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@mbburch
Last active December 11, 2015 13:50
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Sonic Pi Student Led Session

Purpose/ Intro

  • Wanted to look at a fun tool that can be used in education. I stopped playing music a long time ago, and want to find ways to start playing around with it again. Know there are lots of musicians here.

Background: What is it?

  • Developed in 2012 by Sam Aaron at U. of Cambridge

  • A free live coding synth based on Ruby for everyone originally designed to support computing and music lessons within schools.

  • An open source programming environment originally designed to explore and teach programming concepts within schools through the process of creating new sounds.

  • Three core domains:

    • Art: express yourself and ask new questions of music and notation
    • Technology: explore questions related to liveness, time and concurrency in programming languages
    • Education: demonstrate that open play rather than rigid structures increases motivation and engagement in the classroom
  • In addition to being an engaging education resource it has evolved into an extremely powerful and performance-ready live coding instrument suitable for professional artists and DJs. Watch a live coding video.

Play

  • Show some simple live coding changes with a small example
  • Play Get Lucky or Mario after talking through how some things work, and make small changes
  • Have everyone download Sonic Pi and get up and running
  • Show how to work through tutorials, via Sonic Pi or online videos
  • Have folks work through some tutorials at their pace, and support each other

Share

  • Opportunity to share creations with each other and show off cool stuff they figured out.

Takeaways

  • Try new, fun things with code.

Resources

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