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RESONON

Events & Notes

A pattern doesn’t store sound, and it doesn’t store a list of notes either. It answers a question: what plays, and when? The answer comes back as a stream of events. Understanding what an event actually carries — and how the note, chord, and degree literals you write become events — is the mental model that ties patterns, keys, and instruments together.

What an Event Is

Section titled “What an Event Is”

An event is a value over a span of time. The span is a half-open window [start, end): the event begins at start and releases at end. That window is everything time-related about the event — when a note sounds and how long it holds are the same fact. There’s no separate “duration” field; the gate is the span.

When you write [C4 D4 E4 F4], querying one cycle hands back four events, each a note value over one quarter of the cycle. Add a fifth note and every span shrinks to fit — the events divide the cycle, as covered in Cycles & Time.

What a Note Carries

Section titled “What a Note Carries”

Strip an event down and you find three pieces of information:

  • Pitch — what to play
  • Velocity — how hard (optional; falls back to the track default)
  • Span — when it starts and ends

The interesting part is pitch, because resonon accepts several kinds and resolves them at different times:

You writeKindResolves to
C4, f#3, Bb2Note nameA MIDI pitch
60, 67NumberA MIDI pitch (the number is the note)
bd, sd, hhSampleA named hit on the track’s sampler
^1, ^5, ^-2Scale degreeA pitch, once anchored to a key
C4:maj, ^1:min7ChordSeveral simultaneous pitches

Note names and plain numbers are the same thing under the hood: C4 is 60, so the two styles mix freely in one pattern. The mapping is in Mini-Notation Grammar.

Pitches are fractional, not just integers: 60.5 is a quarter-tone above C4. That’s how resonon plays microtonal scales — a non-integer pitch is rendered via pitch bend when a track has set_tuning() or set_mpe() enabled.

Velocity Is Optional

Section titled “Velocity Is Optional”

An event carries a velocity only if you wrote one — C4^120. One without asks its track, so the same pattern plays softer on a track set softer, while a written accent always wins. The velocity belongs to the note when it is part of the phrase, and to the track when it is part of the mix.

Chords Are Stacks

Section titled “Chords Are Stacks”

A chord literal like C4:maj or ^1:min7 is not one event with three pitches — it expands into a stack of single-pitch events that all share the same span. They sound simultaneous because their time windows are identical. This is why a chord behaves exactly like writing the notes with commas: [C4:maj] and [C4, E4, G4] produce the same three overlapping events. The chord qualities (maj, min7, sus4, …) are listed in Scales, Chords & Intervals.

Degrees Stay Abstract Until Keyed

Section titled “Degrees Stay Abstract Until Keyed”

A scale degree like ^1 or ^-2 is deliberately unresolved. It carries a degree number, not a pitch — ^1 doesn’t know whether it’s C or F♯ until you give it a key. You anchor it in one of two ways:

  • Per pattern with .in_key(key).
  • Per track with track.set_key(...), after which every degree on that track resolves automatically and absolute notes are quantized into the scale.

This late binding is the whole point: write a melody once in degrees, then change the key under it and the same pattern transposes and re-harmonizes itself. A Key is a Scale rooted at a note; both, along with diatonic chords on degrees (^1:), are put to work in Write in a Key.

From Event to Sound

Section titled “From Event to Sound”

When the scheduler queries a pattern, it gets these events and turns each one into output at its destination:

  • On a MIDI track, an event becomes a note-on at the span’s start and a note-off at its end. A fractional pitch adds a pitch-bend message.
  • On an audio track, an event triggers a voice on the loaded instrument — a sampler hit, a plugin note, or a DSP voice — gated by the same span.

Either way, the span’s end is what releases the note. The event is the contract; the instrument decides how to make it audible.

Section titled “Related”