At the Intersection of Music and Computer Coding
Arts and their relationship to STEM subjects
Ken Smith
As music educators, we are aware of how hard we have had to advocate for the importance of music education as a core component of a child’s complete education. If there is any doubt about the emphasis being placed on STEM edu- cation in our country, consider Former Presi- dent Obama’s 2016 State of the Union Address, where he announced an initiative of $4 billion dollars to fund computer science education for all students (Smith, 2016). So why should we use any music education time or resources to promote a skill like computer coding in educa- tion? Tere are two reasons. First, our music students can benefit from the problem solv- ing skills, understanding of form, and logical processes that computer programming can teach. Second, the creative ability and problem solving skills necessary to compose a computer program that solves a problem in an efficient and elegant manner are similar to the skills we use to create and perform music. Tese are the same skills we use to write an essay, to create a sculpture, or to compose and perform a piece of music. Tese processes are the same ones spec- ified in the National Arts Standards, to imagine, plan, make, evaluate, refine, and present. And we as musician educators are experts at these processes!
Tere is a global new movement being driven by the miniaturization and low cost of electron- ics that allow students to engage in the process of making things from robots to synthesizers. It is called the Maker Movement. To learn more about the Maker Movement and its scope, take a look at the public face of these inventors in Make: magazine (
https://makezine.com). Or, visit some of the regional Maker Faires taking place across the country where inventors from the ages of 12 and older display their inventions (
https://makerfaire.com). Te motivation for making things is intrinsic. It comes from within
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the student. It is the outworking of a desire to understand how things work and to turn your own ideas into a tangible product.
Tis is not unfamiliar to us musicians. Engag- ing in music making is a practice in construct- ing a work of artistic expression out of sound using knowledge, skill and experience. Seymour Papert, a colleague of Jean Piaget and adopted father of Make Movement, coined the term con- structionist learning, to describe the process of a student building a project and acquiring both the skills and knowledge necessary to bring the project to fruition (Martinez & Stager, 2013). As musicians, we engage in this same process when we are composing or preparing a perfor- mance. However, as educators we oſten relieve our students of the burden of this process by giving them specific directives regarding their performance. Tis is perhaps a more expedient manner of instruction, but it also takes away some of our students’ creative ownership in the result and their fundamental understanding of why they made specific artistic decisions.
Can music be used to teach programming?
For the following examples, I will be referring to the soſtware, Sonic Pi (Figure 1, Sonic Pi Interface), an open-source music synthesizer developed by Sam Aarons, a Research Associate at the University of Cambridge Computer Lab- oratory. In the name of the soſtware, Pi refers to the inexpensive ($30), educational computer, the Raspberry Pi, developed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation of the United Kingdom (https://
www.raspberrypi.org). Te purpose of this computer project is to provide affordable, universal access to computer science for all students, globally. Because of these factors, and its ability to interact with sensors and motors, the Raspberry Pi is at the center of the Maker Movement described above. Rasbian is the operating system designed for the Raspberry Pi.
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