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The integration of computer programming and music-making has a rich history dating back to the 1950s. While there has been substantial prior work on the creative and cognitive affordances of programming languages for engaging in musical tasks, there is less work that attempts to understand the theoretical implications of music and code as literacies in collision. In this paper, we report on a study in which five undergraduate students with experience in both music and coding completed two creative musical tasks: one using conventional instruments and tools and one using Python code in an online music-coding environment. In combining representational infrastructures from music and code, both undergo transformations. We introduce semiotic theories of translation and transcription to make sense of the music-coding process and describe strategies that participants devised in their creative process.
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This content will become publicly available on March 16, 2026
Computational musicking: music + coding as a hybrid practice
While there is a growing body of research that explores the integration of music and coding in learning environments, much of this work has either emphasized the technical aspects of computer language design or music as a motivational context within which to learn computer science concepts. In this paper, we report on a study in which five undergraduate students with experience in both music and coding completed two creative musical tasks: one using conventional instruments and tools and one using Python code in an online music + coding environment. Inspired by the work of Christopher Small (1998. Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening. University Press of New England), we describe music + coding as a set of interlocking processes which we call computational musicking and explore how practices from both domains are reimagined in this new hybrid context. We introduce semiotic theories of translation and transcription to make sense of the computational musicking process and describe strategies that participants devised in their creative process.
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- PAR ID:
- 10560114
- Publisher / Repository:
- Taylor & Francis
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Behaviour & Information Technology
- ISSN:
- 0144-929X
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 21
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- computational literacy music + coding STEAM education music education
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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