Samuel Aaron
Alan F. Blackwell
ABSTRACT
Domain Specific and Functional languages provide an excellent linguistic context for exploring new forms of music notation -- not just for formalising compositions but also for live interaction workflows. This experience report describes two novel live coding systems that employ code execution to modify live sounds and music. The first of these systems, Sonic Pi, aims at teaching core computing notions to school students using live-coded music as a means of stimulating and maintaining student engagement. We describe how an emphasis on a functional style improves the ease in which core computer science concepts can be communicated to students. Secondly we describe Overtone, a functional language and live coding environment aimed towards mprofessional electronic musicians. We describe how Overtone's abstractions and architecture strongly benefit from a functional-oriented implementation. Both Sonic Pi and Overtone are freely available open-source platforms.
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Index Terms
- From sonic Pi to overtone: creative musical experiences with domain-specific and functional languages
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Reviews
Soubhik Chakraborty
When we hear music, we are actually hearing abstract patterns, and those patterns can be expressed in various ways as scores (musical notation). Seen from this cognitive (and perceptive) angle, music is a very good choice for providing people with new kinds of creative experiences. Hence, rather than going for media devices (such as photography), the authors have correctly opted for "giving people creative experiences of computation itself," through functional abstractions that lie behind music aesthetics. The paper introduces two new systems of scores. The first one is Sonic Pi, a simple domain-specific language intended for school children, and the second one is Overtone, a more complex and powerful functional language that will be better appreciated by adults. Both are open access. From my experience with music analysis, I know it is not just the note pattern but how it is rendered that determines its emotional content. And this "how" aspect is reflected not just through the pitch, loudness, onset, and duration of notes, but also through the transitory and non-transitory pitch movements taking place between them. I'm interested to see how far the two coding systems can capture these features. This is an interesting paper on music pedagogy. The target audience is anyone (young or old!) interested in music. Online Computing Reviews Service
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