Sonic Pi Research Articles

“Hear” and “Play” Students Misconceptions on Concurrent Programming using Sonic Pi

Concurrency is a complex to learn topic that is becoming more and more relevant, such that many undergraduate Computer Science curricula are introducing it in introductory programming courses. This paper investigates the combined use of Sonic Pi and Team-Based Learning to mitigate the difficulties in early exposure to concurrency. Sonic Pi, a domain-specific music language, provides great support for “playing” with concurrency and “hearing” common problems such as data races and lack of synchronization among different concurrent threads. More specifically, the paper focuses on students’ misconceptions regarding concurrency in Sonic Pi, and compares them to those arising in traditional concurrent programming languages. In addition, it preliminarily explores knowledge transfer from Sonic Pi to C/C++. The approach has been applied in two teaching experiments with undergraduate students in our University involving 184 participants. Our investigations bring out the need to address misconceptions through targeted interventions for a clear understanding of concurrent programming concepts. Sonic Pi’s simplified abstraction and domain-specific flavor has demonstrated to be effective, especially for first-year students.

Live Coding and Music Production as Hybrid Practice

This article discusses incorporating live coding as part of a new Foundation pathway for music production at a UK university that started in September 2022. The inclusion of live coding, using the application Sonic Pi, is situated alongside music production using a DAW, initially through the process of drum programming. The role of Sonic Pi is also to provide a means for producers to take their productions into the live performance space. This article’s contribution is in three areas. The first is to provide a short history of live coding at the current institution coupled with a longer account of my fragmented journey into live coding to provide some context. For the second discussion area, information about the foundation, its structure and how it fits into the overall degree programme is discussed. This section also includes some short code examples to illustrate the approach and links to video materials. For the last discussion area I outline an area of crossover between production and live coding which opens up a number of critical discussion points. This concerns the use of a breakbeat, what this means when used in productions, in live coding and when shipped with paid for or free software.

Programming music with Sonic Pi promotes positive attitudes for beginners

Programming is often misaligned with beginner students' interests and viewed as difficult. However, most students and teachers are not aware that it is possible to utilise domain-specific programming languages that combine programming with other domains like music making. Sonic Pi is one free domain-specific programming platform that enables beginners to code music, which has been designed for and used in schools since its first release in 2012. However, there is a lack of academic research on the Sonic Pi platform about the extent it may affect beginner student attitudes towards programming in a school context. The aim of this study was to investigate the extent Sonic Pi may help to promote positive attitudes towards programming. A mixed-methods case study was developed and trialled in school time with a middle school class, which measured student attitudes with the three subscales of enjoyment, importance, and anxiety. Overall, the results confirmed an alternative hypothesis that all students’ subscales for programming attitude increased significantly. While these findings are not generalisable due to its limited scope, they are very positive to inform the design and use of platforms like Sonic Pi in comparison to similar music coding platforms like EarSketch and TunePad.

Interdisciplinary computational thinking with music and programming: a case study on algorithmic music composition with Sonic Pi

ABSTRACT Background and Context: Computational Thinking (CT) has been recently integrated into new and revised Digital Technologies content (DTC) in the Technology learning area of the New Zealand School Curriculum. Objective: To aid this change, this research examined how CT supports learning outcomes in both music and programming with the Sonic Pi platform. Method: A mixed-methods case study designed by the researcher was developed and trialled in a regular middle school classroom. The design of instruments and analysis utilised a widely used CT assessment framework at a school level. Findings: Many successes and challenges not reported in the literature on how CT can support learning outcomes in music and programming were revealed. Implications: Provided some significant limitations are considered, the major implication of the results suggest educators can use Sonic Pi to support many learning outcomes in music and programming for interested students.

Anomalous Forms in Computer Music

Anomalous Forms in Computer Music

An interdisciplinary approach to learning programming through the creation of electronic music in the sonic pi audio programming environment

With the development of computer technologies, there is a rapid development of applied music based on computer technology: music for computer games, for advertising, for voicing household and other equipment, music in movies and animations, TV music, and academic music. This indicates the relevance of such an area of use of information technologies as program (algorithmic) sound synthesis, and the need for schoolchildren to familiarize themselves with this promising IT area. The fact that music and mathematics are interconnected has been known since ancient times. Now we can observe the close connection of music and informatics. And not just the processing of music in synthesis programs, but the programmatic creation of music using code. The article shows the relationship of musical art with the art of programming, considers the concept of the Sonic Pi audio programming environment, demonstrates the main features of this environment, language tools for programming algorithms, data structures and musical compositions in Ruby.

