Sonic Pi Composition Lesson Plan #1: Getting comfortable

“If you don’t make mistakes, you aren’t really trying.” –Coleman Hawkins

Lesson Overview:

The aim of this lesson is to ‘get comfortable’ with music making using the Sonic Pi platform. By the end, you should be able to experiment with at least three different sounds in Sonic Pi and create simple loops. An introduction to programming and music composition will be discussed in the introduction [video introduction click here].

Contents:

Introduction: What is music composition? What is programming?	15 minutes
Activity 1: Explore Sonic Pi basic commands: play, sleep, run	15 minutes
Activity 2: Adjusting an algorithm to generate music	30 minutes
Activity 3: Group composition brief	20 minutes
Wrap-up Activity: Quiz and reflection	10 minutes

Learning Outcomes:

Key concepts

Sonic Pi syntax to be taught this lesson

Learning Outcomes

Music:

-pitch (high and low)

-timbre

-synthesiser

-repetition

Programming:

-sequence

-loop

-input/output

-debugging

Activity #1

Activity #2

live_loop :foo do → end

Music:

-All students will explore and experiment with at least three different synthesised sounds using Sonic Pi

-All students will use repetition in a composition

Programming:

-All students will make a sequence of at-least four steps

-All students will make and debug a loop to abstract repetition in their composition

Introduction: What is music composition? What is programming? (15 minutes)

Activity Overview: Students will identify a few of the key characteristics of music composition and look at examples of what humans do to create music.

Student Activity: Group discussion in groups of three (5 minutes):

Prompt 1: What do we think is involved in music making (aka composition)?

Prompt 2: What do we think programming is (aka coding)?

Suggested videos to watch:

1. [Video 2 minutes] Hans Zimmer on film composition https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCX1Ze3OcKo

Hans Zimmer Teaches Film Scoring | Official Trailer for Masterclass series

2. [Video 5 minutes] What is music composition with Sonic Pi? https://youtu.be/UsoigOuBgjk

A small video introducing music making with Sonic Pi

3. [Video 8 minutes] Basic debugging video https://youtu.be/j-gIAu-uOoc

Small description on typical bugs beginner programmers encounter (e.g. capital letters, spaces where they should and should not be)

Activity 1: Explore Sonic Pi basic commands: play and sleep (15 minutes)

Activity Overview: In this activity, students will explore the play and sleep commands in Sonic Pi in pairs.

New Sonic Pi syntax to introduce in this activity (click for example code):

Student Activity (10 minutes):

Explore the Sonic Pi commands play and sleep

Notes to the Student:

This is a good opportunity to address any initial technical issues with equipment that may be encountered in the beginning. It is important to ensure everyone can hear sound through their headphones

Following the problem solving strategies webpage for when you’re stuck

Students can explore the rest of the Sonic Pi website created for this unit when they’ve spent enough time exploring the commands for this activity (https://chrispetrie.github.io/)

Think about the quote at the top of this page. What do you think it means in this context?

Activity 2: Adjusting an algorithm to generate music (20 minutes)

Activity Overview: This activity gets students to explore iteration/loops/repetition in music and programming. Additionally, students will be introduced to the use_synth command to change sounds.

New Sonic Pi syntax to introduce in this activity (click for example code):

_times.do, loop do, live_loop :foo do → end

Student Activity (5-10 minutes):

1. Implement several loops that run forever with different sounds

2. Try to get a-least one sound or sequence that your group is happy with before the end of this lesson

Activity 3: Group composition brief (20 minutes)

Activity Overview: This activity gets students to start their group project.

Student Activity (10 minutes):

Instruct students to do the following:

1. In your groups, first choose a video from https://chrispetrie.github.io/studentvideos.html

2. Discuss and brainstorm appropriate sounds

3. Explore sounds in Sonic Pi using https://chrispetrie.github.io/studentpreviewsamples.html

4. Start group project (10 minutes)

Wrap-up activity: Quiz and reflection (10 minutes)

Activity Overview: All students to complete a quiz containing 10 questions on music and programming - as well as a few reflective questions on this lesson (all students will complete this each lesson).

Student Activity (10 minutes):

Students individually complete the quiz and reflection on the key concepts in this lesson within 10 minutes linked here.

Administrative Details

Contact info	petriechris@gmail.com
Credits	Developed by Chris Petrie.
Last updated on	27/06/2018
Copyright info	The content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License.