We made it to the end of the week, and I don't know about you but I have my head buried in PowerShell work. But you know what they say about all work and no fun...so I figured I'd take a break from serious PowerShell and do something a little fun. Although, I suppose you might pick up a pointer or too along the way. This installment of Friday Fun, actually the first one, is about making beautiful music with Powershell.<\/p>\n
I trust you're familiar with the `a escape sequence. If not, try this.
\n[cc lang=\"powershell\"]
\nPS C:\\> write `a
\n[\/cc]
\nWhat PowerShell is really doing is calling the Beep method of the [Console] .NET class. But there's a bit more that can be done. You can specify an frequency and a duration, in milliseconds.
\n[cc lang=\"powershell\"]
\nPS C:\\> [console]::beep(440,500)
\n[\/cc]<\/p>\n
In fact, given the right frequencies you can play \"music\" in PowerShell.
\n[cc lang=\"PowerShell\"]
\n$scale=@{
\nMidC=261.6
\nCSharp=277.2
\nD=293.7
\nDSharp=311.1
\nE=329.6
\nF=349.2
\nFSharp=370.0
\nG=392.0
\nGSharp=415.3
\nA=440.0
\nASharp=466.2
\nB=493.9
\nC=523.2
\n}<\/p>\n
#play a chromatic scale
\nwrite-host \"First octave\" -ForegroundColor Cyan
\n$scale.values | sort | foreach {[console]::beep($_,125)}
\n[\/cc]
\nOr, you can be more avant-garde and listen to the music of chaos. I put together a script that plays a set number of notes with a random frequency and of random duration.
\n[cc lang=\"Powershell\"]
\n#requires -version 2.0<\/p>\n
#usage: music.ps1 64<\/p>\n
Param([int]$Length=16)<\/p>\n
#function to create the musical tones
\nFunction Make-Music {<\/p>\n
Param(
\n [Parameter(Position=0, ValueFromPipeline=$True,ValueFromPipelinebyPropertyName=$True)]
\n [int]$frequency=400,
\n [Parameter(Position=1, ValueFromPipeline=$True,ValueFromPipelinebyPropertyName=$True)]
\n [int]$duration=500)<\/p>\n
Process {
\n [console]::Beep($frequency,$duration)
\n }
\n} #function<\/p>\n
Write-Host \"Generating a $length note sequence\" -ForegroundColor Cyan<\/p>\n
$notes=for ($i=1;$i -le $length;$i++) {
\n $f=Get-Random -Minimum 500 -Maximum 2500
\n $r=Get-Random -Minimum 1 -Maximum 10
\n New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property @{
\n Frequency=$f
\n Duration=$r*125
\n }
\n} #for<\/p>\n
$notes | make-music<\/p>\n