=228

Thank you very much for that!
I will have to spend some time trawling through that list.