Learn the music code

Every song in Shawarma is code: short patterns of sounds and notes that play in a loop while you change them. These guides teach you to read and write it.

1. TutorialFrom an empty page to a short song: sounds, rests, layers, notes, scales, tempo and effects.
2. Drum patternsKicks, snares and hats in mini-notation: house, rock, boom bap, breakbeats, Euclidean rhythms and fills.
3. Cheat sheetEvery symbol of mini-notation and the functions you use most, on one page.
4. Example songsFive complete songs with their code and notes on how each one works.
5. Chat commandsThe / shortcuts in the chat: listen and fix the mix, vary, arrange, export and more.

What the code looks like

A kick on every beat, a clap on two and four, hats between the beats, and a bass line, in three lines. Quotes hold the pattern; each step in it shares the bar with the others.

const drums = s("bd*4, [~ cp]*2, [~ hh]*4").gain(.85)
const bass = note("<c2 a1 f1 g1>*4").s("sawtooth").lpf(700)

stack(drums, bass)

The code is JavaScript with a small pattern language inside the quotes. These guides are short and stick to what you need to start making songs. You do not need to know JavaScript: apart from const and a few brackets, it is all in the patterns.