Coding Music with Sonic Pi - Adventures in Raspberry Pi - page 141

Adventure 7
Coding Music with
Sonic Pi
THE RASPBERRY PI can be many things—a standalone computer, a games machine
and even a music synthesizer. The way we as humans interact with computers has
changed over the years. Computers are no longer just devices on which to create text
files or play computer games. They are also communication devices, transporters and
musical instruments!
Creating music using computers is not a new idea. Computer music has its roots in
electronics, and a growing number of musicians are turning to code to create new
sounds. Chiptune is a style of music that uses sound chips from old computers and
consoles from the 1980s and 1990s, like the Nintendo Game Boy. Pixelh8 ( www.pixel
h8.co.uk/music/ ) and 2xAA ( http://brkbrkbrk.com ) are chiptune artists and
computer programmers, who program their music before it is performed. Other com-
puter music programmers prefer to code their music live, feeling the atmosphere
around them and responding to it with sound. They are called live coders . The band
Meta-eX ( http://meta-ex.com ) are an example of a live coding group who perform
at events, creating their code live on a big screen so the audience can see it as it hap-
pens (see Figure 7-1).
Your Raspberry Pi has a headphone/speaker jack port so that you can listen to sounds.
You also have a keyboard and mouse that allow you to type code. In this adventure, you
will put those features to good use by creating music with code using an application
called Sonic Pi ( http://sonic-pi.net ) . You will become a computer music
programmer!