Creating Code Based Music Using Sonic Pi !

For our final COMP264 project we decided to explore Sonic Pi and create code based music.

Introduction

Digital Music has become increasingly popular since the turn of the 21st Century. Not only has music become digitized, but creating music has also become increasing accessible. Owning a guitar is no longer needed to create beautiful melodies. Instead anyone with access to a laptop can create digital music. There are many software packages available to make creating digital music simple. In our project we will be using Sonic Pi to create digital music. From Wikipedia: Sonic Pi is a live coding environment based on Ruby, originally designed to support both computing and music lessons in schools, developed by Sam Aaron in the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory in collaboration with Raspberry Pi Foundation. The Raspberry Pi operating system supports Sonic Pi and can be installed on it, so that is what we will be using for our purposes

Software

Install Sonic Pi for macOS, Windows, or Raspberry Pi OS https://sonic-pi.net/ We used Raspberry Pi OS

Goals

• Show the class the possibilities of creating digital music using software and the Raspberry Pi operating system.
• Overall aim is to create digital music using the Sonic Pi and Raspberry Pi.
• Learn how to use/explore a new tool and get a better idea of how code and music intersect

The Initial Code

• Bhargvi - Elctronic Guiter
• Aditi - sunbreak-sleepyfish
• Nina - Pianobeats
• Jon - Stargaze

The Result

• "Bit Trip - Final Project"
• Jon - Stargaze
• Aditi - Sweet Dreams
• Bhargvi - Lo-Funk
• Nina - Sidestep

Conclusion & Evaluation

Ultimately we were able to achieve our goal and create some digital music/a song however we would like to make improvements/additions to our song to by adding more layered elements, incorporating dynamics, and looking to music theory for guidance.