Per-step firing probabilities create a living sequence with a fixed skeleton and flickering ornaments

Step-probability assigns each step its own firing probability — kick always fires, snare always fires, ghost hats fire 60% of the time, fill hits fire 20% of the time. This turns a rigid sequence into a living one where the structural skeleton is fixed and reliable while the ornaments flicker in and out. Independent probabilities per voice produce organic interplay: the kick and snare lock the groove while hats and fills vary freely. This is distinct from global probabilistic-variation, which applies one probability uniformly to all events rather than per-step.

Examples

// Strudel mini-notation ? operator: s(“bd sn hh? cp?”) // bd/sn always; hh/cp flicker

Assessment

Explain the difference between step-probability and probabilistic-variation, and describe the fixed-skeleton + flickering-ornaments pattern.