&gt; From what I&#x27;m reading, Alda is essentially a MIDI file generator. It doesn&#x27;t actually produce music, rather, it sends MIDI instructions for how to play music somewhere and leaves it up some other program to make the sounds.<p>As a fellow musician, I&#x27;d much rather some other program be involved in actually making the sounds.  My workflow generally involves defining abstract voices (usually some traditional soprano&#x2F;alto&#x2F;tenor&#x2F;baritone plus rhythm&#x2F;percussion, though I do like to branch out of that sometimes) and reserving actual instrument&#x2F;voice specifics for once the composition process is done with.  I feel like the various other languages out there that &quot;can <i>actually</i> make music internally&quot; are more equivalent to making a physical piano roll than writing a score that any musician or group thereof - regardless of instrumentation - can perform.<p>This preference probably comes from my background in the drum &amp; bugle corps and brass band worlds, where a brass ensemble will often be tasked with playing some piece originally intended for, say, a choir or chamber ensemble or organ.  I&#x27;ve developed an appreciation of the ability to separate composition from instrumentation, and it looks like Alda is well suited to that, at least at first glance.