Illuminating musical code: Program an electronic music performance in real time - [Resources_Hands On

Live coding is a type of performance art in which the performer creates music by programming and reprogramming a synthesizer as the composition plays. The synthesizer code is typically projected onto walls or screens for the audience to inspect as they listen to the unfolding sound. Live coding events are sometimes known as algoraves, and at these events it's common to see visualizations of the evolving music projected alongside the code. Often, these visualizations are created by a second performer manipulating graphics software in tandem with the live coder. After attending a few algoraves in New York City (musically, the results tend to fall along a spectrum from ambient soundscapes to pounding electronic dance music, with a few detours into more experimental domains), I decided to look a little closer at the software the performers were using. I wanted to see if I could come up with my own hardware spin on creating visualizations. While I'm not yet ready to take to the stage, the results have been fun. I'd recommend that any reader interested in music or sound art should try live coding, even if they have no experience playing any traditional musical instrument. The most popular software for live coding appears to be Sonic Pi. This is an open source project originally created by Sam Aaron for the Raspberry Pi, although it is also available for Windows and macOS. Sonic Pi's basic interface is a text editor. Apart from some performance-specific buttons, such as for starting and stopping a piece of music, it looks pretty much like any integrated development environment (IDE), in this case for a version of the Ruby language. Like Python, Ruby is an interpreted language that can run interactively. The Ruby-powered Sonic Pi IDE provides a friendly front end to the powerful SuperCollider sound-synthesis engine, which has been used for over two decades as the basis of many electronic music and acoustic research projects.

음악코딩교육 사례 연구: 영국 코드클럽의 소닉파이 코스 중심으로

음악코딩교육 사례 연구: 영국 코드클럽의 소닉파이 코스 중심으로

Development of Music Coding Education Program Using Sonic Pi

Development of Music Coding Education Program Using Sonic Pi

Sonic Pi – performance in education, technology and art

ABSTRACTSonic Pi is a live coding language and performance environment with two specific and distinct goals: firstly, to facilitate the teaching of programming within schools and secondly, to enable artists to deliver virtuosic live coded music performances. This article considers the implications of prioritising performative elements within education. Is it the case that the act of education can be treated as a performance? If so, what knowledge and learning could a focus on performance enable us to share across the seemingly disparate contexts of education, technology and art?

The development of Sonic Pi and its use in educational partnerships: Co-creating pedagogies for learning computer programming

Abstract Sonic Pi is a new open source software tool and platform originally developed for the Raspberry Pi computer, designed to enable school children to learn programming by creating music. In this article we share insights from a scoping study on the development of Sonic Pi and its use in educational partnerships. Our findings draw attention to the importance of collaborative relationships between teacher and computer scientist and the value of creative pedagogies for learning computer programming as a live-coded participatory enterprise.

A literature review and evaluation of the. Hedley fractionation: Applications to the biogeochemical cycle of soil phosphorus in natural ecosystems

The Hedley fractionation recognizes plant-available forms (Resin Pi, Bicarb Pi, and Bicarb Po) and refractory forms (NaOH Pi, NaOH Po, sonic Pi, sonic Po, HCl Pi, Residual P) of soil phosphorus. This updated survey of the recent literature shows that the sequential fractionation proposed by Hedley et al. can also be used to separate forms of organically bound soil phosphorus from the geochemically bound fractions. We consider that biological P includes all the extracted organic fractions (Bicarb Po, NaOH o, sonic Po) and geochemical P includes the remaining fractions (Resin Pi, Bicarb Pi, NaOH Pi, sonic Pi, HCl Pi) and the Po and Pi in the Residual fraction. Data from the Hedley fractionation suggest that the contribution of geochemical versus biological processes to soil phosphorus availability varies with pedogenesis. The pool of primary phosphate declines and the NaOH and sonicated-NaOH phosphorus fractions increase as phosphorus becomes geochemically fixed to the iron and aluminum oxides in more highly weathered soils. The sum of organic-P fractions — biological P — is an increasing proportion of total available P as a function of soil development. Therefore, the Hedley fractionation provides a valuable index of the relative importance of biological processes to soil phosphorus content across a soil weathering gradient.