Originally, I built a HyperCard stack to translate text characters to notes to build simple melodies. 

Basically, the stack translated the text character to an ASCII value. I don't pretend to understand MIDI encoding, but apparently that numerical value is assigned a note value.

So, based on the relationship of the distance between the characters, we can generate a melody. Yes, some of them aren't very 'melodic' but some can be surprisingly interesting.

Once, puzzling about whether there was any value in the spam we all receive, I tossed a short phrase into the stack and clicked away.

The best 'tunes' I seemed to find were based on some kind of poetic rhythm or pattern, a repetition of similar text strings or layering phrases to create chords, and judicious choices of instrument.

Simple enough, but getting the consequent text to a MIDI file was the difficulty.

Without UDI's XCMD's the translation to MIDI and Quicktime would have been impossible. The XCMD's call the QuickTime Instruments and allow the writing of a MIDI file. They do far more sophisticated MIDI calls than I understand.

With OS X, I used SuperCard to recreate the HyperCard stack. Using UDI’s XCMD’s to export to MIDI, I then massage the file in Garageband.

You can download the SuperCard standalone MIDI tricks.zip  or the project MIDI tricks 2.zip which requires Supercard or the SuperCard Player to run. If you have Supercard, the project is editable.

Drawing, cutting and pasting, actually playing a keyboard in Midigraphy

 protosatie.mov  Something Pastoral
DaysOfRain.mov  A little Zenny.
 call to light.mov  Depressing, but therapeutic to have worked through.
 BackAtIt.mov Rhythmic.
A Warm Spring.mov  My father was ill, the weather was hot.
 dispute.mov  An interesting story and we've forgotten all about it
 somedrum.MOV  Drumming noises
 tinkle.MOV a melancholy sketch of spring
 Something.MOV

These came out of the HyperCard Stack project and Midigraphy:

orange.mov  Well, it's just "orange"
gate.mov Gone, gone, gone beyond...
korean PS.mov My first experiment with spam. It was all interesting repetitive non-roman ASCII characters. 2 minutes 23 seconds.
refusal of reciept.mov Second experiment with spam. 1 minute 47 seconds.
buddha.mov The text string "buddha" multilayered with different spaces between each word on each track. 1:18
mantras melody the 'Om' and 'namoamidaba' mantras layered with OM stretched in various ways. 1:44
namo1.mov
namo2.mov
UTF message in Thai.mov Thai2 but as a single line melody. 6 minutes and 30 seconds.
Thai2.mov Thai UTF translated message in a multiline chorded melody. Another gift from the wizards on the MacScript mailing list. 45 seconds.
UTF message in Russian.mov Russian UTF translated message melody. 2:22.
aFilemakerItem2.mov The text string "Result:{«class fccc»:«data fccc0000000D», «class lst»:«... a great long hexadecimal string" and so on, till the 1725 characters to the end-of-file result from an Applescript call to FileMaker. Grabbed from a message posted to the MacScript mailing list. It has been given 5 layers with different instruments assigned to each. 6 minutes 48 seconds. I scripted up a quick set of buttons to translate the hexadecimal to a contiguous tone range.

These have been worked in Garageband

Heart Sutra 3.m4a The Heart Sutra for machine beings 6 minutes 41 seconds.

Precepts.m4a Quite joyful. 3 minutes 44 seconds

The Maha Karuni Dharani or Great Compassion Mantra.mp3

Five Elements.mp3 Various sounds and instrument loops in an atmospheric mix. 3 minutes 50 seconds.

Moonlit landscape with tinnitus.m4a A twirled-camera photograph of a lamp run through Voice of the Goat Cactus and Garagebanded to yield 32 minutes of a sound texture: a gentle, hypnotic background noise on the edge of madness.

Juseige.m4a From a chanted sutra found at yosotattoo.wordpress.com. The words spelled in phonetic english once again provide the melody played in synthetic sound textures.