Search for: All records

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. 

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. 

This paper describes the design of an online learning platform that empowers musical creation and performance with Python code. For this platform we have developed an innovative computational note- book paradigm that we call TunePad playbooks. While playbooks borrow ideas from popular computational notebooks like Jupyter, we have designed them from the ground up to support creative mu- sical expression including live performances. After discussing our design principles and features, we share findings from a series of artifact-centered interviews conducted with experienced TunePad users. Our results show how systems like ours might flexibly sup- port a variety of creative workflows, while suggesting opportunities for future work in this area.