03 — TRAMOYA

TRAMOYA

Stage tools. Two of them, and the file they both speak. One runs during the show; one runs at the desk, days before. All of it is free and open, and all of it exists because a show needed something that didn't exist yet.

Tramoya is the Spanish word for the machinery of a stage — the rigging and counterweights above the lights, the trap doors below the boards. It is the part of a show that works hardest and is never seen.

Everything on this page has done real work. That is the only way onto it.

PREGONERO

the town crier

The words reach the back of the room, in the language the room speaks.

A song can't wait for you to read it. Film solved this with subtitles; a live performance can't pause the same way. Pregonero throws each line onto the wall as it is sung, in the language the room speaks, then gets out of the way. Three things can drive it: my foot on a pedal, the song's own clock once the pedal has started it, or the film when there is one — and whichever it is, nothing on stage stops to explain itself.

IN USE · BOMFESTIVAL · PC HOEGAARDEN · DE KOERmacOSMITv0.10.0

HOW IT RUNS (ENGLISH ONLY) →SOURCE ON GITHUB →

BOMBISTA

the one who sets the pace

Works out when each line happens — and says which ones it isn't sure about.

Before Pregonero can throw a line on the wall, something has to know when that line arrives. Tools that work this out already exist, and every one of them hands you forty timings with no opinion about any of them — so you either trust all forty or check all forty, and on a deadline you check all forty. Bombista checks them for you and points at the three it doubts. Fixing one takes a fraction of a second. It runs entirely on your own machine; nothing is uploaded anywhere.

AT THE DESKPythonMITv1.0.2

HOW IT RUNS (ENGLISH ONLY) →SOURCE ON GITHUB →

SONG PERFORMANCE JSON

the file they both speak

One song, one file: the words, the translations, and when each line lands.

Both tools work on the same file. It holds a song's lyrics, its translations, its tempo and its timings — one song, one plain text file, no database and no account. Bombista writes the timings into it. Pregonero reads it and performs from it. The format had been in use for two years before it got a name.

PLAIN JSONCC BY 4.0NO ACCOUNT

READ THE FORMAT (ENGLISH ONLY) →