Learning from Live Coding Music Performance Using Sonic Pi

DRAFT ONLY Learning from live coding music using Sonic Pi: collaborations between computer scientists, teachers, artists, and young adolescent learners Authors: Dr. Pam Burnard, Franziska Florack (Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge), Dr. Alan F. Blackwell, Dr. Sam Aaron (University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory) with Carrie Anne Philbin (Education Pioneer Raspberry Pi Foundation), Jane Stott (Freman College, Buntingford) and Stephen Morris (Coleridge Community College, Cambridge) Learning about the nature of live coding performance in music Live coding music performance is a growing international phenomenon. As will be discussed from the research presented in this paper, live coding can be viewed as ways in which computer programming is used to communicate the intentions of the live coder to the computer. Programming skills are embodied in the choice of code, design, abstraction and implementation, translating musical intention into computer code. Mostly this happens in the mind of the live coder. The live coder writes code to produce sounds in real-time. It could be argued that live coding has its foundations in participatory1 musical performance because live coding involves real-time aesthetic decisions, judgements and feedback while editing code (see narratives of improvised live coding performance practices discussed by Andrew Brown and Nick Colliins in Burnard, 2012). Like jazz, live coding can fuse the practices and creativities of performance, improvisation and (pre-) compositional elements. It can be enacted in the immediate moment (constituting the ‘liveness’) in which the creator codes or uses the syntax of a particular programming language, which may or may not be adapted by the performer (Magnusson, 2013). The coding style may have an important role in inspiring certain musical and creative behaviours, communications and interactions employed in live coding performance as a musical and creative practice, but how is the processes of learning to code music defined and located? How do we evaluate the exciting notion of ‘liveness’? What are the outcomes for learning that can/should be assessed in music education settings? Live coded performances of music can range from a curated piece to engaging/motivating an audience to dance (such as at a nightclub or on a beach) or to both solo and ensemble live coding shared by jazz and electronic and laptop musicians in diverse performance spaces, with the projection of code being an important and significant feature of both the performer’s programming and non- programming actions. Live coding performances can occur in a variety of concert settings, from underground venues to galleries, and often feature projection of the code as part of the visual performance space. The coding activity may display 1 According to Thomas Turino, different cultural cohorts value certain musical fields and properties of music over others. He differentiates between two types of performance with different social functions and responsibilities, and thus different sound features that make them work. Participatory and presentational performances differ fundamentally in that with participatory performance there are no artist-audience distinctions. The members of ensembles specialise in presentational performance. 1 curatorial skills, such as in the creation of a new piece from existing recordings, an arrangement of an old piece or a newly improvised piece performed at a concert. Because, in many cases, most of the musical events of a performance takes place in a here-and-now context, each is a distinctive form in which individuals come together in order to explore a new angle on live improvised musics (Burnard, 2012:176). This raises questions as to whether a particular real time performance brings with it a set of ascribed values, or whether the creativity involved is not a peculiar quality of the act or something along a continuum involving a risk-laden to risk-free act of real time programming. Live coding introduces the driving force of change in activity as the notion of ‘liveness’ with composition and improvisation happening in the immediacy of: performing and experimenting simultaneously; raising the contensious yet potential for claiming coding/syntax errors (a) as a source of creativity (b) a temporary obstacle to which the audience may be privy or (c) a strategic improvisation act (see Burnard, 2012 for discussion of errors/mistakes as interesting ‘collisions’). However, the very complex features and the unclear nature of what live coding performance is (Magnusson, 2013), the complexities and diversity of what constitutes aesthetic evaluations of live coding actions (Bell, 2013), what learners make of, and how they become engaged in, learning to code (Aaron et al., in review; Philben, 2013), and how audiences appreciate and evaluate live coding, whether in informal contexts (e.g. at home) or in formal, institutionalised contexts (e.g. at school) place new demands on music educators and music education. Theories and models of learning in music education Any theory of learning must answer the questions: (1) How is learning defined and located? (2) What is learned? (3) How does learning occur and what are the key actions or processes of learning? (4) How do we know learning has occurred? (Engestrom, 1998). Most formal learning in music education is seen as a process of engaging in the style characteristics of presentational performances and canonic classical repertoires acquired as a code of knowledge, alongside competence on a musical instrument from academic ‘acquisition’ models of learning the curriculum. More informal participatory competence models may involve mastering levels in musicianship by developing one’s identity in relation to the community, as for example in reggae, rock, gamelan and popular music (Philpott and Spruce, 2012). Sound features may include virtuosity, densely overlapping textures, loud volume and buzzy timbres, which are extremely common sound features of participatory traditions in music throughout the world. Social synchrony and body language are constant and important, typified by facial and physical expressions and movements during the performances of presentational musicians. In the presentational field of performances of music making, the variation of musical material can be extensive because of preplanning and rehearsal. The use of longer, more varied forms is important for sustaining the interest of an attentive listening audience. The music often involves closed, scripted forms, where pieces involve set and interpreted repertoires (Turino, 2008). Coding music performance in real-time exists as a much higher sonic abstraction than that of standard Western music notation; it affords the performer the ability to compose in the immediate moment or real-time of improvised performance, thus merging improvisation, composition and performance creativities. This creates an urgent need and challenge to design new learning models (and learning spaces) for schools and informal educational contexts, and to better understand and remove the barriers for both teachers and students. It also signals the need for a new model of learning, which emphasises collaborations and collaborative enquiry orchestrated by 2 and between educators, researchers (from education, music and computer science) and programme designers. The instrumental learning model in school music education uses the same model as in higher music education and has been characterised by a ‘master-apprentice’ approach. This is especially prominent through the prevailing paradigm of one-to-one lessons, which has come under increasing scrutiny (Gaunt and Westerlund, 2013). Analyses attach much importance to ‘mechanised processes’ in the development of musical skills on instruments that are formally taught. These are developed through repetition; a large degree of automatic performance is acquired through this approach. Aurally-based learning methods in music, that is, music which is learnt by ear or learnt through play, is often associated with participatory music, which engages the learner in playing by ear, by, for instance, learning to play in a rock band, participating in world musics or in folk musical activities involving performances in community informal learning settings rather than contemporary classical music concert halls (Small, 1987). Learning music kinaesthetically or through forms of oral notation, with names for pitch and rhythm means there is a concentration on sounds rather than on their graphic representations. The sound-action relationship emphasises learning and making sounds rather than signs, which stress the learning of symbols and importance of musical literacy (reading the Western classical system of music) (Priest, 1996). With reference to curriculum ideologies, learning music through composing is something which is often seen as encompassing improvisation, and as Green’s (1988) significant sociological theory of musical meaning and experience argues, this activity relates to the mind instead of the body (as in performing) since behind every composition there is a mind that produces the music. (1997) reports that girls have been found to lack confidence in composing and that popular music, closely related with music technology, explicitly points to how it affirms masculinity. Boys, driven by their ‘macho’ and powerful characteristics, appear to be enthusiastic about music technology, whilst girls seem to be reserved and frightened. Similarly, with boys, improvisation is

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